.NET 4.5 is on my way

.NET 4.5 is on my way

And I mean it. Months ago I was proposed to do one of the things I have always wanted to do in my life: write a book.

And I said YES – to write a .NET 4.5 Book (in fact at the beginning it was a Silverlight book but with the latest Microsoft apathy for what has been named its best creation ever… finally we opted for a .NET 4.5 book).

It was a bit of foolishness because the how wide is the topic (and the effort), but also I decided to take action, step forward and take the chance to do something cool. I accepted :).

Anyway I have done a lot of .NET aspects and touched practically all the flavors of .NET in my professional life.

And I remembered that quote that I personally love of “Life is a daring adventure – or nothing”, from Helen Keller (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Keller ). which my friend MA Garcias is making me remember from time to time.

What I didn’t know is that at the middle of writing it my life would change (see http://silverlightguy.com/2012/09/22/a-new-life/) and all my clients when notified of my change kindly asked me to finish all the projects before moving on to Switzerland…

Oh my…

I guess that May 2012 is the month I have worked more hours in all my life, closing three projects for three different clients, all scared of me not being able to finish everything in time and pulling me.

Felt god. Got tired. Finished everything. Felt better. Moved on.

Meanwhile, I did nothing regarding the book… and when I arrived to Switzerland I had a whole new world to “setup and configure”, get used to it, to the new work and well, for a month and a half could not do much…

But I moved on, adapted, got everything solved and my publisher, Packt publishing, was quite understanding of my situation and supported that “time off” as a necessity…

Thanks Rashmi and Packt Publishing for your understanding!!! That is really appreciated!! It has definitely been a bumpy road but a worthy one of traveling with such a great team as you… so Thanks!!

This weekend, if the stars do not fail me, I am finishing the book – at least the drafts will be, pending some revision work – and the main and most complicated part of this book will be over…

It’s been a long road, looking for inspiration, for the most important things to say, how to say them and make them as practical and knowledge–full as possible. I really believe the book is a high quality one and will truly deliver very valuable information in a very short time. And in a very practical way.

So, hopefully I will finish it this weekend… and see it soon on somebody else’s hands. That would make me very happy; see others benefiting from my creativity and work.

After this book is finished I will translate it to Spanish as I have written it from the start in English and for this I have had a good friend of mine, Jesus Salillas, who has an incredible level of oratory in English. He is an outstanding Speaker, a highly recognized member of the Toastmaster’s international community and an even better photographer. Thanks in advance for your great help and support on this project – I owe you a lunch at Switzerland… and maybe some Gin Tonics, of course!.  The other person who has – and is – helping here is my girlfriend Sandra Saenz, who is helping me with formatting support, design and image processing, thanks a lot for your great support and patience!!

Well, guess you already know why .NET 4.5 is on my way. Hopefully I will find more obstacles worth surpassing in a near future but for now I can tell you that .NET 4.5 is such an outstanding technology which if you are a developer, coder, software architect or just curious in .NET technology, you have to check!!! It’s evolution is simply amazing and the fact of having the “portable libraries” feature makes it worth every learning effort.

I want to give additional thanks also to Layla Driscoll and Leon Welicki for becoming technical reviewers of my book, this is truly an honor. And I have worked hard to be able to deserve it, hopefully the end results will stand up to having such great reviewers. I want to make you know that having you as reviewers has made me do double efforts to make the book as best as possible.
I also would like to give a big thank-you to my friends at Crossfit Zurich who have helped me much in burning my obviously increased levels of stress, and well, in the way, losing quite a few pounds of fat… Thanks Ozi, Roberta and Stephen

Thanks!!!