Lucian Wischik contacted me out of the blue one day to update and test one of my NuGet packages using NuGet 3.0. We had a pleasant email exchange and he suggested I nominate myself for becoming a Microsoft MVP...so I did.
It actually takes a fair amount of time to apply, you have to give details of all your online accounts and open source projects. Not only that but for each one you have to specify how many downloads or page views you have got. Only after doing this, did I realize how much of an online presence I really have.
A few months later and lo and behold I get another email out of the blue telling me I'm one of 4000 people being awarded Microsoft MVP status. So what does this mean, I thought to myself? Well it turns out you get a few freebies:
- Free Software - I already had an MSDN license from work but it's nice to get a free MSDN license of my own. You can pretty much download whatever Microsoft software you want.
- Free Azure - As part of the MSDN license you get £100 of Azure credits per month. Last I checked, I only use about £30 to £40 a month to run this blog and a few other sites and services.
- The Gift Pack - This is a nice trophy and certificate to hang on your wall, as well as a badge, just to make it official.
- MVP Insider Mailing List Access - Getting added to this email distribution list is pretty cool. You can ask questions and find out about bugs and new releases before everyone else.
- Access to Pre-Release Software - You get access to Beta or RTM builds before they are publicly released. Microsoft uses this as a way to make sure there are no last minute bugs.
I hadn't realized but you have to reapply to become an MVP every year. I'm not sure how that works but I guess I'll find out a year later.
Thanks to Lucian for suggesting I apply, my wife who has had to put up with me messing around with code all the time and all the people who downloaded some of my code and found it useful. I get a warm fuzzy feeling every time I see a new website pop-up using my project template or the download numbers for my various projects grow.
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9 Comments
Very happy for you sir! ...and thanks for the boilerplates : )
I'm glad you found it useful :).
Rehan, Microsoft MUST make Visual Basic/C# + xaml (Expression Blend) able to generate output as HTML 5 canvas + CSS + javascript..... PUT BACK C#/VISUAL BASIC IN THE BROWSER like Silverlight did....but this time no plug-in just HTML5 +CSS +javascript
The main reason PRODUCTIVITY ... it takes forever to do things directly in HTML5 + css + javascript. Why if we have the best IDE with amazing and easy to use tools like the ability to drag-and-drop controls in order to create a project in minutes we can't use this where it matters the most!!! in the browser!!!.
PS. Adobe Flash Pro CC is doing it !!! do you know that their first option when you click new project is output as "HTML5 canvas" (instead of actionscript you use javascript,) why if they are doing it, Microsoft is not doing something like this?? Every single programmer that I know is waiting for something like this because everyone knows that C#/VB are the most productive tools out there.
I would have agreed with you in the past but at some point I changed my mind for these reasons:
I agree with the productivity remark. It does take much longer to build something for the web, than using Silverlight. Have you come across Script#? It transpiles C# code to JavaScript.
RehanCongratulations! You are a MVP extra!
I have learned a lot of useful skill from your site and your Elysium extra project is great!! Looking forward for more new features~
Rehan, the performance penalty that is going to happen after doing the transpiling from C#/VB Silverlight + xaml to HTML5 + CSS + javascript is a price that I bet 90%+ of the programmers out there are willing to more than pay in order to have a RIA- "Silverlight look alike" apps in their browsers... as I see things this could be represented using an inequality like this:
Productivity + Amazing tools/IDE + RIAs that run in any device/any browser > Performance Penalty
There is nothing out there at this point that could give to the developers what Silverlight gave to them for the amount of time and effort required to build the application, it was productivity; the quality of the UI generated vs the amount of time/effort invested.
Thank you for the Script# info, do you know this project... C#/XAML to HTML5 http://www.cshtml5.com/ it would be fantastic if Microsoft end up supporting it, like Microsoft did with Xamarin
Keep up the good work and thank you for reading my comments/questions,
PS. A tool like Microsoft Blend should have the option to export as HTML5+css+javascript , there is no reason why this should not be possible to do.
The performance penalty can be significant but people are willing to pay it. Take Cordova for example which lets you write apps in HTML, CSS and JavaScript for phones, its terribly slow compared to native apps but people still use it to write cross-platform apps. It all depends on what you are trying to write I suppose.
Once again, I agree about productivity totally. cshtml5 looks interesting but it needs a lot of work before I would write anything with it, this tool would need major backing. Coming at it from the other side, have you seen TypeScript.NET, it's another interesting project.
Well earned! I've been using your code for some time now and always look forward to your new posts. Congratulations!
Congrats Rehan. Very useful information.