In this concept video, Carter Maslan explores how we imagine that Longhorn’s capabilities could be applied to a financial services application.

Looks like CodeProject is getting into the Longhorn act with a nice Hello, Longhorn sample by Deepak Kapoor.

Before watching this episode of The .NET Show, I used to think that Don’s speaking ability made the Indigo team somehow special, but after watching this episode on Indigo and seeing John Shewchuk and Steve Swartz wax elopquent about the high level interop and functionality goals of Indigo as well as the programming model goals, I think Don is just the guy that’s willing to be publicly naked (not that I can really point that finger : ).

John and Steve provide *such* a compelling story. If you haven’t heard the Indigo story or even if you have, this is the place to get it.

Following up on Steve’s places to go for more:

• Indigo newsgroup
• Joe Long’s prescriptive guidelines on preparing for Indigo
• Indigo site on the Longhorn Developer Center

BTW, does anyone have some recommendations for Indigo bloggers? I subscribe to Don, Yasser and Aaron, but don’t see much Indigo traffic on those sites.

David doesn’t get many questions to answer about the present and future of .NET, but the ones he gets asked, he answers well. My favorite:

“As for code identity, I love the vision. But I’ll acknowledge that it hasn’t taken off as we’d hoped. When people tried to write partial-trust apps, it always turned out there was one thing they needed to do and couldn’t. We have to do more work to find the right scenarios where you can do a functional smart-client app that runs in partial trust and doesn’t require the user to micromanage permissions. In WinFX, I want to make it viable to write partial-trust apps that can do real things.”

The emphasis is mine.

[via Don Box]

I’m always nervous about going to see the teacher about my kids’ performance this year. They’re both very bring, but the older one is easily bored (like his father) and the younger one is social and emotional charged (like his mother). Also, I’m of the belief that at this age (9 and 8), the parents still have an enormous influence over their children, which includes how well they do in school. All of that is wrapped up into that 20-minute meeting at those tiny little desks and it’s nerve-wracking.

On the other hand, I find myself pleasantly surprised by Jon Udell’s .NET Report Card. To be sure, there is room for improvement (Don always says, “The largest room in the world is the room for improvement” : ), but two As and two Bs is pretty damn good in this age of very high expections, so I’m a proud 2nd cousin right now (the product teams are the real parents, of course).

Ryan Dawson posts a nice sample showing the basics of a drawing program in Avalon, including a floating toolbar and the ability to draw and select lines, rectangles and circles. He also provides the source.

BTW, Ryan’s pretty darn prolific on Longhorn and I recommend his blog in general. Also, if I remember correctly, he’s 19, so you’re getting pure enthusiasm and uncensored truth. Recommended.

Markus Mielke, one of the guys making Avalon go just as fast as possible, posts his guidelines and goals for Avalon performance.

Sometimes I get aspiring programmers stumbling onto my web site and asking me how to get started having no programming background. I can't really tell them to do what I did, i.e. spend 4 years programming Applesoft Basic, so instead I recommend “The Visual Basic .NET Coach,” which is supposed to introduce .NET programming from the ground up, assuming no previous programming experience. Does anyone have any experience with this book or other similiar titles?