Ben Taylor's Blog

In this video, Scott Guthrie (aka ScottGu), explains how his team originally used Smack (their nickname for Simple Managed C or  SMC) to write ASP.NET.  However, they later decided to write it in C# on the CLR (we all know using smack is bad).  Scott explains why the decision was "important", "super risky" and the "single biggest" they made in regards to server-side .NET.  If they had not done this, the server-side .NET world we know today may have been different.  It is (in my view) a really interesting bit of history (the original .NET class libraries were also written in SMC and then ported to Cool, later named C#).

This was filmed at the Microsoft PDC 2008 in LA (by me), during Scott's session at the Open Space area.  Thanks to Scott Guthrie for taking the time to talk to us and all people that contributed to the interesting Open Space sessions.

Need something else to do?  Go use some MEF.  "I am a tool window" what are you?

Tom Schultz and Kerry Havas presented the session Commerce Server Mojave : Overview on Monday at the Microsoft PDC in LA.  The video of this session is available now - Watch Commerce Server Mojave : Overview.  Kerry covered the new API and Tom stitched together a site in about 5 minutes with the new Mojave SharePoint web parts.  Unfortunately, the session started late (the film crew failed to show on time) so they did not get the chance to cover the new Mojave Operational Sequences architecture.

I had the opportunity to talk to Tom and Kerry after the session too.  I had some robust feedback on the new API and they were kind enough to listen to my ravings.  We had a pretty good conversation, with good points made on all sides.  One of the things I took away from this (and from the PDC in general) is the difficulty of addressing the needs and wants of all different types of development groups and individuals (see also Entity Framework!).

I will be posting more on my thoughts about the new API soon.  What do you think about it?