It's been a great ride these past fourteen years.  I've loved my time at Microsoft and am proud of the projects I've been fortunate enough to be a part of, from helping PSS get ready for the launch of Visual FoxPro 3.0, through my time in Visual Basic "classic" data access support, testing VS Data designers during the .NET 1.0 release, work on ObjectSpaces and seeing that project resurface in LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework, helping provider writer partners plug into the Entity Framework, to shipping the initial release of the SQL Server Driver for PHP.  I've also been very fortunate to work with so many amazing people within this company.

Right now, I've decided to take some time off and recharge my batteries.  Today is my last day at Microsoft.  I'm going to take a summer vacation, something I haven't done since high school.  But before I go, I want to thank everyone I've worked with outside the company.  I still vividly remember the first day I took support calls on FoxPro 2.x and how much I enjoyed working with developers, troubleshooting issues with them and helping them get their code to do what they want.  No matter what technologies I worked on since then or how I interacted with developers (over the phone, through online forums, face to face at conferences, through the printed or digital word through my writing) I've been constantly energized by those interactions.  I can't imagine how many times I've spoken to a developer and come away saying to myself "Wow, I never thought to do that with that technology.  Cool!"  I'm not sure what I'll be doing after taking some time off, but I have a strong hunch it will continue to involve working with developers on great technologies.

See you soon,

David Sceppa