DevBlog

David Stevenson is stepping down as Editor of FoxTalk and will be replaced by Rainer Becker. David says,

"While I have immensely enjoyed my "tour of duty" for the past nineteen issues,
an overloaded personal and work schedule have made it increasingly difficult to
devote the time and focus to FoxTalk that its readers and publisher deserve. It
is with mixed feelings that I step aside and "pass the torch" to the next
editor. The fact that I am swamped with VFP development work is a good thing,
but it means that I cannot do everything that I would like to do. I am confident
that Rainer will continue FoxTalk's long-standing tradition of providing the
community with top-notch advanced technical articles."

It'll be hard to fill David's shoes, but I have no doubt Rainer will do an excellent job.

It's official... DevTeach is happening again next year, May 8-12 in Montreal. I enjoyed last year's conference and city so much that I hope to be going back.

Microsoft has posted the RTM versions of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 on the MSDN Subscriber download site. The VS runtime is also publically available. Look for disks and boxed editions to be available in six to eight weeks. The official launch is coming up on November 7.

Microsoft has added Visual FoxPro to its Product Feedback Center. The great thing about this is that not only can you report your bugs, you can track them too. Thanks, Milind, for your hard work getting VFP added.

Hentzenwerke Publishing has announced a new book, Taming Visual FoxPro's SQL by Tamar Granor and Della Martin. Publisher Whil Hentzen says,

You know how once in a while you run into a book that grows on you - each time
you read it, there seems to be more in there than the last time you picked it
up? Well, that's the way it's been with Tamar E. Granor's new "Taming Visual
FoxPro SQL: Real World Data Solutions in VFP"

It's available in e-book format only, but surely worth it.

Long time VFP developer and MVP Alex Feldstein called me early this evening to let me know he's doing ok after hurricane Wilma passed through Florida. He has phone service, but no power in his area of Miami. His office, however, is running on generators and he hopes to make it in tomorrow and do a post or two. Alex, glad to hear things are ok.

For some time now, Andrew MacNeill has been doing The Fox Show, a pod cast for VFP developers. I was interviewed last month about the Coder to Developer session I did at Southwest Fox.

Now there is another VFP Podcast available. It's called OzFoxRocks and comes out of Australia. It's hosted by Scott Scovell and Craig Bailey. The first episode features an interview with Andew Coates. Right now, bandwidth is a bit low, so the download may take some time.

If you haven't heard The Fox Show or OzFoxRocks, check them out!

I've got quite the reading list going right now. I'm not sure if I'll actually get through everything. The PDC got me excited about WinFx and I have some reading to do there. The additional issues is that I want to try the code samples in those books as it makes learning those technologies much easier. The additional problem is that the WinFx beta bits only work with specific versions of Visual Studio 2005. So, right now, I'm in a holding pattern with WinFx until VS05 actually ships. I'm hoping that stabalizes the beta bits some to where things work.

I'm also really interested right now in enterprise software architecture and design. I'm currently reading a design pattern book (see the side bar on my blog site). I'm really enjoying this book. The problem with learning design patterns directly from the Gang of Four is that it's difficult to see how to apply them. It's just too scientific/encylopedic. I've got other design pattern, enterprise architecture, and SOA books to get through in the next few months.

I'm also very interested in Agile methodologies, extending from the above and a new team I'm on at work that's looking into Agile development. We're just getting started, so I don't have anything to report on and we haven't picked a specific methodology, but there are some Agile books on my list too. I have one pegged that I'll be taking to Germany with me.

If you have some recommended books in any of these areas, let me know what they are.

I've never traveled to Europe, but will soon be there to present at the German DevCon. Planning for the trip is proving to be an interesting experience. Plans at one time were to stay a few days in the Munich area with Woody, then go to Salzburg, Austria before returning to Frankfurt to fly home, but you know about best laid plans. Yup...business needs caught up with him and he had to cancel.

No problem...on to plan B. Heck we'll be in Europe, maybe we can catch a flight to Rome. It's only about $3.00 on Fred's Biplanes...not something I want to experience. A real airline (British Airways, Lufthansa, etc) was going to cost about $400. Nope...too expensive...on to plan C.

And plan C is what we're sticking with...we're renting a car after the conference and touring Germany for a week. There are no specific plans for where we want to go or how long to spend in a particular place, which really sounds great. It will be very relaxing to not have to keep to a schedule, other than be back in Frankfurt in time to catch our flight back to the US.

But there are tons of little details before we go...stop the mail, get power converters, buy one of those U-shaped neck pillows, figure out what to pack for the weather, fill prescriptions, etc, etc, etc....

But I'm REALLY looking forward to this trip...which won't be my last to Europe. If you're attending the conference, be sure to introduce yourself. If you're not attending, you should look into it. The conference is reasonably priced and there are some sweet deals on airfares to Frankfurt. I hope to see you there.

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Well, I had intended to blog direct from Southwest Fox, but I could not connect to the wireless network there. It's definately some weird configuration on my laptop as others had no problem.

• Bob did an absolutely fantastic job!!! Thanks, Bob. I'll see you next year.
• I met the newest Fox MVP, Craig Boyd. I look forward to more interaction with him in years to come. He's a great person and a fabulous addition to the community. I guess I should add that he did a great write-up of my COM+ session. Craig, the check is in the mail.
• Thanks to everyone that contributed to the Things I Learned from Drew Speedie session. I learned much from Drew over the years, but as I thought about it, I couldn't pin point one particular thing. Drew, I know you were looking down at us over the weekend.
• Starting with the Speaker's dinner, Ken will forever be known as Kenny. Craig Boyd arranged for the wait staff at the restaurant to sing Happy Birthday, Dear Kenny. Even Ken's mom, who was there, got into the spirit of things.
• Jeff may never use a restaurant bathroom again.
• It was great to see old friends. That's the greatest thing about this community. I asked Lance, one of the Microsoft attendees what he thought of the Fox community. He said it was the closest group of people he's ever seen at a computer conference. I'll agree with him....and welcome, Lance, to the community.
• SednaX. Check it out.
• Randy Brown made a guest appearance. Randy, I hope we can make some runs down the slopes this winter.

If you haven't been to Southwest Fox, start planning now for next year. Bob announced that it will be held again. He's still working on dates, but I'll let you know when they're set.

I'm off to Southwest Fox Conference later tonight. I'm not sure what connectivity I'll have there, so I may not post until next week. Hopefully there will be wireless at the conference and I can blog about what's happening there. If your at the conference, be sure to say hi.

I am honored that I have again been awarded the Microsoft MVP award for Visual FoxPro. I first got the award in 1997, before the program got big. It feels great to be in a group with such VFP luminaries as Tamar Granor, Doug Hennig, Andy Kramek, Marcia Akins, Rick Schummer and many others. I also need to mention our new lead, Ed Hickey, who is doing a great job of supporting us.

I don't know how I missed this last month, but Symantec is reporting that browsers based on Mozilla, such as Firefox are less secure than Internet Explorer. However, hackers are still targeting IE more, which is no surprise as they get the biggest bang for the buck due to IE's huge market share. I've been saying for some time that all the attacks on Microsoft products would eventually make them more secure than competing products. Looks like that is now happening. [CNet]

Wow! Southwest Fox is shaping up to be THE Fox conference of the year. I was impressed last year, the first for the conference, but it looks like it will be even better. Attendees will get a copy of .Net for Visual FoxPro Developers AND What's New in Nine: Visual FoxPro's Latest Hits AND a copy of FoxFire! v8+ Web Developer's Edition. This is stuff worth about $600 bucks! I hope to see you there.

Mary Jo Foley says there will be a Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. I'm not surprised by this, but the features and timing are unknown. I have no doubt that there will be an SP about the time Windows Vista ships as the WinFx technologies will also be supported on Windows XP. A Service Pack is the most logical way to get WinFx into XP, but will there be an SP before then? That I don't know, but if SP3 is available before Vista ships, also look for an SP4 in the Vista time frame.

Yesterday morning was spent working with the Visual Studio Orca's team, doing some early planning for the next release. Then, it was off to meet with the Fox team for some Sedna information. I won't say anything other because Ken will be discussing progress at Southwest Fox.

Last night was the MVP party at the Experience Music Project and Sci-Fi Museum at the base of the Space Needle. This is my fifth summit and this year's party was the best yet. Lots of great music, food, networking, etc.

This morning, the Fox MVPs spent time with the VB team to hear things coming in Orcas and some about LINQ. Things wrapup with a BBQ this afternoon. Then tonight, the Fox MVPs are getting together for our annual post-summit dinner at Cutter's Bayhouse.

Seinfeld jokes aside, I hear Serenity is a great movie. Rod Paddock just told me that it's five stars. Orson Scott Card says it's the best sci-fi movie ever. I saw they TV series, Firefly, only ocassionaly, and have not seen the movie. In fact, I was not sure I would go...but based on these reviews, it's being added to my must see list.