Brian H. Prince

A little while back I wrote about a site called Thrive for IT Pros. We have launched a similar site for developers called Thrive for Developers. Microsoft has always been good about giving the information and tools developers need to build great software. Thrive is a way for  us to go beyond that. To help you learn the tools you need for your career, how to be a better developer, and do more with what you have already.

I was really excited to be asked to be a part of this launch. Many of you have seen the Soft Skillz talk that I have done over the past year. They have also brought together a lot of content from the community, as well as tools to help you find that next job.

That Soft Skillz talk originated out of a farewell talk I did as I left my team at Quick Solutions. It focused on retelling the lessons we had learned over my time there, so I could pass on some of our culture and tribal knowledge to the next generation of the team.

The talk evolved, and became very popular. When I heard about the new Thrive site, I pitched it to the team, to see if it could be part of the content. I was going to turn the talk into a screencast anyway, so why not have a place to host it? They accepted, and I started breaking the show down into 7 minute chunks. Way faster than an 8 minute show, and of course 6 minutes would too short, you wouldn’t even be able to get your heart rate going..

The first four episodes are up:

Driving Your Career - Soft Skills to Move You Forward

Sit shotgun with Brian Prince in “Driving Your Career” – a 32-week screencast series that explores the new skills developers need to thrive. Brian will tackle relevant topics including quick learning techniques, how to manage your career, how to build consensus, and the always-tricky task of talking to humans. Brian will share his expertise of being a manager, a consultant, and many other roles over his career, to help you succeed in yours.

• Week 1 - It’s always darkest before the dawn  |  WMV MP3
• Week 2 - How I learned that humans don’t care about technology  |   WMV MP3
• Week 3 - Always have a mentor  |  WMV MP3
• Week 4 - Body language doesn’t use CSS  |  WMV MP3

So please check them out, and even more importantly, forward the link to anyone you know that is struggling in their career, or in finding a job.

Steve Guggenheimer announced the release dates of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 at Computex 2009 in Tapei. We will be RTM’ing Windows 7 in the second half of July, with general availability (that means it’s in stores, etc.) by October 22nd. Windows Server 2008 R2 will be available at the same time.

This is awesome news! Warm up your download tools, it’s not far away.

Everyone I know has been impressed with, and really likes Windows 7, even some of the most critical people I know. I think this is due to the changes in how the Windows team developed the OS, as well as how open they were to feedback, and their willingness to make changes. If you weren’t reading the Engineering Windows 7 blog, you should go there now, and read all of the posts. They are all quite fascinating.

I got to be part of the IQ team, which is a very small part, but it was still fun. I would be given weekly builds to install on my machines, and to test out. While the Beta was of a very high quality, for a beta, I could see the continuing improvements in quality and features in every build. I would get giddy every time I would get the email that a new build was available, then spend the next half day downloading it, and installing it on all of my machines.

I am looking forward to stabilizing on one consistent build for a while. That is of course until they start on Windows 8. :)

A while ago Martin and I sat down to discuss UML and how it is making a come back in VS2010 for architects. We had a great chat, and we learned how this isn’t your grandpa’s UML anymore. The way the VS team has implemented it is much more functional to everyone on the team besides the Big Up Front Planning Dinosaur. It will help you understand the lay of the land for that large system you inherited, allowing you to more easily see what is going on.

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Martin-Shoemaker-discusses-UML-in-VSTS2010/

nPlus1.org is hosting it's third Architecture Summit on June 10th at the Microsoft office in Nashville, TN (Franklin).  The topic of this summit will be Patterns and Principles.

Session One: Software Patterns

Patterns are an important tool to use as architects and developers. They provide a common vocabulary for us to design with, as well as a common approach to a common problem. Come learn about useful patterns, and how to use them in your everyday code.

Session Two: How I Learned To Love Dependency Injection

Dependency Injection is one of those scary topics that most developers avoid. It sounds all ‘high-falootin’ and complex. It’s not. Really. We wouldn’t lie. It’s a great way to manage complexity in your system, and a great way to make your system so much more testable. And isn’t that what we all want?

Each session will be followed by open discussions periods.

A catered lunch will be provided starting at noon when the welcome time begins.

Register here: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=138773