I'm A VB: Michael Becht

· How long have you been using VB?

I think it was VB.3 that I started with. As I recall you weren’t even able to connect to a DB back then. Its amazing how much I’ve had to discard over the years as VB evolved into its current rendition.

· What industry do you work in?

I’m currently unemployed because of the downturn of the automotive industry. Things are xtra-tuff here in Michigan.

· How big is your development team?

I worked at a Tier 1 automotive supplier as the one person software support department which handled anything related to computers.

· What kind of apps do you most commonly build?

I was an autocad developer and wrote hundreds of routines for the 2D and 3D design environment.

· What’s the most interesting app you’ve ever built?

Ball-n-Stock was my claim to fame and was used in every department. All the company partners also used it thru the web services I developed.

· Please tell us about an app that you’re working on at the moment.

I’m currently writing an upgrade replacement program to Ball-n-Stock using WFP and Silverlight along with a few other goodies to keep my skills up to speed just in case. Plus I don’t have anything else to do.

· What other technologies do you most commonly use?

ASP.NET, ADO.NET SQL Server, WPF, Silverlight, Blend among others but after its all said and done I’m still a VB.

· What are some of your favorite VB features?

I can’t put a finger on any one feature because they all blend into one great product. I have to mention that I’m very happy to see all the VB How-Do-I Videos that are appearing. Good stuff.

· What do you like most about VB as a programming language?

Its ease of use when working with the office suite. I’ve never had any problem developing any type of appliction that was required to do the job. If only the XNA group would get with the progam and make it so that we wouldn’t have to dabble with C# to play with XBox.

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