My boss, Shawn Morrissey, is looking for a Content Strategist. This is my position, which allows me to dig into my technology areas as deeply as I want to do, finding areas of weakness in our developer story and filling them with internal, external or self-generated content, whether demos, samples, tools, articles, videos, audio, events, etc. You get to be involved in the trifecta between the product teams, the marketing and evangelist teams and the developers themselves, balancing all of their needs and making them all happy. Plus, you get to work with the likes of Matt Powell (Web Services), Kent Sharkey (ASP.NET, Visual Studio and Whidbey), Brian Johnson (Security), Frank Redmond (.NET Framework and C#) and Christa Carpentiere (Data).

Right now, Shawn’s looking for someone to fill Duncan’s shoes in Visual Basic, be he’s always looking for passion and ability. Drop him a line if you’re interested. Don’t be shy! This team is where Tim Ewald and Duncan Mackenzie got their start at MS. Plus, they hired me and made me a very nice home, so clearly their standards aren’t too high. : )

Here’s the official job description:

MSDN is looking for a Content Strategist for the Visual Basic Developer Center - a site on MSDN Online dedicated to all things related to Visual Basic. The subject matter expert acts as the public face of MSDN for the subject area to both external and internal customers, and leads the content planning and development for the developer center. As content strategist, planner, and writer, the SME must partner deeply with the product teams to understand the technology and the overall developer strategy. 

Major responsibilities include:

• Coordinating with the product and marketing teams to produce a content plan on an ongoing basis
• Commission, review, and acquire content
•  Manage ongoing review of content and the appropriate archiving of old content
• Working with site management on publication schedules, headlines, hot topics, featured books, and other content features
• Participating in the community by being actively engaged in the newsgroups and listsrvs; attending appropriate conferences and tradeshows as the MSDN representative; and responding, or coordinating responses, to technical questions directly from customers (ex: via feedback from the Web site)
• Act as a major stakeholder with regard to future site features, improvements, and evolution

Required skills include a deep technical knowledge of historical, current, and future software security issues,  the Visual Basic (.NET) programming language and other .NET languages, the Visual Studio environment; a clear understanding of Microsoft’s direction and strategy; ability to work in a rapidly changing environment; solid coding and writing skills; ability to assess content for quality and customer value; proven ability to work across organizations to align goals and execute against them; and an intense passion for and knowledge of the Microsoft developer.

Randy Jackson enjoyed my recent .NET Rocks appearance because of my discussion of how I like to learn things. I only remember talking about two strategies: “ignoring the docs” and “hyperventilating” but his take on it was so beautifully worded, I had to share it with you:

“I’m referring to flying in that strata called by some of my PhD’ed friends as the ‘Shirley McLean’ possession experience, where the actual act of jumping in to the unknown pleases the Gods in some twisted way and the outcome is usually beyond our expectations.”

I don’t get the Shirley McLean reference, but I love the bit about pleasing the Gods by jumping into the unknown.

And yes: today I’m going to read you my email because today, clever people insist on emailing me. : P

I watched the first few episodes of the award-winning HBO series “Angels in America” and hated it (but I still love NetFlix for making is so darn available to me).

However, while I didn’t identify with any of the characters (except, potentially, the hot nurse/angel), I did really resonate with one of the quotes, which went something like this (and feel free to correct me if you recognize the quote and I got it wrong):

“Don’t run your life by what you want. That changes with a whim. Run your life on what you believe.”

That really struck the Midwestern Eagle Scout idealist engineer in me.

Today Ralph Loizzo asked me what tool I use to outline my objects, to which I replied:

The tool I use most often to design my systems is a text editor. I write my client code first against the objects I wish I had to obtain the first order of functionality I’m after, then implement those classes and refactor ’til I’ve reached a state of happiness between the clients and the object model.

In this age of development methodology du jour, I assume my methodology already has a name, but today I dubbed it CDD (Client-Driven Development). Also, I don’t distinguish between client UI code and lower-level code, i.e. just as often as I write lower-level code against an imaginary OM, I design my UIs first, then implement an OM to enable the UI.

Over the years, I’ve become less and less of a fan of the idea of componentizing the functionality you think the higher levels are going to need, as it often results in over-engineering. Instead, I prefer just-in-time engineering, refactoring my design as I need new or different functionality, whether in the client during the initial development stage or during the maintenance stage.

Test Driven Development is very similar to Client-Driven Development:

• TDD: writing the tests first and writing your code ’til the test pass
• CDD: writing the client first and writing your code ’til the client has the functionality it needs

It may even be that CDD is a degenerate case of TDD where the “test” is “the client seems to work.”

I’m downloading this now, but anytime I get a chance to see Don Box or Doug Purdy speak, I want to do it. To see them both together?!? Oh la la!

And after watching them together on the latest .NET Show, I get to see them again next week at the Applied XML Developer’s Conference. How lucky am I? : )

Raymond Chen points out that not even potentially paying customers can be trusted to tell you what they’ll really buy if you build it.

Which begs the question that has plagued my entire software career: how the hell do you really know what to build?

Rory is giving away one seat to the Applied XML Developer’s Conference. He’s asking three questions before Friday and drawing from anyone that can answer all three. Question 1 and question 2 have already been posted.

There are still a hand full of seats left if you’re like to purchase one.

Like pretty much everyone else I know, I'm a huge fan of Raymond Chen’s blog: The Old New Thing. He is constantly answering questions about things I've always wondered. This time, he answers the question "What’s the heck the atom returned by RegisterClass useful for?" [ed: “the heck” added for emphasis]