10 things we learned from Scott Hanselman’s AMA 🧠 💬
Scott Hanselman needs no introduction. He’s a web developer who has been blogging at hanselman.com and other blogs for over a decade. He joined Microsoft 10 year ago and has been contributing to multiple projects at Microsoft (private and open source) projects.
Here are a few things we learned from his “Ask me anything” session on Hashnode yesterday.
“Open by-default” Microsoft 🌟
Microsoft’s approach to the open source kingdom has changed tremendously in 2017. Visual Studio Code and some other products are rated as developers’ favorite products of the year 2017.
So is this the right time to work at Microsoft?
Scott Hanselman: I came here 10 years ago specifically to open source as much as I could. While the first 7 or 8 years were difficult, recently it’s become extremely easy to open source things at Microsoft. I would even say that things are now “open by default,” which is huge compared to closed by default. We have people who used Macs as their main machine full time, as well as people who work exclusively in Linux. It’s definitely a good time for open source in Microsoft. (Source)
3 qualities of a good programmer
Linda asked a very interesting question to Scott. “What according to you are the 3 most important qualities of a good programmer.” Here’s what he has to say:
1. Systems Thinking
2. Patience/Kindness
3. Communications skills — both oral and written
C# and WebAssembly 💣
Without doubt, this is a deadly idea. Do you think more languages will compile to wasm in the near future?
I think everyone will compile to WASM in the future. There are already prototypes of C# doing this (Blazor). — Scott
Will 🌍 web development vanish in the coming years?
Absolutely not, I have always said that the open web will win. I think with the new discussion of PWAs being built into Windows and the rise of Electron, we’ll see that the web is — and will be — stronger than ever. — Scott
ES6/JavaScript more important than .NET? 😕
Question: I am approaching 2 years as a full-stack .Net dev (with Angular 2 and Knockout front-end). What would you spend the next 2 years learning if you were me?
I’d get as deep into JavaScript/ES6 as possible. I think vanilla JS is more important than the frameworks on top of them. — Scott
Advice to 20 yr old Scott Hanselman 👊
It’ll be fine. Relax. Be more flexible. Shut up.
— Scott (Source)
Inspiration behind the book — Relationship Hacks
I see a lot of people in “mixed” relationships that think that techies can talk a certain way to regular folks. Those communications challenges are very common so I thought I’d write up how my wife and I move past them.
— Scott
The most difficult thing in an open source project
Getting people to use it. Writing docs. Having more than one person work on it. — Scott
Why Investment Banks don’t use .Net and C#?
When I was working in banking there was a lot of .net and C#, especially on the East Coast. I’m not seeing a massive move to the JVM. Happy to chat about this on twitter if you can give some links.
I’m happy with using .net because it lets me write code that will run effectively anywhere. I did my time with Java in the 90s. I haven’t spent much time with Kotlin.
— Scott
Does Microsoft spy on people? 🤔
Not that I know of, and I’ve been here over 10 years.
— Scott (Source)
And more interesting facts…
I tried picking up the top 10 interesting questions and answers from the AMA. There are more than 75 discussions. Read the full AMA here.
Do you want to ask questions to Scott? Head over to his profile on Hashnode and ask a direct question. 🍺
