I was a guest recently on a podcast called JavaScript Jabber. I enjoy checking out other folks' podcasts and how they run things. I actually talked to the guys about sound quality for about 30 min before the actual recording started.
Their show is about JavaScript exclusively so we spent about an hour talking shop.
Here's a few quotes...yes, I'm quoting myself. On my blog. We talked about Open Source:
I don’t care if it’s not Entity Framework. If you want to use NHibernate or RavenDB or CouchDB, dude, knock yourself out. But ultimately, the dirty little secret about Microsoft is they want you to run on Windows. Okay, well you don’t run Windows. You guys run Macs. Okay. But maybe you’ll discover that Azure is actually a pretty kickass cloud service and you’ll run your stuff on Azure, which is Windows.
We talked about using the client machine more effectively:
I hear a lot of people say, "Hey, we run a web farm and we’ve got about ten machines in the farm and it just can’t handle the load. We’re going to need to buy an 11th machine." Then you talk to them and they’ll say something like, "Well we’ve got 10,000 people hitting the site," and I’ll think to myself, "Okay, you’ve got 10 machines in the farm and you have 10,000 people hitting the sites. All those people have quad processors, even if they have a phone. Are those processors really working hard? You’ve got 40,000 unused processors just sitting there and they’re waiting for your 10 processors to give them angle brackets. What if you gave them curly braces and let them do the work?”
I think the podcast turned out fairly well, although there was a little tension as I felt I was being asked to make declarative statements and defend historical stuff I didn't work on. I think I made it very clear that my opinions about the industry are just that, opinions, and mine alone. That said, we talked about node, JavaScript in general, the way the industry is moving with respect to where work happens (client vs. server) and a bunch of other things.
They called this episode "JavaScript Strategies at Microsoft with Scott Hanselman." Other than the "with Scott Hanselman" part, this title is problematic.
The hosts are fine folks and I had a pleasant time. I think because of the title of the episode this particular episode has been getting a LOT of Tweets and appeared on Hacker News and Reddit for a short while. I wouldn't have chosen this title, myself.
- It implies I have anything to do with JavaScript at Microsoft.
- I don't. I do work in Azure and Web Tools and I often give my opinions on the JavaScript Editor, on what we do with Node, and how frameworks like Ember and Angular will be presented in VS, but I am not in charge of anything. I give feedback just like dozens (hundreds?) of other random folks inside the Big House.
- It implies I'm some how strategic, strategically involved or know strategery within JavaScript at Microsoft.
- Again, JavaScript on the client is the Chakra engine and the IE team. I don't work for them, no do I claim (and never have) to speak for them.
- It implies I'm a spokesman for Microsoft.
- I'm an enthusiast and a teacher, but not a marketer or spokesman. I speak, and yes, I do have this blog, but it's mine and its writings and opinions are mine. I often write about Microsoft stuff because I work there, but I worked elsewhere for 15 years and blogged that also. I blogged and podcast before I got to Microsoft and I will continue to blog and podcast after I leave. I am not my job.
I would encourage you to check out the podcast episode yourself and see what you think. It also includes a complete transcription, which is a nice touch and very important.
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