Good Misha and Evil Misha
We're heading down to LA at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning (well, ok 1pm). PDC this year is going to be a blast. Lots of cool new stuff that's actually close to shipping, plus lots of really exciting newer stuff that's a little further away. A chance to see Microsoft's directions and roadmap. A chance to ask lots of tough questions.
Now, if I'd taken the blue pill, if I'd been brainwashed by the machine, I'd say things like “I'm super-excited about “. Fortunately, of course, I took the red pill. I was chatting to a friend at Avanade last night over a saucy little cab-sav, and he had an interesting observation. We're about to ship Whidbey: you'd think, we're 2 months away from shipping a major product, yet we take out huge swathes of the most critical people to spend a week in LA talking to developers. Not to mention the zillions of person-hours that have gone into prepping for PDC - the decks, the demos, the early builds, just the logistics + scheduling nightmare etc etc.
How does this make any sense? Are we insane to do this? So here's the thing. We're pretty confident about the quality of the Whidbey release, so we're locking down now and in the final stages of shipping. Not quite a done-deal, but very nearly. On the other hand, we're well into Orcas planning, and we need input from professional developers. We really really need all PDC attendees to give us feedback, tell us your requirements, tell us what you're “super-excited“ about, and what you're super-frustrated about. We need as many different perspectives as possible, from SMBs, Enterprise customers, Partners, ISVs and Microsoft field people.
All Microsoft staffers have to wear school uniform (khaki slacks, blue Microsoft shirt), so you can't miss us. Don't be shy. Don't let us get away with anything. You see any one of us, you come up and talk to us.
Of course, at the same time as getting input from you (oh, sorry, “you-all“), we'll be boasting about the wonderful shiny new stuff we've been working on back at the ranch. There will be some stuff you'll “ooh“ + “ah“ about, make no mistake. We're very pleased with our new toys. Developers have never had it so good.
To make sure we do the best possible job, I'm taking all my best people - well, the ones we can take out and put in front of real people, anyway - not the ones we have to keep chained up in the cellar. The exception to this rule is Misha Shneerson. We decided that as PDC will be chock-full of uber-geeks, we simply had to bring Misha. There is no tough question you can possibly ask that Misha can't answer. Misha knows all the inner workings of our scariest hairiest code. So here's a challenge to PDC attendees: can you ask a question that stumps Misha? I'll bet you a free soda you can't. (Oh, the sodas are free anyway? OK, I'll bet you two free sodas). Bring it.