July 2005


Richard Costall and Andy Brown talk about two large scale production applications, one Smart Client and one ASP.NET app based on the beta 2 release of VS 2005 and the Framework 2.0. Hear about how they have dealt with compatability in a heterogenous client envyronment, some praise for the Microsoft Ascend program, how they utilize Web Services and ADO.NET, and more!

Chris Kinsman drops in to talk about some of the projects he’s been working on lately. Topics include data warehousing, SQL Integration Services, the recently released Patterns and Practices Enterprise Library, and a Compact Framework project to interface with slot machines! Cool stuff, indeed.

Russ Nemhauser talks to Carl and Richard about mobility via the Smart Phone platforms, including some model specifics, shortcomings, and differences versus the Pocket PC platform. Russ, Carl and Richard also touch on the issues with VB6 developers moving to VB.NET, and how VS 2005 could make the transition easier. They also get into some great detail about stress testing and tracking down sluggish code in Visual Studio Team System.

In this episode, Kathleen Dollard is visiting Carl in the studio, and they get a great dynamic going while they talk about the finer points of generics and all the geeky stuff we’re getting ready to sink our teeth into in the 2005 release.

A talk with Sanjay Parthasarathy, Microsoft corporate vice president of Developer and Platform Evangelism. There are so many great nuggets in this episode.. just listen to it! We discover Sanjay is a toy boy like us. You’ll hear about life at Microsoft before their current brand of evangelism took root. Also, the challenges of running a division of Microsoft that is not profit-driven.