Monday, December 12, 2005

Bill Gates at Bangalore

“You have seen him on billboards… you have seen him on TV… you have seen him in news papers…. And now…. See him…. Live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....... Billlllllllllllll Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates!!!!!!”

And there he is… slowly walking to the center stage… through the cloudy smokes in the background… that gave him an outlook of a super hero… and of course, he was welcomed like one… with cheers and screams and applause… that made him say “This is the most liveliest crowd I have ever seen”!

The 5000 strong developer community in Bangalore then settled down, listening with all ears to their idol and super model.

This was the first time, I am attending an event of this kind, and the experience was overwhelming. Microsoft’s Ready Launch Tour 2005 on December 9th at Palace Grounds in Bangalore to launch the products Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and Biztalk Server 2006 was indeed a show of its kind. The number of security check points at the venue itself is a proof for that. I have been examined by five or more security persons, which included metal detector checks and frisking the body.

Bill’s speech was more or less like a technical presentation, as most of the time, he focused on the exciting new features of the products he launched. Then there were detailed demonstrations by his team on each product that included working samples and presentations.

Bill Gates appeared again on stage… this time to answer some selected questions from developers. He looked more energetic and the session was lively, unlike his previous speech. He mentioned about his ‘Upma’ breakfast and said he enjoyed it. He still does snippets coding to understand the latest languages like C#, but however it was in 1983, he did complete coding for a product. When asked about cricket, he said he is happy that the Indian cricket team is using a Windows MediaCenter PC to watch their opponent’s movements closely!

After the event, the participants were given a carry bag containing CDs and DVDs of trial versions of these latest softwares and some product brochures besides a waist pouch as gift.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Linguistic Nimbility

Linguistic Nimbility (LN) consists of two skills. First, is the ability to determining the meaning of something given a short series of capital letters. Second, is the ability to understand what someone is referring two when the name for the thing has changed 3 or 4 times over the last 6 months. J

DSV-Data Source View
RDL-Report Definition Language
SMDL-Semantic Model Definition Language
SMQL-Semantic Model Query Language
TFC-Team Foundation Client
TFCS-Team Foundation Core Services (Earlier Burton Integration Services)
TFS-Team Foundation Server
VSTF-Visual Studio Team Foundation
VSTS-Visual Studio Team System
WITDL-Work Item Type Definition Language
WIQL-Work Item Query Language


Code Names
Everything in software has to have a code name. Why is that, you might ask? The reason is that no-one is allowed to name a software product or component except for marketing. And marketing is not willing (and rightfully so) to name a software product until the very last minute before it comes out. So, software teams come up with code names to refer to the product or feature they are working on.


Burton-Visual Studio Team System
Cassini-VS 2005 Built-in Web Server
Currituck-VSTS Work Item Tracking System
F1-VSTS Profiling System.
FxCop-Static Code Analyzers for managed code
Hatteras-VSTS Source Control System
Longhorn-Windows Vista
Okracoke-VSTS Web Testing System
Orcas-Visual Studio 200x targeting Longhorn
PREfast-Static Code Analyzers for C/C++ code
Rosetta-SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Whidbey-Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0
Whitehorse-VSTS Distributed System Designers
Yukon-SQL Server 2005


DLL Names (Beta and Final)
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Currituck.Client-Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Currituck.Cache-Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.Cache
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Currituck.Controls-Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Controls
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Hatteras.Client -Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Hatteras.Diff-Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common.DiffEngine
Microsoft.visualstudio.teamsystem.elead.common-Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.Library
Microsoft.visualstudio.teamsystem.elead.sdk-Microsoft.TeamFoundation
Microsoft.visualstudio.teamsystem.elead.vsip.sdk-Microsoft.VisualStudio.TeamFoundation.Client
Microsoft.visualstudio.textmanager.interop-Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop