I hope you don't have weekend plans this summer, because they're about to get delayed. :) There are two new fun starter kits just posted online.

Card Game Starter Kit: a complete blackjack game, customizable source code, and a framework to build more card games. Shareware Starter Kit: the essential features you need to roll out your own shareware application.

You can check them out here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/downloads/2005/starterkits/

Some thoughts about starter kits - I've been involved in starter kit development since their start a few years back. Overall, I think we've learned a lot about what our developers want and think they're getting better. Some highlights: I think the kits are more focused, smaller, easier to ramp up on, have better docs, and are easier to install. Not to mention, it's great to work on some features that can be released more regularly than the summer Olympics :).

Karen Liu and Dan Fernandez from the C# get extra credit for helping to create these kits - which I honestly think are the best yet. Hopefully, it's good for you to see more examples like this where the C# and VB teams work together to share best practices, and yet still build custom experiences for our developers.

I hope to hear what think about the evolution of our starter kits, and how these in particular work for you. Drop me a line if you have time. We want each one to get better and better. And we want to know how you use them.

Enjoy.
Paul

PS. who will come up with the best Texas Hold'em game in VB?