Dynamic Languages, Microsoft, and me
20. Oct, 2006 
62 Comments
I’ve decided to stage a friendly takeover of Microsoft. As of January, 2007 my new work address will be Building 42 at Microsoft. I’ll be working in the CLR team to help bring the love of dynamic languages out to the statically typed heathens 
This all started back in August when I was dragged into various back rooms at OSCON and Lang.Net and presented with an offer that I could not refuse. At some point in your life, you realize that you have an opportunity to affect some real change in the world. RubyCLR was one way to affect that change, and thanks to the gracious support of my partners Barry Gervin, Dave Lloyd, and Bruce Johnson over at ObjectSharp, I was able to give folks a glimpse of what is possible. Thank you all for your generosity and your friendship.
However, my platform and reach at ObjectSharp is limited. We’re a consulting company and while we do use Ruby to deliver value to our customers, it’s literally one developer at a time (hi Andrew!) It’s a whole other thing to work at a platform company whose reach extends out to millions of developers. That’s a remarkable opportunity, and a unique privilege.
This is why I’m uprooting my family and moving all the way across the continent and to a different country. The timing is right since our kids are young enough that they won’t even notice (I was the same age as Matthew when I moved to Canada from Hong Kong). A big public thank-you to my wife, Carolyn, who has supported me since day one. I love you.
So, now begins the next phase of my life. I know that some of you have questions, but I’m somewhat limited in what I can say about what comes next. I hope you can understand if my answers are somewhat evasive or vague. I merely ask for your patience as all will become apparent in due time. It really will. I wouldn’t have put my family on a one-way flight to Seattle if that weren’t the case …
What’s going to happen to RubyCLR? It’s in reasonably good shape now, and I’m actively looking for people to help drive that project. There is still a couple of months before I start at Microsoft, so please contact me if you’re interested in helping out. The source code is released under the MIT license, so you are free to do with it as you wish if you don’t like the direction the project is taking.
What am I going to do once I get to Microsoft? This is the part where I’m going to have to be evasive and vague. I can tell you what I’m not going to be doing: I’m not going to stop blogging, I’m not going to leave the Ruby community, and I’m not going to do evil things. I see my mission at Microsoft as helping to make developers happier; to give them tools that make programming fun. That’s why I program-I enjoy programming. I like to use tools that put a smile on my face. Perhaps what I’ll be making at Microsoft will put a smile on your face too. Just be patient …
If you’re at RubyConf this weekend and you’d like to talk in person about my move, make sure you come over to say hi. I’m the guy with the giant camera in the front row.
Super Congratulations John !
Sweet and Congrats! Just don’t give them Zell2j or Vbat. Too many years of hard work.
Congrats! it will give you an excellent experience.
Maybe you will work for google after that and work in the AI department and win a lot of monney!!
Great stuff! And HAML support would be awesome…
Congratulations! Make sure you join the Canucks at Microsoft alias, it definitely brings a unique perspective to the job
Congrats on your new job at Microsoft. Hope you adapt quickly to your new work environment. Changing companies can be really stressful, so good luck!
You missed one thing, though. C#, VB, C++ — they’re not based in building 42…
John: I just read about JRails (in the transcript from Charles Nutter’s talk on Second Life about JRuby) between my last comment and this one… is that your way of saying “yes you can do that with RubyCLR but you’ll need to spend lots of time and be as smart as they are to get it working”?
(P.S. to my last comment: I should add that I’m pretty much assuming that what you’ll do at Microsoft will be along the same lines as RubyCLR, and that you’ll be furthering the same ends, even if you’re not actively continuing the RubyCLR project.)
Good luck with RubyCLR. I wish you the best, and a great Microsoft career.
Congrats John! I heard Building 42 was really nice:)
All the luck in taking over building 42 and then Microsoft
msn nickleri
Sweet and Congrats! Just don’t give them Zell2j or Vbat. Too many years of hard work.