At PDC 2003 Alex Homer and David Sussman, Microsoft Software Legends and authors, talked about how they came to be writers, the rate of adoption of .NET technology, and, of course, Whidbey, Yukon, and Longhorn.
-Interviewed by Derek Ferguson, .NETDJ Editor-in-Chief

.NETDJ: So, tell me a little about yourselves...
DS: I've been a full-time writer for about six years now. I started out writing about the original Active Server Pages (ASP) and Active Data Objects (ADO). We've been working very closely with the ASP team ever since.

AH: I think the real secret to our success might be that we started talking about ASP very early in its life cycle. Back then, the ASP team was just one small part of a much larger group of people who were all working on Internet Information Server (IIS).

We got to know Mark Anders and Scott Guthrie [see interview with Scott Guthrie, .NETDJ, Vol. 1, issue 3] quite early on. They were very interested in publicity and we were already selling lots of books - so it seemed like the perfect partnership. They give us inside access, and in return we try to produce books about it up front and as early as possible.

.NETDJ: How did you get involved in writing books in the first place?
AH: I don't come from the computing world. I sold windows for 20 years, but the kind that you put on houses - not on your computer! [Laughs.] I left school before computers were invented - back when we still thought that digital watches were cool.

Editor's note: If I'd been on my game at this point, I would have referenced Douglas Adams' comments about humans still thinking that digital watches are a "pretty neat idea" - or, perhaps Microsoft's announcements earlier in the week about Smart Personal Object Technologies (SPOT) - which will soon allow .NET code to run on watches, along with many other very small devices! (For more information, see www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/jan03/01-09SPOTWatchesPR.asp.) Unfortunately, I didn't think of either of these things until several days later.

.NETDJ: And how did you make the jump from selling windows to teaching Windows?
AH: A friend of mine who was an electrician came around to my house many years ago with a Sinclair ZX80, which was one of the earliest home computers in Britain. We plugged it into the back of my television and I wound up not going to bed until 4 a.m. because we were very excited about this program we were writing.

All our program did was show sine waves on the screen, but I think I was very inspired by the ability to control things. So I ran right out and bought a kit to build an Altair, and I got it 100% finished but could never afford to buy the CPU, so it just sat there - in mute testimony to my determination.

.NETDJ: Do you have an equally interesting story for us, David?
DS: Thankfully not! [Laughs.] I just took the classic computer science path through school. I used to be the spotty nerd in the corner... now I'm the famous spotty nerd in the corner!

.NETDJ: A "Software Legend," in fact! Do you get to meet a lot of famous people, now that you have that title?
DS: We nodded at Jim Allchin in a guitar shop! [Laughs.] Actually, I didn't even know who he was until a Microsoft employee we were with asked, "Do you know who that was?!" It was after he had bought two packets of strings and left.

.NETDJ: For our readers who might not be familiar with Microsoft's Software Legends, can you tell us a little about that designation?
DS: I think the Legends program is just Microsoft's attempt to push publishing a bit by making some of their top authors a tad more visible. It's actually a rather light campaign - not meant to be taken too seriously.

AH: For example, we all have cardboard cutouts of ourselves that get set up at various Microsoft trade shows. One little-known fact, though, is that all of our cutouts wound up being exactly the same height. So, Billy Hollis appears to be the same height as David - which is just not true. [Laughs.]

.NETDJ: Did you come to the PDC because Billy is here and you wanted to set the record straight in person, then?
AH: No, we came just so we could be interviewed by you!

DS: Seriously, though - we really came for three reasons: Whidbey, Yukon, and Longhorn. Even after six years of writing books, we still get excited by new technology, and our two newest books (www.awprofessional.com/titles/0321228960 and www.awprofessional.com/titles/0321228391) - our first with Addison-Wesley - are the first to cover Whidbey.

.NETDJ: And what stuff in Whidbey excites you?
DS: From my point of view, one of the best new features in Whidbey is Master Pages. They give you a great way to centralize the layout of your site and to easily change your entire site just by changing one file. [Editor's note: For more information on Master Pages, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnaspp/html/aspnet-masterpages.asp.]

AH: The new data binding controls also replace hundreds of lines of code with no lines of code.

.NETDJ: Don't you think developers are going to be reluctant to use data binding, given Microsoft's recent history on the topic?
AH: Not in the ASP.NET world, at least. ASP.NET developers are used to server controls that are intelligent. ASP.NET controls also expose a programming interface to go along with their GUI interface, so you can custom-code complex stuff if you really want to.

Microsoft's value proposition seems to be that in version 2 of the Framework everything uses intelligent defaults, so you don't need to specify stuff that is obvious. In data binding terms this means that when you generate a data source control you have to tell it only the source string and the query, and it will do everything else. [Editor's note: For more information on data binding in .NET, see www.sys-con.com/dotnet/article.cfm?id=276.]

.NETDJ: Sticking with the whole data theme for a moment - and moving on to your second reason for being here - what excites you about Yukon?
AH: XML support.

.NETDJ: You know, I've heard that before and I just don't get it. Don't I have support for XML today, just by using strings?
DS: What Yukon gives you is a lot better than just strings! For example, if you give Yukon the schema for a document and then pass that document as a string, it will parse that string into the relevant pieces of data and store them in the proper columns. In the current version of SQL Server, that same string would have to be stored in the database as just - well, a big string.

AH: And, of course, in Yukon (with a schema) the elements themselves disappear from the string. Keeping the XML as individual values allows you to search on the XML, which you can't do currently. And it allows you to validate the XML at storage time.

The other great things about Yukon are the user-defined types, ObjectSpaces, and notifications. In the case of notifications, you can tell the database that you want to know if the query you just executed would return a different result set if reexecuted. Then anything that happens to change that causes a notification, including a shutdown or a data definition change. If you work with cached data, this is ideal.

.NETDJ: And what about Longhorn?
DS: Longhorn looks fantastic. In a way, though, it isn't very relevant today because it's just too far ahead. It's great to be involved, but...

AH: I just think Avalon is stunning. The ability to do the rendering and clever controls stuff is breathtaking. The fact that it is all declarative is like ASP version 3. The merging of the interface technologies is exciting.

.NETDJ: What have you got in mind for your next books?
DS: We have a meeting with our publisher tonight to decide, actually. Longhorn is just too far away to do books on. Whidbey is closer, but it's still a fair way away. Most developers are still struggling to get up to speed on the current version.

AH: I think the aim is to pull out the hottest technologies in Whidbey, like ObjectSpaces, etc., and expand those into specific books. There are so many technologies in Whidbey that are worthy - the question is if they are viable book topics in the short term.

Also, we're still updating our older books about .NET to reference version 1.1 of the Framework, instead of 1.0.

.NETDJ: It's amazing how fast .NET went from 1.0 to 1.1, isn't it? Do you think that the software industry has also been that quick to embrace .NET?
DS: I think it's starting to pick up now, specifically because 1.1 has come out and been viewed as stable for quite a while. But there is a huge investment in the old technologies, and certainly the uptake is slower in Europe.

.NETDJ: Why do you think that is?
AH: I think one issue is the politics. There are EU directives saying that government stuff needs to be open source. [Editor's note: For more information, see Click Here !.]

DS: I think it's also partly that the American ethos is very gung ho and open to new ideas. And the big conferences take place in America.

AH: But there are some big companies that are switching. They're saying that open source is just too hard, so they're switching to .NET.

.NETDJ: What role do you think the economy is playing in .NET adoption?
DS: I think it has been crucial! For example, from a publishing standpoint, people aren't buying books - and that tends to slow down their learning.

AH: Companies aren't investing in anything new, and .NET is new. They don't want anything that isn't 100% necessary.

What is interesting is that all the signs are that the U.S. economy is improving. The fact that the PDC sold out tends to indicate that something good is happening. In Europe as well, I heard that PC sales are up, showing a steady climb for the first time in two years. Unfortunately, none of this necessarily means that employment rates will rise.

.NETDJ: What's the benefit to buying a book over free and online resources?
AH: You can safely read it in the bath.

DS: In some ways, free and online resources are better because there are more and more diverse opinions. In the case of our current books, though, the benefit is that they are brand new and based on direct team contact.

AH: When you are writing a book, you are forced into a process that causes you to be more diligent than you probably would be if you were doing something for free. The result is that a book tends to be more organized and more structurally solid, and gives a deeper insight.

Also, you can pick up a book and flip through the pages. You should be able to do the same online, but in reality, people tend to browse books.

DS: Online resources tend to be very task focused, whereas books are more pedagogical.

.NETDJ: Where do you hope to be in 10 years?
DS: I've always said that I will stick with this as long as I'm learning something and enjoying it. I've been doing that for six years now, and I'm still happy with it!

AH: I think probably much the same as Dave. I'd like to think that I'll be under a palm tree with a sunny beach and broadband, but I guess it's like being retired. I retired seven years ago to be a writer - this is just a hobby, and I'll keep doing it as long as I can.

DS: We've really got the best jobs in the world!

Editor's note: For more information about the wit and wisdom of David Sussman and Alex Homer, visit their home page at www.daveandal.net.