Sharpen's 2017 World Tour :-)

2017 World Tour

As the title says, Sharpen ended its (unplanned) 2017 World Tour :-) The tour wasn’t only about traveling. It helped Sharpen to evolve and fortify its vision. And as such, it is worth recalling.

Austria

The journey started in Graz, Austria. It was end of October 2017. I was supposed to give my talk on Losing Weight With C# 7+ in the local Microsoft Developer User Group Graz. I did what-is-new-in-C# talks many times before, but this time I wanted it to be different. Simplified, artificial code samples used to introduce new C# features are typical for what-is-new kind of talks. I always found using only such samples to be inadequate and inefficient. Also, out of my experience, developers wasn’t starting to use new C# features after the talk. On the contrary.

I was looking for a tool that will help me relate the new C# features I planned to talk about to the existing code in real-life projects. And not only that. I was searching for a tool that would help developers to keep the pace with the new C# features. A tool that would help them to learn new features quicker and “with a pinch of salt”. Basically, I was searching for the tool that implements all six basic Sharpen features.

My search, worth writing a blog post at least, ended in vain. And that was the moment Sharpen was born.

The very first version used in a public talk was written over the weekend just before the talk. For the record, here is how the Sharpen Result window looked at the time:

The first version of the Sharpen results window

As you can see I didn’t have enough time to implement even a simple tree view.

Croatia

Roughly a month after, in Microsoft Developer User Group Zagreb, Croatia Sharpen was already in a better shape.

The version used in the talk in Zagreb is effectively the same embarrassing version 0.1.0 published on the Visual Studio Marketplace two days after the talk.

India

A week after I was supposed to give my talk on Roslyn at the local Microsoft Developer User Group in New Delhi, India:

Sharpen was presented as one of the two examples of applications developed using Roslyn:

Due to the busy business trip, there was no chance to enhance Sharpen between Zagreb and New Delhi. But even the embarrassing version 0.1.0 was enough to sparkle interesting and inspiring discussions.

Croatia again

After returning from India, I had a chance to give my talk on Losing Weight With C# 7+ at Karlovac Developers Meetup in Karlovac, Croatia and Microsoft Developer User Group Rijeka, Croatia.

This time, the version used in the talk was the freshly released (just few hours before the talk :-)) version 0.2.0:

It’s not About the Traveling

Being invited to give a talk is always an honor. Having opportunity to travel is always a joy :-) But neither of these two motivate me as much as the valuable discussions with fellow developers that happened during this “World Tour”. Each time different, each time inspiring, these discussions helped me to better shape my own views on C# and its features. They helped me as well to better define the Sharpen’s vision. Out of the feedbacks I got, the talks and discussions helped participant as well to learn more about C# and Roslyn.

That’s the reason I enjoy so much combining knowledge sharing and traveling. If you would like me to give a talk on C# or Roslyn at your local developer group or a conference, feel free to contact me via Twitter or on my email (ironcev at hotmail dot com). The farer you are from my place of residence, the better :-)

Epilogue

It’s not about the traveling. But still, it looks to me that traveling and Sharpen will remain deeply interwoven ;-) The version 0.2.0 was mostly written in the bus, while traveling from Austria to Croatia and through Croatia. And the upcoming version 0.3.0 got its first functional incarnation on the plane from Paris to Guadeloupe :-)

Here they are, Sharpen’s C# 7.0 out variables suggestions in action, giving first valuable results somewhere high over the Atlantic Ocean :-)

Sharpen's C# 7.0 out variables suggestions high over the Atlantic Ocean

Last Update: December 30, 2017
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