Eric White's Blog : Introduction and General

New Job as a Technical Evangelist for Open XML

EricWhite — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:57:00 GMT

I have news! I am leaving my current job documenting XML technologies (primarily LINQ to XML), and taking on the role of Open XML Technical Evangelist in DPE. I am very excited about the new job and the upcoming challenges. Open XML is an extremely important...(read more)

New programmer type: Mortenstein

EricWhite — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:18:00 GMT

When talking about programmer types, there are three personas: Mort, Elvis, and Einstein. Through deep research and extensive analysis, I have determined that there is a fourth type: Mortenstein. This programmer is an Einstein who is oportunistic. He or she will grab any tool available to do a job quickly - it doesn't matter if the tool is complicated or not - so long as it gets the job done quickly. My boss suggested that there are a lot of Mortensteins in the Perl community!

Who are Mort, Elvis, and Einstein?

EricWhite — Fri, 12 May 2006 01:42:00 GMT

There is a lot written about Mort, Elvis, and Einstein developers. Here is my (in a nutshell) take on them:

Mort is someone who doesn't consider programming their main job. Maybe they are a statistician, biologist, or construction estimator, who also knows quite a bit about programming. They are oportunistic, using whatever tool comes to hand that will get the job done.
Elvis is a professional programmer. I would consider an Elvis to be a journeyman developer. You can scope out a job and give it to them, and the job will get done. In general, Morts don't become Elvises. Morts want to do their main job; they don't WANT to become a professional developer. Elvises go to school and get CS degrees.
Einstein is a smart Elvis who has been around the block a dozen times. They have seen many projects, some that failed, and some that succeeded. They have seen a large variety of technologies. I also consider that an Einstein is someone who can see the big picture. An Einstein often is in a position of responsibility, choosing technologies and designing large software systems.

There are other definitions. But that is my take, also that of my boss here at MS.

These personas are just one way to categorize developers. The characteristics of an Einstein developer is someone who, for instance, is concerned with architectural purity. For instance, they study type systems, and how type systems relate to various styles of programming languages. They study n-tier systems, and the various ways to break a system into tiers, and the advantages of each of the ways. Then, they are in a good position to design a large system, and coach a set of journeymen developers so that the system is successful. While there are exceptions to this rule, I think that most new CS graduates don't have enough experience to do this. There is so much in the development world that is communicated verbally between developers that I think that until someone has been exposed to a number of projects from beginning to end, they don't see all of the ways that projects can go wrong. These new CS graduates are people that I would categorize as Elvis developers. Of course, there are some Elvis programmers who don't proceed to become Einstein developers. I can think of some off the top of my head. However, I can also think of a number of Einstein developers who would have been categorized as Elvis earlier in their career.

These personas have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are mainly useful in identifying the potential users of a class library. So, for example, a library that makes explicit use of parsers and abstract expression trees may be targeted to an "Einstein", whereas a forms library that allows developers to set properties to connect to database tables may be targeted to an "Elvis". A set of Excel macros that enable construction estimating my be targeted to a "Mort" construction estimator. A library written in Fortran that models fluid dynamics may be targeted to a "Mort" aerospace engineer.

Introduction

EricWhite — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:37:00 GMT

I'm a programming writer for MSFT. I work in the SQL Server business unit, however I work only on XML technologies, not SQL Server. The doc sets that I currently work on are:

XLinq (very cool technology)
MSXML (non-managed XML DOM and SAX parser with many, many users)
Some parts of System.Xml. (managed)
XmlLite (non-managed, fast, more secure pull parser)

My goal in starting this blog is to engage with XML users at large regarding technical issues with MS XML parsers, and specifically regarding documentation issues with the parsers.

I really enjoy working with XML. I believe that XML when used properly is one of the most powerful technologies that we have at our disposal. One of my favorite ways to use XML is to build systems that are driven from XML files, so that you can configure the system in a non-procedural fashion, as opposed to writing imperative code ad nauseam.

I am new to MS. I've only been here for 7 months. It has been a very cool experience. I really love my job. I get to work with smart people. I get to work on cool new interesting technology. What's not to like!

While I am new to MS, I am not such a new programmer or writer. I've been working for 25 years, most of that time as a developer/coder. I've written a couple of books (on GDI+), I founded and owned a business for 10 years. We had one product that was very successful (XI for XVT), and another product that was not (XI/Bridge). Oh well, such is life.