Favorite Bloggers

I have added a category to my blog: “Favorite Bloggers.”  What do the blogs in that section have in common?  They have deep knowledge in a subject area that I have a big interest in and they are sharing that knowledge in their blogs.

Before I came to Microsoft, I was a Windows SDK programmer.  (I almost said Win32 but it was before that...)  For some reason, I really took to Windows programming from the very start.  Maybe I'm wired differently than most but I still have a perverse love for the Windows API.  Raymond Chen's blog gives me historical insight into that world.  That's why I like Raymond's blog.

It's no secret that the CLR is destined to be the new Windows API.  And it's way different than the traditional Windows API.  There's a lot to learn.  And Chris Brumme has the knowledge, insight, and knack for explaining how the CLR works better than anyone I've seen.  His blog posts also relates the CLR world to the traditional Windows API world which is helpful for us Windows API guys.  Even though Chris's post are l o n g, I always read them.  And I learn a bunch of new stuff from reading each one.

C++ is one of my two favorite languages.  I learned it from a book called The C++ Primer.  The author of that book, Stan Lippman, worked on the team that invented C++ and did a great job explaining it.  I still find myself using that book after many years of C++ programming.  Microsoft did a smart thing by hiring Stan to work on the team that is updating the Microsoft C++ compiler and the C++ language to support programming for the CLR.  His blog is one of the only early places to learn about the new language and the rationale behind it.

My current job involves working on the Microsoft linker and related tools.  There's no book that explains how the that stuff works in the Windows world.  Luckily, Matt Pietrek has written a bunch of articles on various aspect of how the linker works.  I heard that he doesn't want to write books anymore but maybe they should collect and update all his “Under the Hood” articles and put them out in book form.  Nah, I guess not.  There's probably not a market for it.  I'm sure glad that he researched that stuff and enlightened us through those articles, though.

So there you have it, my initial list of favorite bloggers.