Jeff Makes Software

Get the new bits here: http://popforums.codeplex.com/releases/view/60571

If you've never been to Mix, you're missing out on what is arguably one of the best conferences that Microsoft does. I'm not just saying that because I work here... I felt that way before, having been to most of them. The breadth of people and disciplines make it a really exciting event that pushes it well beyond the "Redmond bubble," as I like to call it. You should go.

It has been a ton of work, interrupted over the last two years by unemployment, moving, a baby, failing to sell houses and other life events, but it's really exciting to see POP Forums v9 coming together. I'm not even sure when I decided to really commit to it as an open source project, but working on the same team as the CodePlex folks probably had something to do with it. Moving along the roadmap I set for myself, the app is now running on a quasi-production site... we launched MouseZoom last weekend. (That's a post-beta 1 build of the forum. There's also some nifty Silverlight DeepZoom goodness on that site.)

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you probably know that I tend to develop stuff in a Parallels VM on a Mac. It's how I roll. I like VM's because I can trash them and do really stupid things with beta software. That said, there is a pain point that doesn't seem that well documented when it comes to installing stuff in this scenario.

I was chatting with a friend about why, as much as I would rather not rewrite POP Forums for the bazillionth time, it has actually been a lot of fun, and smooth sailing on MVC. If you haven't been playing along at home, POP Forums is the forum app that I've been maintaining now since the days of ASP.old, in sites like CoasterBuzz. In late 2009, I decided I'd rewrite it from the ground up as an MVC app, but it was slow going after the birth of my child. But when I did find time to write code, especially in the last few months, it went relatively quickly because MVC is so flippin' easy to use. The first beta has been posted to CodePlex.

As promised, I posted a beta build of my forum app for ASP.NET MVC 3. Get the new goodies here: http://popforums.codeplex.com/releases/view/58228

(Channeling that guy from Futurama:) "Good news, everyone!" POP Forums v9 for ASP.NET MVC3 is looking like an actual product right now. I kind of dropped off of the preview releases to CodePlex, but rest assured, it's coming along swimmingly. My plan is to post the first beta in January, probably after MVC3 ships. Stay tuned!

I finally got around to composing some thoughts on what I think about Windows Phone 7, and I posted those impressions on my personal blog. I'll save a few bytes and not repost it here.