F# Panel Live from NERD Center, Cambridge, MA
While on the Road Trip, Carl and Richard recorded this panel discussion with Talbott Crowell, Rick Minerich and Richard Hale Shaw on F#. The panel makes a very compelling case for adding a functional language to your toolchest.
Guests:
Talbott Crowell
Talbott Crowell is the Principal Consultant and Instructor at Third Millennium. Third Millennium was formed in 1996 by Talbott Crowell and Pradeepa Siva to offer high quality computer training in web based programming languages and technologies, web development, and contract programming. Talbott began programming in 1980 on the original Apple II platform, and currently works primarily on Solaris 8 and Windows 2000. He has worked as a technical instructor since 1993, and has taught employees at Gillette, Levis, Intel, Sun, Motorola, Rebok, and many more. Talbott holds several certifications such as Sun Certified Java Instructor and Microsoft Certified Professional.
Rick Minerich
Shortly after graduating from UMass Amherst Rick Minerich joined Atalasoft, a Microsoft Platform ISV with an image processing bent located in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Since that time he has worked hard to become a part of both the .NET and greater functional programming communities. This has culminated in the launch of the New England F# User Group and a Microsoft MVP award. Currently, he spends most of his time working on the soon to be released book Professional F# 2.0.
Richard Hale Shaw
Richard Hale Shaw is the CEO of the Richard Hale Shaw Group.
Richard became involved with personal computers in 1982, learned C in 1983, and has been hooked on computing ever since. He got his first job as a software developer in 1983, and helped to launch new versions of HyperAccess for Hilgraeve, Inc. in 1988-89. He was a contributing Editor to PC Magazine and Microsoft Systems Journal (now MSDN Magazine) from 1988-1996, and still occasionally writes for SD Magazine and other software developer journals. It's a popular industry myth that Richard has written a book, although some of the lab books he's written for courseware may seem like books (the 450-page COM BootCamp labs/slides, the 450-page COM+ BootCamp labs/slides, or the 500-page .NET BootCamp labs/slides).
Richard began speaking at conferences in 1990, and over the years he co-created the MSJ and DevWeek Conferences in the UK, and the Visual C++ Conference (now a part of VSLive) where he was conference chair. He was a founding speaker at DevConnections, and has been OS/2, Windows and COM track chair for the Software Development Conference over the years. He's presently .NET Track Chair for SD, where he's responsible for an agenda of 24 sessions given by approximately 10-12 speakers (including himself), and gives a .NET tutorial at SD (he was the first speaker to give hands-on tutorials at SD, starting in 1994). In addition, Richard has been the C#Live! Track Chair at the VSLive! conference.
Richard is a member of the INETA Speaker's Bureau, and has given numerous talks to .NET user groups around the US, Canada and in Europe.
Richard began providing consulting and training for clients in 1990, giving corporate training seminars and workshops since 1993. Today, as CEO of the Richard Hale Shaw Group, he provides on-site training services, teaches and produces public seminars and workshops on .NET (which he personally teaches), XML, and UML, ASP.NET, the .NET Compact Framework and other topics (which he supervises and produces). He created the "Developer BootCamp" notion of intensive, hands-on training where lectures follow hands-on exercises that eschew an academic approach used by others.
Richard's consulting specialties include Architectural and Debug consulting, as well as a variety of problem-solving services to clients of nearly every sort.