What We Learned From You at the PDC

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Thanks to everyone who stopped off to talk to us at our booth at the PDC. My team is in the process of collating our notes and coming up with action plans for implementing some of the ideas you recommended. Here are the top five bullet points I got from talking to you:

  • Users don't tend to pay attention to which SDK they use. As long as search and filtering work correctly, they don't pay attention to where they get the content. This is true whether offline or online, current releases or older releases. Users want all SDK information amalgamated into one SDK, without concern for where it comes from or what internal Microsoft machinations might produce separate SDKs. When pressed for which SDKs they use, a few people mentioned MSDN.
  • Users like the idea of being able to download dynamic updates to their documentation as long as they have the ability to choose not to download an update. When asked if they liked a Windows Update system, an RSS system or another system, people shrugged their shoulders. Just make it available, seemed to be the message.
  • Along those lines, users want to be able to keep older versions of documentation if they'd like. Perhaps they could archive older documentation to an archive directory. One user in particular mentioned that he hates to see old and useful information disappear. This is perhaps less a problem for us than other teams.
  • Talked to at least a half-dozen people who weren't aware that our SDKs even exist. Several people asked how they could get started with WPF. I directed them to the WinFX redist, our online docs, and the MSDN DevCenter. I gave each of them my card, asking them to let us know of any problems they saw. WPF can clearly be our engine to help move people over to WinFX and Vista.
  • Search in the SDK docs continues to be problematic. Again, this may be more an issue for teams other than ours. One user, for instance, mentioned the eternal problem of WinCE docs appearing when searching for Windows APIs. I wish we could get at this in a way that doesn't involve just filtering.

I also saw a lot of buzz around Windows Vista and especially around Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly code-named "Avalon". I can't wait to play with WPF myself; now that I've seen it in action, I'm anxious to use it.

Oh, and there are some FAQs available at Tim Sneath's blog that include links to presentations, downloads, keynotes and more great developer content.