Twenty years of .NET - Yay!

Blimey. Twenty years eh? The .NET framework has been part of nearly a third of my life. Highlights for me:

• Going to amazing sessions at Cambridge University and learning all about the new framework from the people that built it.

• Launching the first ever .NET Masters Course at Hull University and delivering a couple of modules for it, including one where we modified the razor open source .NET compiler to make broken programs and then got the students to try and debug their code with it.

• Switching to C# as our teaching language in the department and creating the world famous (in my world) C# Yellow Book.

• Getting into mobile development with the .NET Compact Framework and revelling in being able to create C# code for a mobile platform.

• Exploring the XNA Framework and making the immortal “Cheese Lander” game. Running it on a Zune (because I could).

• Putting .NET programs into teeny, tiny devices using the .NET Micro Framework.

• Running Sliverlight and XNA in a Windows Phone on what is still the most beautiful user interface there has ever been for a mobile platform.

• Using .NET Gadgeteer to make amazing embedded devices, even down to their circuit diagrams. All in Visual Studio with in-device debugging.

• Using ASP.NET to create a web controlled multi-player robot fighting game for Three Thing Game.

• Writing the first Begin to Code book for C# and building an entire UWP environment called Snaps to make it easier to make useful applications quickly.

Here’s to the next 20 years.