Microsoft MVP Award

Intro

I'm Peter and this is the RoguePlanetoid Podcast where you will find insights about Microsoft or related platforms and technology, along with so much more whether you are beginner or an experienced professional or just interested in technology. Keep Current, Keep Coding!

Welcome

Welcome to episode twenty-one of the RoguePlanetoid Podcast about the Microsoft MVP Award. Microsoft MVP Award celebrates outstanding community engagement, advocacy and knowledge sharing of Microsoft's products and services. I was proud and honoured to become one of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals with the Microsoft MVP Award for my contributions to the community for .NET and Windows Development in September 2024, which included receiving an MVP Award Kit that includes a crystal base with a disc indicating the award year. You can search for Microsoft MVPs including myself along with finding out more about the Microsoft MVP Award and how to become one yourself at mvp.microsoft.com or check out the link in the show notes.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals Programme

Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals Programme connects technical community leaders with Microsoft who have been recognised for their technical expertise, leadership, speaking experience, online influence and commitment to solving real-world problems. Contributions that can have an impact on becoming a Microsoft MVP include social media posts, writing books and helping others in online communities. Microsoft MVPs can get early access to products and services along with direct communication with product teams within Microsoft, plus other benefits such as a Visual Studio technical subscription and Microsoft 365 subscription.

Microsoft MVP Award recipients receive a letter in recognition of the award saying Microsoft MVPs represent a select group of experts that share a deep commitment to community and willingness to help others, the letter then continues to say, MVPs' efforts enhance people's lives and contribute to our industry's success in many ways, and the letter ends with the following statement, as a recipient of this year's Microsoft MVP Award, Peter joins an exceptional group of individuals from around the world who have demonstrated a willingness to reach out, share their technical expertise with others and help individuals maximise their use of technology.

Microsoft MVP Award contributions that I had been recognised for included mentoring, participation in feedback with the Windows for Developers team, writing Blazor Games including Blazor Emoji Bingo and performing presentations such as How sharing can make you a better developer, Blazor a trail with .NET 8, What is Windows App SDK and Take a Note of XAML with .NET 8. My contributions also included many of the articles and podcast episodes on rogueplanetoid.com along with tutorials, talks and workshops at tutorialr.com and you can check out those links in the show notes.

Journey & Inspiration

Every month for many years I had seen others receive their Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award or each year seen those renewed for another year and it was always an inspiration for me as a developer to do more in the community. So, I felt honoured and proud to receive my own email on the 1st of September 2024 stating that I had been accepted to the Microsoft MVP program, which would allow me to access the many benefits along with opportunities to engage more closely with other Microsoft MVPs. There is a Non-Disclosure Agreement when you receive the Microsoft MVP Award with everything that I've mentioned so far being publicly available information, or what is allowed to be shared with others. Although I cannot share what goes on in the programme itself, I can share more about my journey as a software developer including those who have been inspirational to me in the hope that will help inspire just as I was inspired on my journey as a software developer.

My journey as a software developer began over three decades ago in 1991, with my first experience with programming on the Commodore 64 using BASIC, it was the Terminator 2 Judgement Day edition of the Commodore 64 which covers the topics of robotics and artificial intelligence which are an everyday reality now but not so much back then. It was incredible to turn on the Commodore 64 for the first time and see that blue and white display on my Philips Discoverer television which looks like a space helmet which definitely went with the theme, and started to write my first code to print something on the screen, what we would consider the Hello World example today although I'm not sure what I had it print but almost sure it was my own name printed ad infinitum on the screen. I wrote and tried more few examples, but just the basics, excuse the pun for now, but you could do quite a lot with just sixty-four kilobytes of memory, which is barely enough for a single file on today's computers!

My next step in my journey would be a couple of years later when an unneeded laptop was brought home that was about to be thrown out, which was a Toshiba T-1200 laptop, which sounded more like one of the characters from Terminator 2 Judgement Day than a laptop. It came with two floppy disk drives so you could have an A and B drive, plus you could even divide up the memory and have what was known as a silicon disk on drive C, a primitive predecessor to today's solid-state drives but only when the machine was turned on, but that memory was only 640 kilobytes which although was ten-times as much as on the Commodore 64 it was as Bill Gates never actually said, 640K ought to be enough for anyone! It was more than before and with the machine came MS-DOS 3.30 which you could boot into and with this I could learn about files and at least for the time, more complex things you could do with it compared with the Commodore 64. One important thing this Toshiba T-1200 laptop came with was GW-BASIC and a spiral-bound reference manual and with this unlocked my passion for writing more complex code, such as small text-based games and small applications and for many years was my sole platform for writing code, but I was also learning and developing on my own for things I used on my own.

The world of programming would truly open for me in 1995 when I got my very first PC, which was made by Brother and had sixteen megabytes of RAM, which was a massive increase over the Toshiba T-1200 my many orders of magnitude but not very impressive these days when a modern smartphone is many thousands of times more powerful! This PC helped open more programming possibilities when I was able to get Visual Studio 97 Professional Edition which included Visual Basic 5 with student licencing as there were no free options at the time and cost about £200 in 1997, and I was able to learn little of this at home or in my school although they had Visual Basic 4, but it was a start! Thankfully more help would come thanks to a partnership with a local university which gave me access to the World Wide Web in 1997, it was there able to find resources and help online thanks to many people who gladly shared their own code examples. However, since accessing the internet back then used the phone line at home, I was only able to use it for half an hour per day after 6pm when it was cheaper, also it was slow going when using a 28-kilobit modem which is many thousands of times slower than today's speeds, but it was better than learning on my own as I had been.

It was thanks to that access to internet and the world wide web during those half-hour periods, I was able to find many more examples that helped me learn and was also able to purchase online more up-to-date software with Visual Basic 6 in 1998, and at the same time decided to start my own website on a platform called GeoCities. I wrote my very first line of code for Visual Basic 6 for a tutorial on my website showing how to output Hello World and continued to learn, write and publish tutorials, so that I could learn more but also at the same time help others learn too. Soon I started university, and a new free internet provider called Freeserve had launched so I could continue to use the internet although could use it for a bit longer, and I could also use the internet at university as much as I needed and at a much faster speed thanks to the introduction of broadband. I learned from many other websites covering Visual Basic and was inspired to simplify and share what I knew to allow others to learn on my own website. I did continue to write examples for myself to learn including working on an application that I tweaked and wrote but never got around to releasing but it was a great learning experience that helped add to my knowledge.

University also gave me my first taste of real-world programming thanks to a sandwich course idea where you could go into work for a year, so in the year 2000 to see what programming and working was really like, I selected a position abroad although it wasn't with the programming language I was used to of Visual Basic, but it did give me more experience and helped solidify things I was learning. This experience also highlighted that much of what I was learning at university was out of date and knew I'd have to learn and do more in my spare time to be up to date. It was also my first opportunity to work alongside other developers who helped me understand a few concepts I hadn't quite fully understood, as well as seeing how to write code in a larger codebase. I also learned how to implement custom functionality and even work on one of their product websites. It was during that same year I heard about something new from Microsoft, .NET which would include an updated version of Visual Basic, VB.NET and a new programming language C#, although I would go with VB.NET initially C# would be something I'd switch to in the future.

.NET changed everything but it was something my university couldn't really cover as it wasn't officially released until 2002 which was after I had graduated, but with the final release of Visual Basic .NET I needed to learn this new platform using Windows Forms, so I did this with more tutorials, sharing what I knew but also was inspired by many other developers out there, including Microsoft MVPs of the time who were sharing their knowledge online and helped inspire me to refine and include more in my own resources. However, there were still no free options for .NET developers at the time until 2005 with the release of Visual Basic .NET Express Edition which offered a free development platform and an opportunity to update my tutorials.

I was coding in my spare time but I wanted to work as a software developer, but there weren't any junior positions at the time with companies using .NET in my area in the North East of England, and those that did needed commercial experience and wouldn't count the experience I had gained on my own so I didn't quite find what I was looking for until 2006. This is when I found a part-time job working for an online second-hand bookstore which although didn't use .NET there was an opportunity a couple of years later in 2008 to switch to .NET. That same year I also published many more of my own tutorials that helped me learn more about a new platform that had launched in 2006, Windows Presentation Foundation, which also helped others to learn about WPF. That job was a fantastic opportunity to work completely on my own and come up with my own solutions as well, including develop an offshoot website for a competition that was later retooled into a customer forum where customers could chat together, helping solidify the community that had formed around the website.

In 2010 there was a new technology called Silverlight that had added the ability to develop applications that run on the web and desktop which combined both my interests when it supported Visual Basic .NET, and I ported over some of my old tutorials along with writing new ones. That same year Silverlight also became the basis of a new platform, Windows Phone, which before launch the then-CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer said that every Silverlight developer was now a Windows Phone developer. Although in my case there would be a challenge, Windows Phone at first didn't support VB.NET but used C# instead, so I needed to switch and the first line of C# I ever wrote was for a new set of tutorials where I learned how to develop using C# for this new platform. I quickly got to the point where I could write my own apps for Windows Phone, and was accepted onto the early access programme before Windows Phone came out. I then developed one of the first thousand apps on the platform which brought the Zune Cards from Zune Social to Windows Phone, which was the sharing element of the Zune music experience which was a music service along with hardware from Microsoft. I did this as they had missed this functionality from the initial release of Windows Phone, so I brought it to the platform myself. Little did I know but this app would be the only way to access this functionality throughout the lifespan of the Zune music service on Windows Phone and gained over 333,000 downloads for my app, ZuneCardr.

It was in 2011 when I started to attend a few events locally learning from others delivering presentations including Microsoft employees and Microsoft MVPs. This inspired me to begin presenting with a small presentation about my ZuneCardr app for Windows Phone and was approached by someone there who needed somebody to work on their Windows Phone app. This resulted in me getting a job working on that along with my other job for the online second-hand bookstore, although that did end so the new role took over full time. However, the Windows Phone platform didn't work out and the app was no longer required, so instead was given the opportunity to work on their web platform, this later required a content delivery system so I came up with a way to combine my passion for desktop development using Windows Presentation Foundation with the web technology of ASP.NET to create a template-based platform to produce quality content, this also helped inspire a video version powered by Adobe AfterEffects. This new job allowed me to work alongside experienced .NET and SQL developers who helped inspire me with their knowledge about .NET and SQL databases. This helped me learn more advanced concepts and the job also helped me grow not only as a developer but as a person and helped open another opportunity.

In 2012 since I was earning more money, I had finally saved up enough to pay off my student loan when an opportunity came to attend Microsoft Build that year in Seattle, I decided to spend the money doing that and was the best decision I ever made. I was learning more at the time and sharing what I knew with tutorials about developing for Windows 8 which was the latest version at the time, but going to Microsoft Build would be an opportunity to learn more and speak to those there. It was amazing to be on the Microsoft campus and learn from all the sessions there, and attendees even got a free Surface RT laptop and Windows Phone as it was still around at the time. My whole time there built up my confidence both personally and as a developer and was able to return with a renewed and inspired outlook.

I continued to share what I knew on my website but also started attending more events and doing more presentations. Doing presentations about things I was interested in helped me learn more when I created the demos but also attending presentations from others was useful too. These experiences added to my own knowledge including the way they did their talks that helped improve putting together my own. It was always amazing to be inspired by others and many of them were Microsoft MVPs, I then always wondered if this would be something I would ever achieve in the future myself.

Over the next few years, I continued to learn and progress my career as a software developer, building up my knowledge along with helping those around me and helped me get into more senior roles. This would include helping those around me get started with using .NET and C# with my workshops or just help them understand along with giving them the tools to work on their own, but always being there to help them. I had been helped by just a few over my time as a developer but had experienced those who weren't as willing to help, or worse, so I strived to be better than that. So, no matter what I would go above and beyond what was expected to help others, sometimes without expecting or getting any recognition but feeling pleased when the help I gave allowed many to progress or even start a new direction in their careers and to be an inspiration to them.

More recently I've attended many events where I have seen Microsoft MVPs talk and I learned so much from them and made sure I put in as much effort as possible with my own contributions. These contributions have expanded beyond those initial tutorials to ones on Windows App SDK or workshops on C# or Blazor and talks on a variety of topics around .NET and Windows Development. I've also worked on my website where I publish articles and talk about things on this podcast, but not only that I maintain my own open-source projects, that include Fluent Emoji and Fluent System Icons from Microsoft plus toolkits and packages for Spotify for Developers and Windows App SDK including functionality to build Windows 11 Widgets, which I covered in the last episode.

Conclusion

My main aim has always been to share what I know and make it as easy as possible for people to learn and understand the concepts I have learned myself or have learned from others. I have been inspired by a few people in my journey from work colleagues to people talking about things that inspire them and has helped me on my journey and has culminated with the honour of becoming a Microsoft MVP myself which will help spur me on to do more for the community, but it has always been my aim and hope that I can inspire others to do the same who maybe one day will also be proud to also receive the Microsoft MVP Award.

I want to express my gratitude to those who have inspired and taught me throughout my journey as a software developer. Their support and guidance have been invaluable in helping me reach where I am today. In return, I aspire to inspire and teach others, sharing the knowledge and experiences I have gained. My goal is to help others on their own software developer journey by offering the same encouragement and mentorship I was fortunate to receive.

Inspiration is a key theme for me and has helped shaped me not just as a software developer but as a person, inspiration is something I'll be talking about with others from the North East of England and further afield with what inspires them with my new upcoming podcast, Talking Inspiration, which will be coming soon wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Outro

Thanks for listening to the RoguePlanetoid Podcast where each episode you will find insights about Microsoft or related platforms and technology, along with so much more wherever you listen to your podcasts or at rogueplanetoid.com/podcasts for the RoguePlanetoid Podcast whether you are a beginner or an experienced professional or just interested in technology. Keep Current, Keep Coding!