Tonight I hosted the Devapalooza event for Visual Studio Live in Redmond.  For the event, we played a Jeopardy-like game using software and hardware I created.  You can find an article on how the software was created, how to build the hardware, and full source/binary downloads over at Coding4Fun and CodePlex  This can be a fun way to host training at your office, or a way to liven up a user group.

A huge thanks to Dan Waters and Clemens Vasters from Microsoft, VSLive speakers Rocky Lhotka, Deborah Kurata, and David Platt, and our three attendees who played the game.  I think it was a great time.  Hopefully you did too if you were in attendance.

After playing the game tonight for real, I have a few ways to fix up the software and make it a bit easier to use, especially on the scoring side.  Also note that the code isn’t the best example of great coding.  With this being a side project and the deadline looming, I took a few dirty shortcuts.  But, it got the job done.  It looks like we might be playing this again at Visual Studio Live Orlando in November, so I should have those changes posted to Coding4Fun/CodePlex before then.

We had a few arguments over questions and answers tonight with the ultimate argument taking place during Final Jeopardy.  The category was “.NET History” with the following clue:  Prior to being known as the Common Language Runtime, the CLR was known by this “flashy” moniker.  The two answers that were given that caused a stir were  “Universal Runtime (URT)” and “COM+”.  The official answer I wrote was “Project Lightning”.  Carl Franklin of .NET Rocks fame did an interview with Jay Roxe back in 2005 in which he explained a bit of history of .NET.  Jay, a member of the early team, says this in the interview: “I joined what is now the .NET Framework team, or the Common Language Runtime team, back in November of 1997. [This was] back when it was called Project Lightning, then it became COM+, then it became Project 42….”  Wikipedia lists all of these names, along with Common Object Runtime (COR) and Universal Runtime (URT).

So…do I have any insiders reading the blog that were part of the original team have a timeline on the naming of the CLR?  Only Project Lightning fits the clue of “flashy” moniker, and the interview does indeed claim COM+ was a later name, but an official timeline of names would be interesting to know, especially if URT preceded Lightning.

Tomorrow I’ll be presenting my Multi-touch Madness session and I will post slides and code by Friday.

Update: Here’s a video of the Final Jeopardy argument, thanks to John von Rosen.

VSLive Gameshow Final Question

Thanks to all who attended my first session today, and a thank you in advance to those attending Thursday’s session on multi-touch.  I’m going to post my slide deck for the What’s New in VS2010 Debugging session now and I will update this post on Thursday/Friday with the source and slides for the multi-touch session.  Feel free to contact me with any comments or suggestions, good or bad.

• Download What’s New in VS2010 Debugging
• Download Multitouch Madness!

Enjoy!

I have been selected to speak at this year’s VSLive! conference on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond.  I’m very excited about this conference for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s on campus, which will allow me to get together with my Coding4Fun/Channel 9  friends to do some planning.  Secondly, VSLive! attendees are also allowed to spend some of their own cash at the Microsoft store.  And finally, in addition to presenting two sessions at the conference, I’m also coordinating a special event on Wednesday night which we’re calling Devopalozza.  I am creating a team Jeopardy! style game-show which will pit Microsoft Speakers against VSLive! Speakers against VSLive! Attendees.  I’m currently creating both hardware and software to drive the game, which will later turn into an article on Coding4Fun for those that might want to create a game-show at home or the office.  And, I’ll even be hosting the show at the event.

The two sessions I’m presenting are:

TU19 What's New in Visual Studio 2010 Debugging
Date: Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Time:  3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Level: Intermediate

Visual Studio 2010 contains a variety of new debugging features to aid developers in creating bug-free software. In this session, we will explore many of these new features including IntelliTrace (historical debugging), breakpoint enhancements, new tools for debugging multi-threaded and parallel applications, enhancements to DataTips and watch windows, and new tools to better visualize and debug WPF applications and events. With these tools in hand, bugs don't stand a chance!

TH1 Multi-touch Madness!
Date: Thursday, August 5, 2010
Time: 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
Level: Introductory to Intermediate

Multi-touch technology is popping up everywhere, most recently in Windows 7 and various .NET technologies. Windows 7 has been designed from the ground-up with multi-touch in mind, and the newest versions of WPF and Silverlight are multi-touch capable as well. In this session I will take you through the 4 biggest areas of Microsoft multi-touch technology: Windows 7, WPF 4, Silverlight, and Surface, including the forthcoming Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch. You will learn how to make your applications multi-touch aware and capable using each of these platforms, how to handle gestures and manipulations properly across platforms, and learn where multi-touch is heading in the future with regard to Microsoft development.

Finally, if you register by June 30th, and use code NSZV27 you can save a pile of cash!  This code will provide you with the Speaker Discount rate of $1495 for the Best Value Package or $1195 for the 3-Day Conference Package.

  Get more information on the conference at:

• VSLive! Website
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

Hope to see you all there!