Chris Tavares has accepted a position along side me and Brad Wilson. I wonder if he really knows what he’s getting himself into.

Welcome Chris! This is gonna be fun.

Back in October, Brad Wilson and I talked at Code Camp about a way of doing TDD and Pair-Programming that I have blogged about: The TDD Pair-Programming Game.

We have now been invited to do another presentation of that as an MSDN webcast:

MSDN Architecture Webcast: Play the Test-Driven Development Pairing Game (Level 200)

Start Time:   Thursday, January 05, 2006 11:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada) 
End Time:   Thursday, January 05, 2006 12:00 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)  

Event Description 
Products: .NET Framework.
Recommended Audience: Architect.
Language: English-American

Description:   Have you tried test-driven development? What about pair-programming? These two practices are often misunderstood by developers who are just starting to explore agile software development. This webcast introduces a new technique called "The TDD Pair-Programming Game," which integrates these two practices. Learn how this approach can help you write better software and have more fun doing it.

Presenters: Peter Provost, Software Design Engineer & Brad Wilson, Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Corporation

Please join us, it will be fun.

 UPDATE: I have posted the slides and code over here.
 
 
 

We’ve all been keeping this under our hats for a while now, but since Scott has let the cat out of the bag about his departure from patterns & practices, we can finally say our public goodbyes.

I first met Scott Densmore at Buca di Beppo in Seattle during the 2004 MVP Summit. A bunch of guys from Chris Sells’ Win Tech Off Topic mailing list had organized a dinner for those who were in town. Attending the dinner were a number of great people, most of whom I can’t remember. But I do remember first meeting Scott Densmore there.

Scott had come along with Jim Newkirk, who was at the time his boss in p&p. I’d already met Jim at the 2003 PDC a few months prior, but I hadn’t met Scott before. We all had a great time eating Italian food, drinking wine, and arguing about whether/why all software developers have OCD. (As I recall, Scott Densmore and Scott Hanselman said that we all do, Jim Newkirk and I said that we don’t, Shawn Van Ness was on the fence.)

But what I remember the most is when Scott looked over at Jim and said, “You know that job we were talking about? Peter would be perfect for it.”

“Ha ha ha,” I said, thinking he was joking and then put it out of my mind. After all, they wouldn’t actually take me at Microsoft would they?

After dinner, a bunch of people decided to head over to one of the hotels (the W?) for drinks. Scott and Jim offered to give me a ride and we continued to talk tech on the way over and after we arrived. At some point, I asked Jim, “So this job thing… were you serious?”

“Damn straight we are!” Scott chimed in.

The rest as they say is history. I later interviewed, was offered a job working with Scott and Jim in patterns & practices, accepted and then in August 2004 we moved out here to the Seattle area.

Once I got here, Scott took me under his wing and became my unofficial mentor. I had an official mentor who taught me the official MS stuff, but Scott taught me the down and dirty stuff. You know, like the best way to tell someone to go to hell and the best way to do what you want even when you’ve been told not to. That kind of stuff. The stuff that takes years to learn.

I sat as right hand to Scott as Enterprise Library 1.0 wrapped up and then struck out on my own on the CAB project. But I continued to depend on Scott for advice all the time. I still do.

We will miss Scott in the halls of building 5, but he won’t be that far away. I know we’ll still see each other a lot (our kids and wives are friends), but I will miss working with him. Maybe someday we’ll be able to work together again. I sure hope so.

Good luck on your new top-secret adventure Scott. I know you will do well.

The patterns & practices Summits are starting again. Up next is the USA West event here in Redmond with keynotes by Alan Cooper, Anders Hejlsberg and GotDotNet CodeSlam with Chris Sell.

This time around I’m involved in two presentations, one with Brad Wilson and one with Brian Button:

Agile Development in the patterns & practices "war room" - Peter Provost & Brad Wilson

Learn how the p&p collaborative "war room" used an agile development process to create CAB and Enterprise Library. Discover how the p&p distributed teams work with contributors all over the world, and the techniques used to stay together as an "agile team". You will hear about the lessons learned, what works best, and what not to do.

Build your own Enterprise Library - Peter Provost & Brian Button

Organizations typically need to create their own enterprise application framework. This session describes how to build this framework using the latest Enterprise Library. You will learn how to how to customize EntLib, how to "factor out" functionality you don't require, how to integrate your own code and existing framework, how to package it to work well together, and how to version manage it going forward.

I’m really looking forward to these talks. I always have fun presenting with both of these guys.

For more information, registration information, presenter bios, schedules, etc. please see the patterns & practices Summit web site.

Hope to see you there!

Whew. That was harder than it should have been.

It turns out that the half dozen sites I run on my WebHost4Life $9.95/month account were getting a little more traffic than I was really due for that level of service, so they encouraged me to upgrade. No biggie, I make a few bucks in ads here and there, so I can afford it.

Everything was going swimmingly until I accidentally fat-fingered the DNS entries for provost.org and peterprovost.org. Oops. Very bad.

Now, about 24 hours later, it seems to be mostly fixed.

I sure wish I could forcibly “expire” a DNS entry. Oh well. Live and learn. Thanks for your patience!

Yesterday at Seattle Code Camp, I did four presentations, two with Brad Wilson and two by myself. During our talks, we promised to share the slides and code from our demos, so here you go.

• Monad – The New Microsoft Command Shell
  • Powerpoint (106 KB)
• Dependency Injection – What, Why and How
  • Powerpoint (58 KB)
  • Sorry, but the code from this one isn’t available.
• TDD GUI Using MVP (and the pair programming game)
  • Powerpoint (60 KB)
  • Demo Source (16KB ZIP)
• Composite User Interface Application Block
  • Powerpoint (1.5 MB)
  • Demo Source (40 KB ZIP)

I have lots of thank-yous that I want to share. Many thanks to the attendees. The talks were a lot of fun and I love it when the attendees involve themselves and ask lots of questions. Thanks to Ed Jezierski for providing some of the slides I used in the CAB talk and thanks to Adam Barr for sharing his Monad slides with me. Thanks to Chris Kinsman and Jason Mauer for putting on a great event. Finally thanks again to Brad for being a great co-presenter.

If anyone got one of the i-mate phones this morning and doesn't want it, please let me know. I'll buy it from you.

When we left off, Ron had finished his Phil Donahue bit and we were heading into the real talks. Ron went first by himself and introduced all of the concepts and terminology around Service Orientation. After Ron, Arvidra and Beat presented some of their learnings around SO from MS EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). They've done some really cool work and it was cool to see it.

During all of that I was tweaking the code for my demo. I don't know about you, but I just can't leave well enough alone.

After Beat and Vin finished, we broke for lunch. We had run a little long, so we only gave them 55 minutes to grab food and get back. No worries, though, that should be plenty of time.

And then... with 10 minutes to go in the break, there is a loud POP.

And the lights went out.

There were some emergency lights on, so the room was dimly lit. But everything else was down.

The tech guy came over and said, "Hey... umm... we were kinda expecting that. The other half of the building has been down for 10 minutes already."

"Oh shit," I said.

"We don't know when it will be back up. Sorry. I'll let you know when I have more information."

Ron still wasn't back from lunch, so Don Smith and I stood up on the stage and yelled, "Hey everyone. I need your attention. As you can see the power is out and apparently is is the whole local neighborhood. Ummm. We'll give you more information soon."

Most people laughed a bit. From the stage it was kinda cool looking. About 50% of the people had their laptops open (even though the wireless was down) with the glow of the screen on their face. Cool looking.

Ten minutes later, Ron showed up to continue the talk and realized the pickle we were in. After a brief chat we decided to do an impromptu panel discussion. People yelled out questions about SOA, XSD, Contract-first development, etc. and we all stood up on stage, in the dark, and tried to answer them.

It was weird, but strangely, it was fun.

After about an hour, the power came back on and we got back to work.

Next up was Don Smith and Beat Schwegler who talked about some really cool automation that they're doing to enable Contract First service development in VS using GAT. Very very cool. I don't think we (p&p) are shipping it yet, but people liked it. (If you think we should ship it, drop an email to Don at don dot smith at microsoft dot com and let him know.)

After Don and Beat finished, Ron Jacobs and I got up and talked about CAB.

"What is the Smart Client guy doing at an SOA talk?" I hear you asking.

Well, consider this: In an enterprise one of the best ways to enable the consumption of lots of different services is to provide ready-to-go UI modules that people can plug into their apps with ease. And that's what CAB is all about. So why not?

I showed the newest bits of CAB and people who had already been playing with CAB were excited to see some of the changes we've been working on. After we finished about a dozen people came up to ask questions and chat. It was great. I was glad to have the opportunity to talk to people about it and to get their reaction to what we're doing. Very cool.

We finished with some excellent material from one of our customers (sorry--I forgot his name) who has actually implemented SOA and ESB within their org. The whole experience was great and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the week.

Assuming the power stays on.

PDC is here. I'm sure you know that already, but it is really here. And I am here too.

I flew in yesterday afternoon, arrived just in time to grab dinner with Vin, Beat, Ron, Don, DonXML, and Edgardo. We had Tapas at the restarant across the street from the Westin Bonaventure. It was great.

After dinner everyone went back to their rooms but I decided to take a lap around the lobby bar to see who was there. I found Scoble, Jeff Key and a bunch of other very cool people from all over the world. Since I'm presenting as part of today's pre-con session, I probably should have gone to bed, but I didn't. Instead I spent time with customers and colleagues drinking Guiness.

Mmmmm.... as they say in the old county: Guiness is Good For You. (Maybe I should do the Guiness diet this week? I think not.)

This morning I was actually feeling fine, which is one of the reasons I drink the black stuff (no hangovers). I hooked up with Vin and Beat in the breakfast cafe and we headed over to the conference center for our pre-con session with Ron Jacobs.

Which is where I am now. Sitting off to the right, watching Ron tell his stories. If you've seen Ron Jacobs talk before, then you know what I'm talking about. Ron has this amazing gift-of-the-gab kinda thing that leaves me in awe. I think I'm a pretty good speaker, but Ron really is amazing. He can tell a story about getting stopped at a border crossing into Canada and turn it into a discussion about Service Orientation Tenet #1. Amazing.

But I have to rewind a bit. Because one of the funniest things happened in the 15 minutes leading up to the start of the session.

First of all, Ron is dressed in a suit. Not the traditional (required) blue Microsoft speakers shirt. A suit.

Ron: "I was there when Don Box gave his presentation in the nude and I decided that I needed to do something to make me stand out. No other speakers will be wearing a suit, right?"

But that still isn't the funniest part.

Ron: "I got this suit the last time I was in Bankok. Isn't it nice?"

Some people wouldn't brag about their Bangkok suit. But Ron does. But this still isn't the funny part.

Let me set this up with a bit of role-playing. You are attending the pre-con, wandering around the conference center looking for the patterns & practices pre-con session. The conference center is huge and you're dazzled by the signs and monitors and videos and food and drinks and famous people and all that.

Then you round the corner and see a sign that tells you you've arrived at your destination. You open the door and walk into...

The Phil Donahue Show Hosted By Ron Jacobs

There is Ron, in his suit, walking up to you with an outstretched microphone...

"What's your name?"

"Did you have a good weekend?"

"Where are you from?"

"What is that cool little gadget in your pocket?"

"What would you like to learn today?"

"Do you like my new suit? I got it in Bangkok..."

To be continued...

I think I got most of my "work stuff" taken care of yesterday. Brad and I are doing some really cool re-engineering of parts of the core in CAB and I think we got the most important bits done before I left. I've really enjoyed working with Brad these past few months, he's an excellent developer, a fun TDD pairing partner and an all around good guy. I know the code is in good hands. But I digress...

This morning (Sat) I got up and except for Hadley (the three year old), everyone is sick, including myself. Ugh. What a great way to head off to eight days at a conference.

Oh yeah, PDC... that's what this post is about.

I would love to hook up with any readers who are attending PDC this year. I met a lot of new friends at the last PDC and would love to meet up with more friends this time around. If you are there, look for me in MSN IM. My address is peter at provost dot org. As long as I'm not on stage or working, I'll probably be available (battery life permitting). You also can email me at peter dot provost at microsoft dot com.

And as I did two years ago, here is a picture of me. If you see me in the halls, grab me and say hi. I have to ask one favor though... I'm kinda famous for forgetting people's names, so if the name on your badge isn't facing out, please bear with me and my forgetfulness. It isn't personal, I just have a broken index.

I also want to share my "work" schedule at PDC05 with all of your in case anyone who is attending wants to find me the old fashioned way. If you know of any parties or get-togethers that fit in my schedule, drop me a line and let me know!

Sunday Sept 11

• 6:00pm - I arrive in LA at about from Seattle and will be staying at the Westin Bonaventure.

Monday Sept 12

• All Day - I'm doing a session on CAB as part of PRE13 - Patterns and Practices for Designing Service Oriented Applications -- An Illustrated Example in Room 502AB with Ron Jacobs. I don't think I'll be on stage the entire time, but I will be around there somewhere.
• Evening - I'll be away from the conference at a private party. Sorry.

Tuesday Sept 13

• 2:30pm - 5:30pm - I'll be working in the Tools and Languages Track Lounge
• 5:30pm - 9:00pm - I'll be working in the Microsoft patterns & practices Product Pavilion booth during the big Expo Hall reception. Last year there was free beer and food, so don't miss it.
• 6:30pm - 9:30pm - I can't decide if I'll try to get over to either the Mono get-together or the PDC Underground Party. Maybe both... maybe neither. We'll see.

Wednesday Sept 14

• 12:30pm - 3:30pm - I'll be working in the Microsoft patterns & practices Product Pavilion booth
• 7:00pm - 11:30pm - The attendee party at Universal Studios Hollywood. This year I'll be meeting up with some friends at the beer garden near #17 on this map, and if it is anything like last year, I'll be staying there chatting and drinking for most of the night.

Thursday Sept 15

• 12:00pm - 3:00pm - I'll be working in the Microsoft patterns & practices Product Pavilion booth
• 6:30pm - 9:00pm - I may be participating in the Ask The Experts sessions. Not sure yet.

Friday Sept 16

• 10:30 - 12:00 - I'm participating in PNL01 Advances in Agile Development in Room 409AB. If you're still around on Friday, please come to this session. We've got a lot of interesting people on the panel, not just MS folks. We've got some CMM folks, some external agile people, some MS folks, etc. Hopefully it will be a lively discussion. Come armed with your questions!

Saturday Sept 17

• I fly home to Seattle at about 10:30am on Saturday. I may try to get out Friday night instead, but I'm not sure yet. If anyone wants to do something Friday night, let me know before then or I may not be around.

Have a great PDC everyone!

PS. Billg's keynote is going to be broadcast live, so those of you who aren't attending can stay involved. More information about it http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/ and you can watch Bill's speech at http://www.microsoft.com/events/executives/billgates.mspx.