Wednesday 11 March 2009

Back to the coal face

With the summit now over, back to the day job - but first some thoughts (taking NDA etc into consideration):
  • It is no secret that the big theme in .NET 4.0 is the DLR; despite some C# dabbling (here, here), I need to get my head around this "proper"... to that end, I've secured a copy of IronPython in Action, which I hope will set me on the one true path. Besides which - it is good to look at other languages occasionally (and I never really got far with F#).
  • It is no secret that there are lots of changes afoot with Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services; now that I've had chance to see them, I'm encouraged that they might be a lot more usable in 4.0 - still waiting on the "bits" though ;-p
  • Windows 7 continues to look very good; I've got the beta at home, and it runs very well on my ancient machine - and the newer builds look even better. Microsoft stand a good chance of actually getting some forgiveness for Vista.
  • The EMP is very, very... odd. Beer, a live-rock/karaoke, an Xbox Rock Band arena and a robot museum all in one.
Other than that - back to the day job. Oh; and planning for a few user group sessions - so if you're in the UK and near Gloucester or Taunton, then I'll be talking about Expression. Feel free to say hi ;-p I also seem to have become involved in the "Balloon Debate" at the latter, so you can watch me try to defend the very existence of C#.