When Opportunity Knocks Answer the DAMN Door!

When people do something for so long they get comfortable.  There is a nice fuzzy feeling you get when you can somewhat expect the events of your day.  Especially in this economy.  That somewhat happened to me.  I have been writing WPF and Silverlight LOB applications for the construction and engineering industry for a long time now.  I was comfortable, and working with great people such as Karl Shifflett.  Things have been nice and stable.  So much that I started building a new home.

Then… opportunity came knocking at my door.  I had the opportunity to be the Product Manager of the XAML products for Infragistics, the world leader in UI/UX development tools.  How cool is that?  Now you may be shouting right about now, “that is a no-brainer”, but remember what I said about getting comfortable.  I was very comfortable and happy where I was.  Also, I am the author of the Extended WPF Toolkit.  Obviously there would be a conflict of interest if I were to except the position.  I couldn’t keep my toolkit and work for Infragistics.  Meaning that I would have to give up my precious baby and all the hard work I put into it over the last  couple of years.  So here I am, comfortable, building a new home, and giving up the Extended WPF Toolkit.  Not such an easy decision now is it?

So what did I decide?  I took the job!  That’s right, I am now the Product Manager of the XAML products for Infragistics.  Why did I choose to take the position after explaining how comfortable I was?  There are actually quite a few reasons.  I was too comfortable.  I needed a new type of challenge.  I didn’t want to wake up one day and realize that I am doing the same thing I was doing 15 years ago.  This may be the case for some of you and you might be completely happy with that, but that is not something I want for myself.

As a bonus, I have been a user of Infragistics controls for a long time now and have always felt that they have the most functional XAML control suite.  If you have ever attended one of my presentations you have probably heard me say just that.  Having said that, their XAML controls also have room for improvement.  If you follow me on Twitter you are aware of that as well.  I will be doing everything I can to make the XAML products sing that blissful song of uncontested AWESOMENESS.  That means that I will be at user groups, conferences, and code camps listening to your feedback, suggestions, and ideas to help Infragistics develop controls that help you develop applications.  So if you happen to see me around be sure to say hello.  Of course, you can always just hit me up on Twitter.

So now you may be asking yourself, “what about the Extended WPF Toolkit?”.  Well, you will have to wait for my next blog post to find out the answer to that question.