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programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
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Well, you won't technically see me at MIX08 this year. But you will see some very cool top-secret stuff Vertigo created in the keynote.
MIX is by far my favorite Microsoft conference after attending the '06 and '07 iterations. And not just because this year they have a Rock Band competition* and a screening of The King of Kong with star Steve Wiebe. Oh, and did I mention the exclusive MIX party at the Tao nightclub? These things certainly don't hurt.
What I love about Mix is that it ...
And it's in Las Vegas. Although I find gambling dreadfully boring (hey, maybe that's another reason why I never got into World of Warcraft), there's always something fun to do.
If you work in the Microsoft stack, and any of that sounds even vaguely interesting -- sign up for next year's MIX when you can. You won't be disappointed. In fact, I guarantee satisfaction. If you attend MIX and don't thoroughly enjoy the experience, then I dare say there's something wrong with you.
A team at Vertigo has been working at breakneck pace over the last two months to build something extra-special that will be shown in the MIX keynote. Of course I can't talk about it until the actual keynote Wednesday morning, but I will give you this one hint: it invokes the power of rock. Details will be available on Vertigo's MIX page in time with the keynote.
Our fearless leader, Scott Stanfield, will also be delivering a blacklisted MIX session on Friday, which expands on what we're showing in the keynote. Be sure to mark this one on your calendar if you're in attendance.
I've been specifically told "it'll be epic; wear your pampers." Duly noted.
* Which Vertigo is totally going to win. You read it here first.
Thanks for the sort-of heads up. I guess I'll see you in the morning.
Andrew Norris on March 5, 2008 4:10 AMTitle: World Domination
Come and see how *Vertigo* was used to turn the world's best *internet browser* into a unique web experience. This session will cover how this new silverlight 2 feature makes it possible to...
No, I can't guess it - someone else try
Come and see how *.net* was used to turn the world's best *MS-DOS game* into a unique web experience. This session will cover how this new silverlight 2 feature makes it possible to...
Peter Bridger on March 5, 2008 4:40 AM> You won't be disappointed. In fact, I guarantee satisfaction.
I can't speak for MIX but I've been to the 2007 xtopia in Berlin which was meant to be the German reMIX and I was thoroughly disappointed. I was disappointed by the format as pure advertisement (as opposed to the acceptable advertising undertone of other conferences). I was disappointed by the speakers' skill, or lack thereof (I am no professional, but I've done my share of presentations and I'm sure that I could have done better than most of them), and by their lack of technical expertise (of course, there were notable exceptions).
The buffet was great, though.
Konrad on March 5, 2008 6:10 AMDude... you are playing the wrong games if you think gambling is boring. Try playing craps at a full or almost full table. It is fast moving and exciting... also trying to stay ahead of the game is fun. At least to me.
Black jack and slots... those are boring.
Poker is fun too, because someone with skill can win, the odds aren't against you... but I don't think I'm good enough yet to play in a casino.
BOb
Bob Archer on March 5, 2008 6:45 AMI think the sales pitch is kinda wasted. Not only has it already started, but its sold out (according to the website).
> Come and see how *.net* was used to turn the world's best *MS-DOS
> game* into a unique web experience.
Civilization? I suppose it wouldn't be tough to do, but the licensing would be problematic.
What I'd *like* to see done is Master of Magic. It was sort of Civilization with fantasy units and magic. A lot of people loved it, and no Windows version in any form was ever made, so its basicly lost.
>I think the sales pitch is kinda wasted. Not only has it already started, but its sold out (according to the website).
Clearly he knows that which is why it was just a friendly opinion - not a sales pitch.
Danny on March 5, 2008 6:53 AMjeff, how dare you compare world of warcraft to gambling? one is a self-destructive addiction that makes you lose focus on life, harvest false hope, isolate family members and lose real friends, the other one is gambling.
speaking of mix08. i'm very disappointed at the result of the mix08 restyle contest.
<a href="http://visitmix.com/2008/restyle/">http://visitmix.com/2008/restyle/</a>
jin on March 5, 2008 7:34 AMHi, I've just begun to read your site. Why is there no easy way (that I'm aware of) to read past entries? When I scroll down to the bottom of the main page entries and click on 'Read Older Entries', I'm taken to a single entry display! And then my only other option is to 'Browse All Entries', which is just date/title display, and I still have to load a new page for every entry I want to read. What gives?
Levi on March 5, 2008 9:04 AMI certainly hope MIX's website isn't the future of the web. :P
Bobby on March 5, 2008 9:17 AM@jin: uhh which is which?
Nicolas on March 5, 2008 9:25 AMUm, Levi, click *Browse All Posts* at the top-left of this page. That should get you what you want.
Mark on March 5, 2008 10:43 AM2 billion pixels, huh? Very nice
Andrew Norris on March 5, 2008 11:13 AMExtremely Impressive!!!
Lloyd on March 5, 2008 11:16 AMSo I enjoyed your WoW twitter (never wanted to pay for the crack myself).
Then I got to thinking:
Imagine an Excel spreadsheet, but in 3D, and with massive numbers of people editing it at once. That's our world!
It all depends on your frame of reference :). The world's excel spreadsheet can't be directly edited by humans (yet?). In that respect maybe playing WoW doesn't sound a lot different from living life, some people just choose to live theirs in a world where they can always be heroes... I can see the draw, in this world heroes are few and far between.
So, drinking, a movie, gambling, and some company will reveal the fact that their marketing department likes pretending to be mysterious to "create curiosity" about their products.
I've heard better sales pitches.
Bob, I think your fun glands are malfunctioning.
Jeff Atwood on March 5, 2008 4:10 PMNah, my fun glands are fine - and hey, if you can get your boss to pay you to go have fun, that's cool too.
But let's be honest here, you're entirely right - it's all about fun and selling stuff to people who'll like it because they heard about it while having fun, and not necessarily being entirely sober.
And for all I know I may actually have defective glands, but for some inexplicable reason I actually prefer my fun with less marketing. And if I must attend sales presentations while mildly hungover I don't expect to pay for the priviledge. Weird, isn't it?
Silverlight - Epic Fail
S
http://www.vertigo.com/mix.aspx - Silverlight did not work on all three browsers I currently use (FF3 b3, IE7, Safari 3.0.4)
What good is this silverlight if after installing it and restarting browsers it doesn't work (gave a Js error in IE7 and "Get microsoft silverlight" in FF and Safari)
I Osis on March 5, 2008 8:13 PMCome and see how *Vertigo* was used to turn the world's best *internet browser* into a unique web experience. This session will cover how this new silverlight 2 feature makes it possible to *actually use silverlight in Opera* and much much more.
^ I Think i won. I wish they would hurry the fuck up and support Opera, its pissing me off.
Phillip Haydon on March 5, 2008 9:49 PMIm still waiting for Expression Web to get PHP support....
Ivan on March 5, 2008 11:39 PMI Osis, do you have any previous betas of Silverlight installed? The only time I've seen this behavior is on developer machines where some previous alphas or betas of Silverlight interfere with installing the current version.
Jeff Atwood on March 6, 2008 12:13 AMOsis,
It's a beta ... which means if you have any of the previous betas, uninstall and install the newest via the browser. Take a chill with the "Epic Fail" crap.
John Walker on March 6, 2008 12:24 AMIE8 Breaks your site layout big time!
Will on March 6, 2008 1:24 AMI think you need vista to get silverlight working proberly. Just buy all the latest micorsoft stuff and you should be able to run it. Hey that is why they made silverlight afterall. :)
I can get it to work with IE7 on Windows XP. Silverworks works sometimes with Firefox2.
I might need to uninstall the old silverlight versions? Where does it say that? Because it is beta you automatically know that it needs to be un-installed? A lot of people dont do that. Seems like it does something in firefox, the browser is working but the silverlight part is failing somewhere?
I still cant get the WPF development stuff to work with Windows XP, but I am happy we have a machine with Vista so I can do it on that box. But sadly the IIS is not working on the Vista, so .. well nevermind. Sorry for spamming this blog, I just regret that I wasted my 6 years with being a .net developer.
Peter Palludan on March 6, 2008 4:12 AMMark, I can only assume you didn't actually read my comment since I mentioned 'browse all posts'. The problem is it's only a list of the articles and still doesn't present an easy way to actually read more than one article per click (and a wack of scrolling).
Levi on March 6, 2008 1:00 PMImagine ,Excel as a 3D gaming engine,with massive numbers masochistic developers coding at once.May be we can port World of Warcraft to Excel !.
We know the technology is there. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3563/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php
Pradeep on March 6, 2008 2:15 PM=(
I wish I didn't live so far away... would love to attend one of this things...
| Content (c) 2009 Jeff Atwood. Logo image used with permission of the author. (c) 1993 Steven C. McConnell. All Rights Reserved. |
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