Conversation with scientist, engineer and database legend Jim Gray

This episode features industry luminary, Anders Hejlsberg. Before coming to Microsoft in 1996 he was well noted for his work as the principal engineer of Turbo Pascal and the chief architect of the Delphi product line. At Microsoft he was architect for the Visual J++ development system and the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). Promoted to Distinguished Engineer in 2000, Anders is the chief designer of the C# programming language and a key participant in the development of Microsoft’s .NET framework. In this show, Anders is joined by a surprise guest.
This episode of “Behind the Code” is hosted by Barbara Fox – former senior security architect of cryptography and digital rights management for Microsoft.
“Behind the Code” with Jim Gray to be released March 2006
Comment removed at user's request.
AdityaG wrote:I can't download the video... it just sits at connecting to download.microsoft.com
The best part was when Anders said "When you don't code (get your hands dirty) you tend to become one of those architect who thinks everything is possible"
Minh wrote:Awesome show. I find myself smiling through out the show. One question I like to ask Anders is -- how did he manage to avoid something that'd claimed so many other MS engineers -- Starting a sentence with "so." Conscious decision?
My favorite data structure is also a queue, but blocking and bounded. I just posted a Bounded Queue and a Pipe based on the Q. The bounded queue internally uses a LinkedList<T>. The linked list has a small perf disadvantage on adds because it needs to wrap the T in a LinkedListNode. However, adds and removes are constant time and the queue always only contains Count items and never needs to grow or shrink by using Array.Copy as default Queue does. Also this queue is double-ended so you can add remove from either end. That gives you a form of priority queue for free also. Check it out in the Sandbox for the project. The Pipe shows using it like a NetworkStream for an authentication.
He is Bruce Lee of Western world.
As Bruce Lee had stolen (?) skills from Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, and Fencing, etc. and made simple, fast, powerful martial art JitKun-Do, Mr. Hejlsberg has made things clearer for us. He is the star of this geeky world.
Did you guys see the data structure diagram which Mr. Hejlsberg drew in this show? (two thumbs up!)
I anticipate he will transform SQL into his C# way!
Hooray for Mr. Hejlsberg!
staceyw wrote:"I still contend that we can do better than the current set of data structures out there. The concept of a linked list is inherently flawed no matter where you stick the pointers. "
How so?
Excellent Video. It's so great to hear about Anders' past and to know his ideas.
skatterbrain wrote:Maybe it's just me, but from some angles he sure looks like an older Mike Myers.
Really interesting video, anyway I do not know why do those people on the show "behind of the code"treat hime like being more famos than Bill Gates however this men is genius one, but his work as far as i know is not as famous as Bill's work is ?. Althought this is my judgmen about the video I can't cut out that Anderson I hardly belive that In that time He did a great job building up TURBO PASCAP and so on,but for the moment the product that Bill is building up are incratible, those products are very adecuate for the market.
Great Video
By Liridon Shala
Many programmers certainly have fond memories of the yellow
and blue IDE, where drop down menus were made of characters.
I am curious of how the C# team will face the challenge of
a growing language. Someone in the assistance mentionned
the creeping of functionnal programming inside C#. For example,
LISP initially designed to be very simple and homogeneous,
has then evolved into a 1200 pages standard. And this standard,
besides being "functional-oriented", had imperative constructs,
and object oriented constructs. C++ starting from its low-level
origins also has grown into a thousand pages standard.
The C# team actually did a great job at designing a homogeneous
language, but the idea of providing one path for one problem
will have a hard time living through the growth of the language.
As eventually there always comes a situation where the programmer
needs freedom, the choice might be between spawning new simple
languages, or keeping on growing. So far the number of available
languages, only for MS gives a clue of the extent of the problem.
(And this is not a negative comment).
Back in the early 80's the DOD realized they had tens of programming
languages being used internally, so they decided to come up
with a unification aka ADA. But that did not remove the need for
various types of languages. In the 60's AI was supposed to be
implemented before the end of the century. And declarative programming
has been a promise since the 40's.
I think the advances with XML are really great, but as someone wrote in
another post, it might be a good idea to have a declarative layer,
and an imperative/object oriented layer.
So hurry slowly toward fully declarative languages.
Also there is much greatness in .net. Although C# and .net are tightly
coupled, programming for .net provides a very homogeneous set of
programming experiences for all the supported languages. This
factorization favors improvements across a variety of languages,
each with its own flavor, but iteratively improving each others.
Looks like a powerful leverage for evolution...
(And still providing lots of freedom for specific classes of problems)
This eco-system oriented growth of the languages is IMHO something
where Java definitely fell short... Well I mean the initial idea,
as there is a J#.net
As Anders said: Keep inventing...
Awesome video - I admire Anders immensely.
I recognised Gregor Noriskin at the end with the great question about declarative/functional features creeping into C# and OOP just becoming a "feature" rather than the be-all and end-all. This is a fascinating time i.e. there is a lot of cross-pollination
happening in the language space right now.
If I'm honest though I don't like the format of these shows. Don't get me wrong; the content is first rate but I found the interviewer very irritating and the set/audience is not necessary at all.
Tim Scarfe
Can't download or stream; most likely, the media file is missing from the page. Thanks.
I want to download the media files ...
Michael
Concur with Tim Scarfe:
>> If I'm honest though I don't like the format of these shows. Don't get me wrong; the content is first rate but I found the interviewer very irritating and the set/audience is not necessary at all.
----------------------------------------------------
No offense Barbara. I think you'd be very attractive w/ a bit of hair & some makeup. This ain't a dig; hope I'm not canned!
Thanks for the link Lexis; Tho it was also viewable from Dr. Dobb's, curious why the video was pulled from Channel 9.
I am not able to view this video. I get a pop-up saying launch application, I do that and I see media player trying to open some file and failing. Too bad.
How about this: http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/2/5/9/9/5/1/Behind_The_Code_2_512k.wmv
Enjoy
C