Here. The one where Microsoft's up-coming Mid-Year Discussion and a late night IM chat with Lutz Roeder makes me introspective.

The one and only time that I ever met Tim O’Reilly, I turned into fan-boy, telling him how I used to be a Unix guy and I would just buy every single “animal book,” even if I didn’t know what the topic was because the quality of the books was so high that I knew I needed to know whatever was between the covers.

Now a days, ORA produces too many quality books to purchase (or even read) them all, but I’ve been very happy to see them turn more and more of their attention towards Windows, where I’ve put all of my developer energies for more than a decade. In fact, I’ve written one book for ORA myself and I’ve got two more in the works, so I continue to be a big fan. Today they launched the Windows DevCenter, where they are concentrating and aggregating all of their considerable Windows juice. And, of course, they have an RSS feed. Subscribed!

Tuesday, February 24th, 2004

Don and I have an ongoing debate — whether everyone was put on this planet for one purpose or whether a person gets to choose their path. This all started back in the middle of the bubble where we thought that we were so smart that we could take our success in training and turn our minds to anything we chose. We thought we could be anything, but used to talk most about politics (and Don even promised to get me elected as mayor of Beaverton) and religion (I’d like to get in on the ground floor of one of those “free love” cults : ).

Of course, the bubble burst, giving of us perspective on just what part of the success was us and what part was the go-go economy. Now, most of us that used to have those conversations work at Microsoft as a place to keep doing fun work without traveling to globe trying to keep up our old standards of living. These days Don talks about all of us having a specific place in the world and that he’s pretty darn sure that he’s found his (and you should see the guy; he’s in there, fighting for what he thinks is best for the platform and building quite an impressive reputation base to extend his influence wider and wider). He’s also of a firm mind that I’ve found my place and that I should be a s/w guy of some kind for the rest of my life.

So, I’m of two minds. On the one hand, I’m happy with the spot I’ve carved for myself in the Windows developer community and I think that there are plenty of fun s/w challenges to meet. Plus, my resume helps me get good gigs.

On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of being “predestined” to anything. I don’t like the idea that fate or even my inborn predilections decides what I do and don’t do in my life. I also still think that I’m smart enough and flexible enough that I could start another career. My latest fantasies revolve around moving into a place that my wife could afford on her nurse’s salary while I write novels and spend my afternoons filling the public education gap my kids are experiencing. Previous fantasies include getting my jurist doctor at Harvard and becoming a courtroom prosecutor on my way to being a judge (I always know what’s best for everyone : ). Also, the equities market calls my name and I’ve got a little property investment business on the side that could use more attention. So, I’ve got plenty of things I’d like to dig into before I die that have nothing whatever to do with my background or training. In fact, I’ve got so many other things to try that Lutz was making fun of me just last night, “Haven’t you noticed that everyone in 2004 wants a new career?” Still, should I stick with what’s safe because I may never achieve in other industries what I’ve achieved in this one or should I roll the dice and takes my chances, knowing that life is pretty short to spend it all doing the safe, comfortable thing?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not going anywhere just yet. I’ve started this Longhorn thing and I’ve got lots more to do there before I’m done. But I do think about hitting the reset button some day and starting over again from scratch. What do you guys think? Have any of you hit the reset button and ended up reading this post? Has anyone tried to escape from this industry only to end up back here and are happy they did? Does anything think that my hubris is going to get me into serious trouble? : )

Discuss

Here.

For those folks asking, another drop of Genghis is on the way, which includes an HTML link class that handles links for you, a user-sizeable panel, a gradient progress bar, a completely revamped FileDocument and a host of fixes and enhancements, including stacking support and terminal server support for toast windows. However, before that can come, Mike Marshall, the Genghis build-master, stopped to email me about the impending arriving of his first child. Now *that’s* dedication! I doubt if I’d stop to email any of the folks in charge of the shared source projects I’m involved with on the way to the hospital… : )

It’s hard to dispute a savvy marketing/business guy who brackets paragraphs with “#ifdef do_as_I_say_not_as_I_do” and sites as potential platform problems that “The user’s dog is barking at your app” (the latter had me laughing out loud). Eric’s latest piece on getting starting with your own software company rocks (as usual : ).

BTW, I’ve seen the Eric’s next piece and a Gary Larson reference had me in stitches, so remember to come back next month!

On Monday, March 15th between 11am and 12:30pm PST, the VC++ product team will be hosting a chat on what to do with your existing C, C++ and MFC applications in the Longhorn time frame, starting with what to do now to best prepare yourself and your applications. If you're a VC++ developer, don't miss it!

According to the The Gematriculator, sellsbrothers.com is 50% evil. Nothing about “genius” is mentioned…

[via Ryan Farley]

Here. By popular demand, Nikhil Kothari, a PM on the ASP.NET team, has posted the source code to his most excellent Avalon Bezier Spline Designer. This is the coolest real Longhorn thing I've seen that comes with soure. Thanks, Nikhil!