Here.

Well, I can’t put it off any longer. I wanted to wait ’til Chris Tavares and I were able to figure out what the problem was, but after months of help from the Compuware guys using a complementary hunk of their latest and greatest profiling software, we’re no closer to finding out what causes the massive slow-down in compiling Rotor when we add our ref-counting implementation to it. The problem, of course, is that if we can’t figure out what the problem is, we can’t optimize our implementation to fix it.

The good news is that once we wait for the compilation to complete, the hybrid ref-counting (for deterministic resource management) + ref-tracking (for memory management) programming model is a thing of beauty. No longer do you have to write Dispose methods or even call Dispose methods, because our updated JITter takes care of it for you.

However, because compilation of Rotor makes such nice use as a managed test of our implementation and because it currently sucks butt perf-wise, we’re stuck. If you’re into the low-level guts and you’ve got the time (that’s what Chris and I ran out of), we’d love your feedback on our perf problems. Who knows, if we can make it efficient, MS might stick it into the next version of the CLR… (but I don’t work for that team, so don’t hold me to that : ).

BTW, I’d like to really thank Chris Tavares for his implementation work. It was my idea and my funding, but he did all the work up to and including several drafts of the paper. All I did was complain. Thanks, Chris, and I hope you’re enjoying your child, which is a far better way to spend your free time than implementing my cockamamie ideas in Rotor.

BTW2, I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Brian Harry. It is definitely the case that ref-counting *can* be added to .NET but I have in no way shown that it *should* be done. Thanks for letting me try, though. : )

Ryan Dawson turns his attention to Indigo, building a client and server and then adding security and reliability. In his writing, he also points out a number of pitfalls for you to avoid when getting starting with Indigo in the PDC bits.

Long before Longhorn, we'll have Whidbey and an updated Windows Forms (as well as a bunch of other updated things, but I like Windows Form : ). This article enumerates some of the updated controls in Windows Forms Whidbey. Also, stay turned for an MSDN Magazine article by Michael Weinhardt and me with a broader look at what's new in Whidbey Windows Forms (in fact, Michael has already tackled the new GridView control).

Jeremy Mazner presents his second scenario for WinFS, this time describing his idea app for event management that would be cake to implement using WinFS. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could do the whole thing in the shell.

On a related note, I was watching an internal training video on WinFS yesterday and it excited me in a way that’s not appropriate for humans to feel about technology. The enumeration, update, serialization, relationship, extensibility and notification models just all seem so *right*. I’m looking forward to another drop of the bits that enables me to extend WinFS so I can really start building stuff.

Steve Kirk has updated the Architecture Developer Center with a series of streaming video presentations about the core architectures that motivated Longhorn. Topics range Pat Helland on comparing technology architectures with city architectures to Gurdeep Singh Pall talking about real-time collaboration, which a wide range of subjects in between. If you'd like to get your head in the same place that Microsoft's architects were when the conceived of Longhorn, while still getting information that you can use today, check these out.

If you need a look at Longhorn, but you couldn't make the PDC (or you're just dying for *another* look at Longhorn), WinHEC in May is the place to be. Of course, it's also the place to be if you're a PC h/w vendor, but then, you guys already know that. : )

In the most recent Microsoft Architecture Update newsletter, David Hill defines just what the heck Microsoft means when the sling around the term “smart client.” Worth reading for the Ven diagram alone.

Rory has graciously allowed me to volunteer as his code/slide monkey at his Portland Area .NET User’s Group meeting talk on Thursday, 2/26 at 6:30pm. The topic, in his words: "2/3 'Stuff you can use right now' and 1/3 'When pigs fly (Longhorn)'." I miss monkeying with my DM brethren, so I'm looking forward to this very much.