Who are you?

I am an Indian software developer by profession and blogger by passion. I mostly love working on Microsoft technologies. Did I say Microsoft? Oh yes, I love Microsoft Technologies and I am very passionate about those continuous updated technical paths.

My name is Kunal Chowdhury, and I am working as a Technical Lead in an MNC in India. I love my job working as a Software Professional there. My company works mainly on Silverlight, WPF, Windows Phone and other Microsoft technologies. Apart from my job, I write articles based on my learnings for the developers and share them in my blog www.kunal-chowdhury.com and the CodeProject site. I also participate in various Microsoft User Group events as a speaker & organizer.

I am a Microsoft MVP in Silverlight technology, a Telerik MVP and a Nokia Developer Champion. I received those MVP (Most Valuable Professional) awards because of my hard work for the developer community.

What projects have you worked on?

For the last few years I have been mainly working on various Silverlight projects. Yes, you heard the word correct: "Silverlight." Many clients still prefer their applications in Silverlight for various reasons and they are mainly from digital media content publication (whatever that is). I like working on Silverlight, and I like the day-to-day challenges that me or my team face and I still want to work in this field for few more years as long as Microsoft supports it.

Not only Silverlight but I also work on WPF, Windows Phone and Windows 8 (WinRT) projects. When needed, I also help other teams working on HTML, MVC and other stuff. I also provide suggestions to the UI team to improve user experience. In short, I am not only limited to a project for which my role has been assigned, but I help all the teams in my company on my own interest.

C# is my primary language, though sometimes I have to work in VB.NET too. But whenever possible, I try to stick to C#. I love XAML so much and like to design UI with Expression Blend. I am a developer, but I love working on front UI too.

What is your development environment?

In my company we work on Windows 7 but my personal laptop always has the latest OS and other development software. (I'd like to use this opportunity to say thanks to Microsoft for providing me with the MSDN ultimate license as part of the MVP award program.) My personal laptop still has a Core 2 processor, but the way technology is growing I will definitely have to upgrade my device soon.

Dual monitors are preferably the best choice while designing UI, doing code reviews and sometimes running the Twitter client in one monitor while writing articles.

All my development environments are equipped with Visual Studio 2012 Update 3 and ReSharper 8 in it. I am so much in love with Windows 8 that, I am proposing my organization upgrade the systems to use Windows 8 as soon as they can. I always prefer my system updated with latest software as soon as they arrive on the market.

We use a self-hosted TFS as the source control server in the organization, but I use the Visual Studio hosted cloud TFS server for my personal projects. TFS is so well organized these days that a developers and companies alike need it for a better source control process.

What new tools, languages or frameworks are you playing with (or just interested in exploring more)?

Though my core job is on Silverlight I already started exploring and building applications on Windows Phone and Windows 8 (WinRT). A collection of tutorials on Silverlight, Windows Phone and Windows 8 application development are available on my blog. I would like to explore the HTML5 and Azure platforms in the coming days if such an opportunity arises.

I love C#. It is always my preferred language, playing with .NET 4.5.1 in a Visual Studio 2013 environment. I am more interested in exploring my skills on Windows Phone 8 and for that I need to upgrade my laptop with the latest processor because the SDK needs SLAT and my Core 2 duo processor does not support it.

What is your coding pet peeve?

I always prefer the best coding practices that Microsoft follows except the one that starts with underscore. That really annoys me when searching for a variable. But that always varies company to company so there's nothing really to point out here.

As for naming convention, I prefer a good meaningful name for the variables, properties and methods. A property or variable name like "ecoll" or "visi" instead of "employeeCollection" or "Visibility" really bugs me most of the time.

I hate large chunks of methods and commented code as I feel it's like an endless ocean. That’s not that important for a developer, but it is definitely one can (and should) improve. Debugging a huge line in a single method is sometimes very difficult to understand.

How did you get started programming?

In early 90’s I first got a chance to play with a computer for two months, but that was the old age with DOS and Word Star. Later in 2002, my Father bought a Pentium III 733 MHz system with Windows 98 as a gift. It only had 32 MB of RAM, but was enough in those days. I remember the first day with the system when I was playing a car race. Due to rough playing, the car was damaged and started burning. I was so scared that I switched off the power.

After that I started learning C, C++, Java and HTML. Later I did a course on hardware and networking too. I spent most of my time with the computer playing with the system configuration & building small applications. That gradually built my interest in computers and when I got a chance to do my engineering on the same technology, I started exploring it more.

While doing engineering, I tried a different flavour of operating systems including Microsoft Windows and Linux, but I had always had a tendency to work and build applications on Microsoft platforms. Visual Basic 6 was my favourite language in those days and whenever I got time, I built many applications with that. Later I learned .NET (C#) and then stuck to it and it’s been quite a long period of time since I've been exclusively using Visual Studio.

What do you love / hate most about the developer community?

Nothing like that. The developer community gave me many opportunities to learn and share knowledge. I am thankful to the entire developer community for always supporting me and encouraging me. My special thanks to all the passionate developers/bloggers who supports the community after their office work.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I am a true technology lover and passionate blogger. Like everyone, I have my own dream too. I want to focus on the latest technologies and 10 years down the line, I want to see myself to come closer to the developer community. I want to author a few books and develop some real world frameworks in coming days.

If you had one piece of advice for an up-and-coming programmer?

The community already gave me a lot and still I expect more advice and opportunities from them. Those who are new to the development, I always suggest they start blogging what they learn. Blogging is a place where you write your notes on coding and experiences for future reference which you can search later.