This Week: Joe Nalewabau, Red Nose Day, Windows 7 .NET wrappers, free MVC chapter

Dan,

Are you sad?  You didn't seem quite as enthusiastic about today as your normally do.  You seemed down or upset about something.  None of my business, but I'd send that "free hugs" guy to you if I could.

Also, in response to those Windows 7 APIs, I think it's rather disappointing that this stuff doesn't make it into the .NET Framework by default.  Microsoft pushes the .NET technologies at every conference like koodaide, and it's very yummy, but when it comes to interoperating with the OS, we are forced to wait unitl someone writes a wrapper?  Does that make sense to you?  "Here is our new OS, but you can't do anything with it until we wrap it up for you, but if you know C++, enjoy"

Why isn't there paraody between teams to ensure that on launch day, everything you can do in C++ with Windows you can also do in .NET?  Is it really that hard to do?  Do you guys not trust .NET or you feel that C++ is superior, that is the impression I get.  I don't understand why the Vista Bridge is a separate project and not part of the Framework.  It feels half baked and a little neglectful to me that in order to include something like a Task Dialog or a Command Link I have to do COM interop.  It would seem more natural to me that a button would have a style property, you set it to "CommandLink" and tada you get extra functionaity and it shows in the designer.  I find it weird that things like the Scenic Ribbon aren't in the .NET Framwork but are in MFC (a UI technolgy that is almost twenty years old).  I know I can buy it from a third party, but I know I wouldn't buy a tab control from one, so why would I buy the Scenic Ribbon?

Please forgive my ignorance, I'm not a Microsoft employee and I have no idea how hard some of this stuff is to include, but I hope my point was well recieved.   I just feel like if your Joe-WinForms or Joe-WPF and want to write a database app your in good standing, but if you want to make it look good, or use things like search and organize you SOL or you need a Ph.D. in COM Interop.  Maybe I need a hug

Lastly,  the race car thing is the coolest thing ever, and I'm so happy it wasn't on an iPhone.  I wonder, will windows mobile ever get as good as the iPhone or BlackBerry?  It seems that Microsoft is wading the water before they jump in.

Cheers!