The Visual Basic Team : Patrick Dengler

Community Interview with Patrick Dengler (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:00:12 GMT

Continuing the community interviews from our Italian Visual Basic MVP Alessandro Del Sole, this time we interview Patrick Dengler. You can take a look at the Visual Basic Team page for pictures and bios and visit the home page of the Visual Basic Developer Center for a link to all these interviews as well.

Here's the interview with Patrick:

1. Nice to meet you Patrick Dengler! Let’s begin by asking a simple question: where are you from?

I was born in New York, grew up in California, then moved to Redmond, WA

2. We all know that you’re a Visual Basic Team member, but could we know something more about your role inside the Team?

I’ve managed many different things as I have been on and off the team over the last decade or so. The first versions of ADO. NET, XML/DataSet Designer, Database Tools integration, WebServices…oh the list goes on. I am now focusing most of my time on making development even more approachable, easier and less cumbersome.

3. What’s your favorite Visual Basic feature regarding the language and/or the IDE?

I just love the language overall. I started developing in Basic 30 years ago now (eek!) and have watched it grow since then.

4. How long have you been working for Microsoft and what was your occupation before joining the VB Team?

I’ve been at Microsoft since 1992. Before that it was mostly high school and college jobs to pay the bills. Between 1997-2000 I took a leave of absence to create ONYX Software with 3 other Microsofties.

5. Why do you think VB is such a great language?

I once worked for a great guy who was famous for making the statement “Assembly is self-documenting”. I find it easier to read VB than other languages.

6. Have you ever been to Italy?

No, but I got close. I was working my way through Germany, Switzerland, and Austria about 20 years ago, but then lost my passport.

7. Would you like to tell us something about your life outside the office (how do you like to spend your free time, what do you like to do when/if you go out in the evening or when you’re at home and so on)?

I’m a family guy so I love to work with my kids on their homework and doing fun outings. I also enjoy video games too much (if you play Team Fortress 2 email me and I’ll add you to my buddy’s list). I’m also a musician which I wish I spent more time on.

8. Who is your favorite musician?

Hands down, no hesitation, challenge me if you will: RUSH

9. What’s your favorite food?

Anything not in our cafeteria.

Thank you very much for taking time to answer these questions and letting us know something more about you!

Continued search for Small Business Developers and Chapter 2 of Petzold's book (finally!)

VBTeam — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:28:00 GMT

I've attached the chapter 2 Visual Basic.NET code for the ongoing project of converting Peztold's Applications = Code + Markup book on WPF proramming. I am happy to say that Young from my team is going to help with this effort so you will see these chapters coming out more frequently.

Also, we are about to close the doors on our intial sweep of bringing in our fellow small business developers to help us shape Visual Basic. As a note, I should mention that if you or someone you know is still using VB6 or has switched to another technology, we are very intersted in talking with you. A few links are included here.

If you are a consultant/small business developer (and that is really anyone out there who writes software for small businesses) please use the following sign up sheet: https://www.microsoft.com/usability/enrollment.htm

If you are an IT developer who builds departmental level applications, please sign up here:

https://www.microsoft.com/usability/enrollment_ITPros.htm.

And most importantly, if you are in the puget sound area, after signing up, please email uccoord@microsoft.com and cc' myself patd@microsoft.com.

Why you should learn WPF (and how I can help)

VBTeam — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 16:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I mentioned I was working on a side project. Well, then the soccer, tennis, and school season hit and..well I won't tell you the rest. What I had started to do was take all of the samples in Charles Petzold's book Applications = Code + Markup and rewrite them in VB for publication to the VB community. I had invited anyone else to do the same as it was a great way to learn WPF, and for the customers I will be focussing on over the next few years (the small business developers and IT pros) there was method behind my madness; especially for those still using VB6.

One of my fellow Program Managers, Paul Yuknewicz, put me in contact with Charles and he agreed to allow me to publish all of the samples in his book in Visal Basic. At home I had gotten to rewriting these through chapter 10, but in order to get the quality I need for publication, I need to re-do them. So today I offer you chapter 1 (attached). Oh yea, and I created these project files in Visual Studio 8 beta 2 to encourage your downloading of our latest work.

I invite you along with me on this journey of learning WPF for several reasons. First, I've always believed that Visual Basic was about creating stunning applications rapidly. WPF is a very powerful technology and I am looking to build a community around developers who are sharing ideas about creating great end user experiences - getting out of the grey form white textbox. The second reason is our big investment in Silverlight. Over time, as Silverlight evolves, I predict that a lot of the lessons learned in creating great desktop applications with WPF, will translate over to Silverlight with little effort.

Yesterday, a group of us spent a day locked in a room figuring out how to improve Visual Basic for the small business developer and IT departments. I mentioned before that we were looking for people in the area to help us learn more about their pain points with using Visual Basic to develop applications rapidly. We are now prepared to cast that net further. If you are anywhere and are willing to contribute a little time and help us shape our products, please contact me (patd@microsoft.com).

Lastly, before I go off and do my day of soccer with my boys, I want to remind folks that we have set up a Small Business Developer's forum. I encourage you to visit there and share your experiences or ask any questions.

Patrick Dengler

Small Business Developers Unite!

VBTeam — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:22:00 GMT

I can't believe it's already Sunday. I've been spending all weekend (and the last few weeks) as a returning member of the VB team emersing myself in the product, specifically getting my head around how I would use VB today to build the types of solutoins when I was writing departmental applications, or applications for small businesses. I remember these days well. 1 or 2 week deadlines were usually the norm, and VB was the only reasonable solution. I remember wanting to "wow" my customers (or my boss) with how fast I could create a great user experience.

With this in mind, I took time to really learn about what it takes to create a modern application on VB today. I chose WPF as my target projection UI, but I hadn't played with it in over three years so I had some catching up to do. I asked for some recommendations around Microsoft and got my hands on Charles Petzold's Applications = Code + Markup. At first I thought it was unfortunate that all of the samples were in C#, but it turns out that by rewriting all of the samples in VB.NET, it forced me to not only get up to speed on WPF, but also to catch up on a few language and tool improvements that I haven't tracked over the last few years. I highly recommend this exercise for those that have time, and am happy to help if anyone gets stuck.

Now I am focussing on how I can build the applications that I used to build. It was always easy to build the first 90%, but the reamining 10% edge cases were much tougher. If anyone else is on this journey I'd love to follow it with you. Recently I have been working with Infragistics WPF data controls and finding it reducing a lot of work for me. I am sure there are others out there (I've started playing with Xceeed's grid as well).

I am looking to learn from the community what are the pain points in rapidly building applications that are mostly what we call "forms over data". Brad Abram's indicated in his post we are looking immediately for some local inspiration and make some site visits. If you are able to do this email Brad or myself (patd@microsoft.com).

For those that are more distant, as I indicated in my previous blog entry we have opened a Small Business Developer's Center, and supporting Forum. This forum I will be personally monitoring closely. Also note, I am not limiting discussions to WPF or any specific technology. I'd love to foster a community of small business developers not only code (and certainly not just WPF) ideas or snippets are shared and problems addressed, but also general idea sharing around how to be a successful developer for small businesses.

Time to get back to coding. It's funny, I was asked the other day by a couple, "What do you do for fun?" I answered "I write code." Ahh, the blank stares of confusion. No it's not all I do for fun, but it is on the top of my list (along with wiping out teenagers in CounterStrike Source).

Patrick Dengler

Senior Program Manager Lead

Back home again!

VBTeam — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:52:00 GMT

I can't tell you how excited I am to return to the Visual Basic team after almost eight years of absence! I spent much time working in groups around Microsoft including games, office and business solutions. But in each of these areas I focussed primarily on enabling developer scenarios.

And now I am back! And what am I here for? Well, to continue to evolve Visual Basic into the best product for our customers.

My personal goal is to make Visual Basic even more approachable and usable by anyone! I know this is possible as I myself cut my teeth on BASIC when I was in the single digit age category. Even with all of the incredible technologies we have introdued over the years, Visual Basic needs to continue permeate the community at large and be the tool of choice for highly productive application development.

I invite you here to share your experiences or hopes for what we can be doing better, and I will be sharing my own journey as I reintegrate into Visual Basic.

As a note, we have opened a Small Business Developer Center on MSDN (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/smallbusiness/default.aspx) something I am very passinoate about and a new forum as well (http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1812&SiteID=1)

I have a little project I am working on over the weekend, a self-study project that might be useful for others to try. I will post my results next week.

-watching the summer disappear

Patrick Dengler