The Visual Basic Team : Paul Vick

"Future Directions of Visual Basic" Interview with Paul Vick (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:17:00 GMT

In this short 10min video, I interview language architect Paul Vick about what industry trends he would think about while designing the Visual Basic language. Some of these trends have motivated features in the next version of the Visual Basic language (VB 10.0), such as interop with dynamic languages. Others are things the team is currently thinking about, and plans to address in future versions. These include concurrency, and "opening up the black box" to expose the Visual Basic compiler as a service. These features were announced publicly at last week's Professional Developers Conference. The link to the short interview is below. To view the entire PDC session video, look here.

Future Directions of Visual Basic (video)

"Visual Basic 10: New Features" Interview with Paul Vick (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:06:00 GMT

In this video, I interviewed language architect Paul Vick about what new language features are coming in the next release of Visual Basic. We talked about auto-implemented properties, collection initializers, statement lambdas, removal of the line continuation feature, and more. These features were recently announced at last week's Professional Developers Conference.

Visual Basic 10: New Features (video)

TL12: Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:20:00 GMT

Didn't make it to the PDC? No problem. You can still check out the *hottest* presentation at the Professional Developers Conference this year, available publicly on demand! Paul Vick (Principal Architect) and Lucian Wischik (VB Specification Lead & Software Engineer) gave an awesome presentation on the Future of VB. The presentation included VB 2010 and beyond.

Title: Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic
Abstract: Hear language architect Paul Vick and specification lead Lucian Wischik discuss the future direction of the Visual Basic language. Learn about the new capabilities of the next version of the language, including additional LINQ features, syntax simplifications, and a host of other improvements. Also gain insight into possible future features, including meta-programming and scripting.

Here are the video links:
On Channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL12/
Direct link: http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/TL12.wmv

I've blogged the VB 2010 feature list here. This video above is the best way to see these features in action. Enjoy the video, and get excited for the future of VB!

Paul Vick (Principal Architect)

Lucian Wischik (VB Specification Lead & Software Engineer)

Community Interview with Paul Vick (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:00:53 GMT

One of our Italian Visual Basic MVPs, Alessandro Del Sole, sent over some interview questions for the Visual Basic Team members to get our thoughts on the language and favorite features but mostly to share some of our personal interests to help you get to know us better. I also learned some fun facts about the team as well! Alessandro is also translating these interviews and posting them on the Italian Visual Basic Tips&Tricks site.

You can take a look at the Visual Basic Team page for pictures and bios of those team members who aren't shy. ;-). The home page of the Visual Basic Developer Center will also display the team photos and a link to these interviews that we'll be post here over the next month or so.

This first interview is with Paul Vick, VB Language Architect. Although Paul is moving teams to work on Oslo, he'll still continue to participate in the VB language design process and work to ensure the VB language specification is kept complete and up to date.

Here's the interview with Paul:

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

I’m originally from Durham, North Carolina, but I’ve lived in Seattle long enough that I consider myself more of a Northwesterner.

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

My main role has been the language architect, which really means three things: running the language design meetings, answering a lot of questions, and keeping the language specification up to date.

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

I’ve worked on so many, I don’t really have a favorite. OK, maybe case insensitivity…

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

I came to Microsoft sixteen years ago straight out of college.

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

I think VB is a great language because it takes a very practical, relaxed stand on things. Case insensitivity is a good example—rather than being stickler about casing, which in most cases really doesn’t matter, we accept different casings. Overall, I like that approach a lot.

6. Have you ever been to Italy?

Once, when I was in high school. I studied Latin and we took a trip to visit Rome, Venice and Florence. It was a wonderful trip, and I hope to come back some day!

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)?

Well, I’ve got twin boys who are about two and a half right now, so they tend to consume most of my time outside of the office! I am looking forward to going back to running and indoor rock climbing at some point in the future…

8. Who is your favorite musician?

I like a lot of different styles of music, but I grew up listening to R.E.M., so they have a special place in my heart.

9. What’s your favorite food?

Also a difficult question, but it’s probably something Southern and fried, maybe fried chicken or hushpuppies.

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

Where is the VB Team going to be over the next few months? (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:26:00 GMT

We have quite a few trips coming up over the next couple months, and we want to connect with you while we’re on the road. Here is our plan. Let us know where we can find you. ;-)

October 6-7, 2008

Software Development Conference 2008: http://www.sdc.nl/

Beth Massi

October 8-10, 2008

TechEd Hong Kong: http://www.microsoft.com/hk/technet/teched2008/

Karen Liu

October 21-23, 2008

OOPSLA: http://www.oopsla.org/oopsla2008/

Dustin Campbell

October 27-30, 2008

Professional Developers Conference: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

Paul Vick

Dustin Campbell

Lisa Feigenbaum

Alex Turner

November 8-9, 2008

Silicon Valley Code Camp: http://www.siliconvalley-codecamp.com

Tim Ng

Beth Massi

November 10-13, 2008

DevConnections: http://www.devconnections.com/shows/FALL2008VS/default.asp?c=1&s=121

Lucian Wischik

Jay Schmelzer

Christin Boyd

John Stallo

November 10-14, 2008

TechEd EMEA: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/teched2008/

Jonathan Aneja

Lisa Feigenbaum

Karen Liu

Paul Yuknewicz

John Durant

November 17-20, 2008

Spain user group tour, Barcelona to Madrid

Jonathan Aneja

Lisa Feigenbaum

November 19-20, 2008

TechSummit Berlin: http://www.technical-summit.de

Paul Yuknewicz

John Durant

December 1-2, 2008

DevTeach Montreal: http://www.devteach.com/

Beth Massi

January 7-9, 2009

Code Mash: http://www.codemash.org/

Dustin Campbell

Finally, you can also find us at the .Net Developers Association meeting in Bellevue, Washington the fourth Monday night each month. http://netda.net

"Future Directions of Visual Basic": Don't miss this talk at the Professional Developers Conference! (Lisa Feigenbaum)

VBTeam — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:20:00 GMT

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is coming up next month, October 27-30 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The conference will focus on the future of the Microsoft platform. Here is the website for more information: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/

At this future-looking conference, we will be giving a talk on the future of Visual Basic. Here are the details:

Title: Future Directions of Visual Basic
Speaker: Paul Vick
Abstract: In this talk, language architect Paul Vick discusses the future direction of the Visual Basic language. Learn about the new capabilities on the next version of the language, including additional LINQ features, syntax simplifications, and a host of other improvements. Also gain insight into possible future features, beyond the next version.

Hope to see you there!

Visual Basic Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow with Paul Vick (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:00:00 GMT

Scott Hanselman posted a podcast with with Paul Vick, Principal VB Architect, and Paul Yuknewicz, Senior Program Manager on the VB Team about the past, present and future of Visual Basic. Check it out!

Enjoy,
-Beth Massi, VS Community

Visual Basic 9.0 Language Specification Released (Beth Massi)

VBTeam — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:03:00 GMT

The Beta 2 version of the Visual Basic Language specification has been released onto the download center. This language specification corresponds to the version of Visual Basic that will ship in Visual Studio 2008. The spec covers the following major new features:

• Friend assemblies (InternalsVisibleTo)
• Relaxed delegates
• Local type inferencing
• Anonymous types
• Extension methods
• Nullable types
• Ternary operator
• Query expressions
• Object initializers
• Expression trees
• Lambda expressions
• Generic type inferencing
• Partial methods

The following features are not covered but should be shortly:

• XML Members
• XML Literals
• XML Namespaces

Although it will be updated again for the final release, the VB team wanted to get this out to the community now.

Enjoy,
-B

Lambdas, and Take While, and Group By, Oh My!

VBTeam — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:02:00 GMT

Hooray! Visual Basic 2008 Beta2 has been released to the wild today to return to its natural habitat – the desktops of our beloved customers. (Please note our smiling GPM's face on that landing page -- he's so happy the Beta is done.)

What’s inside? So much that there might be more new features than we released in Beta1, but who’s counting? Here’s a laundry list that’s specific to the VB language that’s new for Beta2:

· Query operators

o Group By, Group Join, Join, Take [While], Skip [While], Aggregate, Count, Sum, Min, Max, Average, From à Let

· Nullable support

· Lambda Expressions (aka Inline Functions)

· Partial Methods – ScottGu mentioned this the other day & ScottWis posted a couple weeks back

· Anonymous Types w/Keys – Which PaulV has already discussed

Here are a bunch of queries you can now write with VB!

' Find suppliers in the same city as customers

From cust In db.Customers _

Join sup In db.Suppliers _

On cust.City Equals sup.City _

Select cust.CompanyName, sup.ContactName, cust.City

' Find suppliers in the same city, with the same postalcode as customers

From cust In db.Customers _

Join sup In db.Suppliers _

On cust.City Equals sup.City And cust.PostalCode Equals sup.PostalCode

Select cust.CompanyName, sup.ContactName, cust.City

' Find the average unit price and count for products by category

From prod In db.Products _

Group By prod.CategoryID _

Into Average(prod.UnitPrice), Count()

' For each customer find the group of the suppliers in the same country

From cust In db.Customers _

Group Join sup In db.Suppliers _

On cust.Country Equals sup.Country _

Into SuppliersInCountry = Group _

Select cust.CompanyName, SuppliersInCountry

' For each customer, the count of the number of suppliers in the same country

From cust In db.Customers _

Group Join sup In db.Suppliers _

On cust.Country Equals sup.Country _

Into NumSuppliers = Count() _

Select cust.CompanyName, NumSuppliers

' Avg price, avg # in stock, and max on order for non-discontinued products

Aggregate prod In db.Products _

Where Not prod.Discontinued _

Into AvgPrice = Average(prod.UnitPrice), _

AvgInStock = Average(prod.UnitsInStock), _

MaxOnOrder = Max(prod.UnitsOnOrder)

' Find orderID, OrderDate, and OrderTotal for each order

From order In db.Orders _

Where order.OrderDate > #7/22/1996# _

Aggregate ordDet In order.Order_Details _

Into OrderTotal = _

Sum(ordDet.UnitPrice *ordDet.Quantity * (1 - ordDet.Discount))

Select order.OrderID, order.OrderDate, OrderTotal

' Fill a dictionary with the customers by CompanyName

db.Customers.ToDictionary(Function(cust As Customer) cust.CompanyName)

In addition to all the new language support, we now have keyword Intellisense (finally!)

We have XML Intellisense! What?? That’s right.

And we’ve done some major performance improvements for the background compiler – let us know if you experience any sluggishness for this Beta. (BTW, you should check out Scott's post on Beta2 to avoid some problems with AJAX extensions if you're installing to a machine that has had previous versions of Orcas installed on it or has VS 2005 side by side.)

Also, don’t forget to look for other exciting features around the product that pertain to VB and/or LINQ. For example, Linq to SQL now supports the Like operator! There’s also a new ASP:LinqDataSource control.

So, get the bits while they’re hot!

-Amanda