Channel 9 Video Request

Channel 9 team, can we also have a going deep video on web based software architecture, how to look out for scalability, security ... I know you guys cover some of it when you meet with different product teams but a complete video dedicated to this issue would be awesome. Being a software company Microsoft would want to hold back certain secrets but I am sure there would be a lot that you guys would want to share.

It would be fun to learn how Channel 9 itself was designed / architected. What were the hurdles the team had to face, what are the recurring problems the team has to go through. How the site is managed / maintained. What design decisions that were made initially that the team isn't very happy about and vice versa.

Thanks,
Vaibhav

vaibhavkamath wrote:

It would be fun to learn how Channel 9 itself was designed / architected. What were the hurdles the team had to face, what are the recurring problems the team has to go through. How the site is managed / maintained. What design decisions that were made initially that the team isn't very happy about and vice versa.

Thanks,
Vaibhav

You're assuming the Channel 9 team might want to air their dirty laundry in public!

I get the impression that Channel 9's core code base wasn't designed - it sort of "grew" out of code that started off as IBuySpy portal and, as a result, is spaghetti-like and hard to maintain (but, admittedly, I may be misinterpreting conversations I overheard at PDC!). Given the number of times I get a .NET error screen or performance has suddenly screamed to a halt I don't think an interview would necessarily reveal best practices for architecture, although I'm sure if they were allowed to be honest, there would be some important lessons to be learnt on design and mistakes that need to be avoided.

It's interesting that of the handful of "showcase sites" listed on the new Community Server 2.0 site Channel 9 is one of them! I think it's a thin line in marketing between "uses some of the code from Community Server and a LOT of hand-crafted code and mods" and "uses Communuty Server out of the box". Admittedly Rob Howard had a hand in the code of both Channel 9 and Community Server 2.0 but I think that to say Channel 9 is "built on Community Server 2.0" is stretching it a fair bit.

Hopefully someone from Channel9 will be along soon to confirm/deny what I'm saying.

(For the record I'm using Community Server myself and love the 2.0 version, but admittedly I haven't really delved into the code and a lot of that "love" comes from its cheap price - looking forward to purchasing a license in a few weeks and testing out the "blog by email" feature).

I totally agree, I think no one would want show off their dirty laundry until and unless there are more positives than negatives in their design. Now that you mention it, they could interview the Community Server team. Robert has done that in the past where he has interviewed teams from outside of Microsoft. I would however like to see what someone from the Channel 9 team has to say.

Thanks,
Vaibhav

I'd just like to point out the ironic humor involved here.  One of the biggest software company in the world's newest technologies (ASP.NET), on the foremost site designed for evangelizing, developing, and providing feedback specifically on .NET platforms, wants to develop a more "sane" approach.  Anyone else find this moderately amusing?

I understand that.  I was simply pointing out that I found it humorous there'd be any (acknowledged) problems at such a site. No shame or insult intended, and I certainly wasn't attacking the technologies.