If you're a developer, you know the feeling - and if you're not, I'm sure you can imagine it: you have just written the most amazing little piece of code, and nobody is there to kiss your feet, praise some deity for your existence and generally worship you in the way you deserve.

I set out to solve this problem by creating a DXCore plugin for Visual Studio. DXCore is a fantastic product to help you bring round Visual Studio to your point of view, in this case by making it a substitute worshipper of your computer programming intellect. With this plugin installed, every time you build a project successfully, Visual Studio will sing your praise, perhaps like this:

Or maybe like this:

Now, while I was working on bending Visual Studio to my will, I found I had to make certain concessions. So I gave VS the right to swear at me when I get something wrong - that way everybody is happy! So when your build fails, VS might show you one of these messages:

Great, isn't it? Instant gratification! Ah, okay, the odd swear word as well, but then you're not supposed to make mistakes after all.

If you want this, here's what you do:

• If you don't have DXCore yet, download it here and install it: http://www.devexpress.com/dxcore (oh yeah - it's free!)
• Download the plugin here: OS_CompilationResult-1.0.0.0.dll
• Drop the plugin dll into this folder (adjust if your installation path is different): C:\Program Files\Developer Express Inc\DXCore for Visual Studio .NET\2.0\Bin\Plugins
• Restart Visual Studio
• If you want to configure the lists of things the plugin says (or you even want to switch it off - what made me say that?), go to the Options dialog (DevExpress menu, Options) and find the page Hinting/Compilation Result

If you have other great ideas what the plugin should do or say, let me know!

October 17th and 18th this year, the VBUG conference 2007 takes place at Microsoft Campus in Thames Valley Park in Reading. Here's the official info PDF about the conference. I'll be speaking there about LINQ as well as WPF, and if you're interested in Developer Express technology, this is the place to be because I'll have a booth there and I'll be ready to demonstrate all the products and answer all your questions. Looking forward to meeting you there!

I just got back yesterday from the Basta! conference in Germany. It was a great event, very busy for me but also lots of fun. My sessions all went very well and I had a great time talking to people at the Developer Express booth. Thanks to everybody who stopped by the booth or came to one of my sessions!

Here's all the content from my sessions (if you attended Basta!, you should also receive a CD shortly with all the session slides and samples):

Power Workshop: .NET 3 - The Game Challenge (314896 bytes)

VB Day - Tipps und Tricks zum DataGridView (544838 bytes)

Dynamische Sprachen mit .NET (298443 bytes)

Bluffers' Guide to C# 3.0 (318172 bytes)

10 coole Sachen, die man mit C# 3.0 machen kann (344387 bytes)

In case you haven't heard about it before, the event takes place on May 23rd at Microsoft Thames Valley Park in Reading. Rafal Lukawiecki, who was voted best TechEd speaker for 7 years running, is the headline speaker. He does two sessions, and he's joined by other interesting speakers like Lorna Brown from Microsoft Research, Mike Taulty and Daniel Moth from Microsoft's development and platform group, and of course the NxtGenUG guys themselves, with John, Richard and Dave responsible for the keynote and the final gameshow and swag giveaway combination. I hesitate listing myself in the "other interesting speakers" category (must be a certain modesty creaping in <g&gt, but I am in fact speaking at the event myself, completing the lineup.

Developer Express is sponsoring the whole thing, so I'll be there in professional capacity as well. I hope to see some of you there - feel free to stop by for a chat or a demo of something from DX!

Here's the link again to the page about the event, where you can register. It's free if you're a NxtGenUG member, otherwise it costs £59.99. I'm sure it'll be worth it either way, for a day of interesting sessions, plus food, swag and the chance to win an XBOX 360. This event is not funded by Microsoft, so obviously there's some cost to cover. If you have any questions to the organizers, feel free to use this email: enquiries@nxtgenug.net

Finally: Another one of Zi Makki's fantastic geek dinners is being organized for the evening before the event. Here's the Wiki page to sign up. Looking forward to seeing you there as well!

Yesterday I did a session on Refactor! at the London .NET User Group, the same talk I submitted for DDD day 3.  Everything went well and I think people really liked the product. I’d like to thank the group for having me as a speaker, even though my presentation was mostly focused on a specific product. Ian asked me to definitely come back and do another talk sometime, so I guess it’s going to happen.

Were you there? Did you like it? Did you think it was horrible? Please feel free to leave comments!