Editor's Note
Back to the Future
As we head into the cold winter months, we've got great content to keep you warm! You might wonder why I started this Editor's Note with such a tired intro, but we have a reason. We're covering a lot of fresh, exciting new material this month, and we didn't want to upstage the good news.
We're starting our 21st volume of MSDN Magazine, and we're always looking for ways to freshen our publication to keep it interesting and useful for you. This month, we're adding a new column, relaunching two others, and we've even added some great authors to help recreate some old favorites.
Dev Q&A In 1996, we launched Microsoft Internet Developer Magazine, which was later incorporated into MSDN Magazine. In the first issue of MIND, we introduced Geek to Geek, a column written by Robert Hess. Later, Nancy Michell ably took over the compilation and we renamed the column Web Q&A. Recently, we've decided that the original concept—pulling expert questions and answers—would best be applied to a variety of thematic programming. Nancy will continue to gather the best questions and answers from Microsoft professionals under a broader banner: Dev Q&A.
Toolbox In the same first issue of MIND, we introduced New Stuff, a monthly look at new products for developers and their friends. After 10 years reporting what's new, the column, renamed Toolbox, will dive deeper into the tools you need to get your job done. Scott Mitchell, a Microsoft MVP and longtime developer, will lend his experience to the column to critically evaluate new products and bring a unique viewpoint to offerings in the marketplace.
CLR Inside Out The Java language was introduced just 10 years ago. Five years later, Microsoft began discussing the vision for .NET and the CLR. The .NET Framework has now been with us for longer than the Java language had been around when .NET was introduced! There's so much to cover in the CLR, especially with version 2.0 arriving, that we're devoting a column to it. CLR Inside Out comes to you from the source—the Microsoft team who designed the CLR.
We also have some big names stepping in to write columns this month. Brad McCabe makes an appearance in Advanced Basics to discuss how you can make noises with the .NET Framework 2.0, and Fritz Onion lends his pen to Extreme ASP.NET to talk about codebehind and compilation in ASP.NET 2.0.
And there's so much more. Now that Windows Vista is available in beta form to MSDN subscribers, we want to give you a head start learning about some of the technologies you'll be using over the next several years.
WinFX is the managed code model for Windows Vista, building upon and extending the .NET Framework. If you haven't checked this out yet, you should—it's really cool. In this issue, we cover several technologies exposed through WinFX:
Windows Presentation Foundation Do you dream of a better graphical subsystem than what's available today? The Windows Presentation Foundation will offer you some remarkable new capabilities. It will be made available for Windows XP as well.
The XML Paper Specification This technology, known as XPS, lets users create documents that have a consistent appearance independent of where or how the document is viewed.
WinFX Speech API You really get a lot out of WinFX, and that includes improved speech APIs. This month, we'll take a look at how to use them to your advantage.
Windows Workflow Foundation The Windows Workflow Foundation will be the programming model for building apps on Windows that include both system and human workflow features.
None of this is way-out stuff—you can get your hands on all of it today if you're an MSDN subscriber. We're quite pleased that some technologies, like Windows Presentation Foundation, are being designed for Windows Vista, but will be available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as well. That's pretty cool.
Thanks to the following Microsoft technical experts for their help with this issue: Ryan Byington, Rob Chambers, Kevin Cogger, Prasadi de Silva, Mike Downen, David Ebbo, David Fetterman, Mark Fussell, Brian Grunkemeyer, David Gutierrez, Daniel Herling, Eric Jarvi, Ravi Krishnaswamy, Jesse McGatha, Shaun Miller, Bradley Millington, Anthony Moore, Rob Relyea, Chris Sells, Payam Shodjai, Andrey Shur, Robert Stumberger, and Ravinder Vuppula.
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MSDN Magazine does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied with respect to any code or other information herein. MSDN Magazine disclaims any liability whatsoever for any use of such code or other information.