Here’s a community interview from our Italian Visual Basic MVP Alessandro Del Sole, this time with Lucian Wischik, a Developer on the team. I’m just getting to know Lucian but he is a very interesting and bright person who is just a pleasure to talk with (I hope he starts blogging a lot more). When I told him that out Italian community had sent some interview questions over he responded to them in Italian! I feel totally lame that he speaks fluently and I don’t, although he had the benefit of actually living there… oops I don’t want to ruin the interview.

Anyway, please check out the Visual Basic Team page for pictures and bios and visit the home page of the Visual Basic Developer Center for a link to all these interviews as well.

Here’s the interview with Lucian (in English and his own Italian):

1. Nice to meet you! Let’s begin by asking a simple question: Where are you from?

· Hello! I’m Lucian Wischik. I was born in Australia and lived in England for twenty years.

· Ciao! Mi chiamo Luciano. Sono nato in Australia. Scusa mi per il mio italiano… non l’ho parlato per cinque ani.

2. We all know that you’re a Visual Basic team member, but can you tell us something more about your role inside the team?

· Spec maintainer. Also developer – implementing new features and bug-fixing.

· Programmatore! Creo nuovi features, e faccio lo bug-fixing.

3. What’s your favorite Visual Basic feature, in the language and/or the IDE? What makes VB a great programming language?

· It’s hard to pin it down. Once I used to be a C# and C++ programmer. But, working with VB, each day I’m reminded that there’s something uniquely pleasing about it. Most of all, VB is the integration between the IDE and the language — this is what made it great 20 years ago, and it’s still going today, and it’s beneficial for new programmers and experts alike. In its guts, VB has already anticipated to some extent modern scripting languages. And, more and more, VB gives practical fun programming that’s founded on solid modern computer science theory – “monads” gave us linq, also “list comprehensions”, and comega/xduce gave us xml literals. It makes me excited about the future of VB.

· É dificile identificarlo. Una volta ero un programmatore di C# e C++. Ma, lavorando con VB, ho ogni giorni il senso che sia qualcosa specialment piacevole con VB… Soppratutto, VB è l’integrazione tra IDE è linguaggio: era questo il triomfo di VB venti ani fa, e continua oggi, e aiuta i nuovi programmatori ed i esperti insieme. Dentro il cuore del linguaggio, VB ha già anticipato (per esempio) i moderni scripting languages. E, sempre più, VB si basa su dimostrati, solidi concetti teorici – “monads” ci hanno dato linq, anche “list comprehensions”, comega/xduce ci hanno dato xml literals. Sono molto eccitato per il futuro di VB.

5. What brought you to Microsoft, and how long have you been working there?

· I was a university researcher in Italy with a small group working on concurrency. Five years ago I got a phone call from Redmond asking me to come do the same work at Microsoft, so I did!

· Era ricercatore à Bologna per un pò, con Professore Cosimo Laneve. Ricordo che una volta in inverno, il primo giorno di neve, egli avuto bisogna di visitare la famiglia à Puglia. Ho devuto scusarsi ai suoi studenti. “Boungiornio” gli ho detto. “Laneve non c’è oggi!” Cosimo era un professore splendido. Sono arrivato à Microsoft cinque ani fa.

6. What’s it like working for Microsoft?

· Stimulating. I get to work with intelligent and fun people. The company has generous benefits, and America is still a land of opportunity.

· Stimolante. Lavoro con gente intelligente e divertente. La firma ci da compensi generosi, e America è ancora una terra d’opportunità.

7. Tell us something about your life outside of the office (how do you like to spend your free time, when you go out, when you’re at home, etc.)?

· Here in Seattle I’ve discovered a passion for sailing. I bought a small sailboat, and dream of one day sailing the Northwest Passage.

· Qui à Seattle ho scoperto una passione per le barche a velo. Ne ho comprato uno, e sogno di navigare il Northwest Passage.

8. Who is your favorite musician?

· Bach, Morricone.

9. What’s your favorite food?

· Buffalo Mozarella.

· Mozarella di buffola.

10. Have you ever been to Italy?

· Yes!

· Si!

Thank you very much for taking time to answer these questions and telling us more about you!