Hi there. Welcome to my blog. This introduction was last updated in 2007.

Who is this guy?

I'm Eric Lippert, a developer in the Visual Studio team at Microsoft. I have been in the developer division full time since 1996 and was an intern for a couple of years before that. In my years at Microsoft I've helped with the design and implementation of Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, VBScript, JScript, JScript.NET, the Windows Script Host, Visual Studio Tools for Office, and most recently, C#. I am the author of several books about programming. I also edit technical books as a hobby.

What is this blog about?

I've learned a lot about COM development, .NET development and writing secure code at Microsoft. I've also fielded thousands of questions from the millions of people who use the various languages I work on. The point of this blog is to get some of that information up on the web. Making developers' lives easier is what it's all about.

What is this blog not about?

I'm going to stick pretty much entirely to technical topics here, with occasional diversions. If you're interested in my fabulous adventures involving piano tuning, renovating my house, sailing small craft, etc, then you'll have to ask me directly!

What do you look like?

Here is a saggital cross-section of my head; you can deduce what I look like from that.

Enough Chit-Chat!

Indeed, let's get right to it. Coming soon: what exactly is a BSTR?