September 2009

Volume 24 Number 09

Editor's Note - Find Your Anchors

By Howard Dierking | September 2009

I recently returned to work after being gone for four weeks on paternity leave. My job during this time was to assume responsibility for our older daughter, who is now 2 years old, so that my wife could focus more of her attention on caring for the baby. Now, 2 year olds have fairly little observable pattern or structure in how they want to spend their time. As such, managing the day-to-day feels a lot like stream processing or like managing your workday from your e-mail inbox -- you're in a constant state of reacting. I'm sure that there are job roles out there where this pattern of work is considered normal and becomes easier to deal with. However, I found it to be incredibly draining -- both physically and mentally.

As I write this, Windows 7 has recently been released to manufacturing and those of you who are MSDN subscribers will likely have already downloaded and installed it by the time you read this. Additionally, Visual Studio 2010 and Office 2010 continue to march

toward release; and with the recent announcement of pricing and licensing information on Microsoft Azure (microsoft.com/azure/pricing.mspx), we can expect to see increased interest in how cloud computing concepts and technologies should fit into the portfolio, from both a technology and a business perspective. Without very deliberate management, you can easily find yourself in a position much like my recent parental leave experience -- in a constant state of reaction and working incredibly hard only to wonder what was accomplished at the end of the day.

To be honest, I have some experience with becoming randomized on the technology front as well. One of the great things about my role with the magazine is that it gives me visibility into all of the various development efforts that are happening across Microsoft. The problem with this visibility is that I want to go deep into many of the technologies to which I'm exposed. And what I've found, particularly over the past year, is that -- with one exception -- I have become good at developing a shallow level understanding of a large number of technologies. And while I believe that being a generalist is a good thing to a point, as the number of metaphorical e-mails increases, it becomes even more necessary to have a solid anchor of a technology (or a small handful of technologies) where you can go deep. Of equal importance is, I believe, making sure that you are going deep on the right technologies. Thus, you should define and prioritize your anchor technologies in terms of what you want to be known for, and also be aware of what's coming and plan accordingly.

My wakeup call came when I started experimenting with the .NET Services stack and, more recently, the ADO.NET Data Services stack. In both of those endeavors, I very quickly got past the controlled sample applications and ran straight into a fundamental deficiency in my own skillset -- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). As you know, this technology has been around for quite some time. However, for whatever reason, I had simply never given it the focus necessary to really understand how it was used behind the scenes in the cloud and with RESTful services. Without this context, I was handicapped in my code experimentation once I ventured too far off the known path. Personally, I want to grow as an expert in building business intelligence architectures -- and this means that my current anchor technology priorities include SQL Server Analysis Services and WCF. As I look into the future, I envision moving further into data visualization and, as such, I expect to add Windows Presentation Foundation to my list.

In the end, it doesn't matter which specific technologies you choose so long as you are deliberate and thoughtful about actually choosing them. Otherwise, as the technology stream's current gets stronger, you risk being swept out into the sea of randomization and buzzwords.

Visit us at msdn.microsoft.com/magazine. Questions, comments, or suggestions for MSDN Magazine? Send them to the editor: mmeditor@microsoft.com.

Thanks to the following Microsoft technical experts for their help with this issue: Tom Ball, Ben Constable, Jim Griesmer, Niklas Gustafsson, Melissa Johnson, Artur Laksberg, Mark Lawrence, Carlos Aguilar Mares, Matthew M. Osborn, Josh Phillips and Matthew Podwysocki.