We were talking about how we all got started working with computers (Atari and Commodore and whatnot) when we got into how Paul got started working professionally with computers, especially since his education prepared him to be a math teacher.  Once Paul decided that he didn’t really want to be a math teacher, he turned to computers.  Paul actually got started with Delphi programming, something he, Keith Rome, and I have in common.  Gradually his Delphi work became VB work, and he was off and running.  His association with .Net applications began while he was working at a company as a regular employee.  Paul’s projects at work weren’t really that exciting to him, so he started working on his personal website to learn more about the things that interested him.  Now his website is a great tool for him, both as a teaching tool and example.  Have a question about how to do something in ASP.Net?  Ask Paul and he might send you to part of his website as an example of the solution.

Paul’s received no small amount of praise for his O/R Mapper, but he’s got more that just an O/R Mapper to keep him busy.  We talked a bit about what he’s been doing in his “spare” time.  Paul’s been working on a UI Mapper, an extension to the MasterPages class, and more.  For a onetime fee you can get a lifetime subscription to all the code that comes out of Wilsondotnet.com.  Ask Chris Wallace if he thinks the subscription is worthwhile.  Paul spent a lot of time impressing on us is firm belief in the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid!  This is actually the real reason he started creating his O/R Mapper and UI Mapper – he saw a need for a product and there were no simple products out there to meet his needs.  Paul’s main drive is to keep things simple.  He’s the first to admit that there might be other products out there that do some of the same things his products do (for example, NHibernate), but his strive the easiest to use.  He’s not trying to address the entire market, just the cases where a simple and elegant solution fits.  As far as what the future holds, Paul is working on something new, but he’s so early in the process that he didn’t want to talk about it before he proves it a viable concept to himself.

Paul shared a great story with us about what he feels lead directly to his being awarded the MVP distinction by Microsoft.  It all began with that company he was working at where he first started using .Net technologies.  That company was in the process of closing its doors, but it had several projects it was required to keep running for a long period of time.  So Paul was in the maintenance phase of the project life cycle and he was able to spend time looking at the next technologies he might use.  This is when he started working on his website.  He was a frequent visitor of the brand new (at the time) ASP.Net forums where he was looking for solutions to his own problems.  He started answering questions other people posted as he learned more and more.  Because he was able to invest a lot of time in his website, ASP.Net in general, and the ASP.Net forums, his ranking as a top poster was stratospheric.  This got him noticed by the powers that be over at MS and he was awarded the Most Valuable Professional award by the Microsoft MVP team.  The funny thing about the award is that Paul feels it casts him as “Mr ASP.Net” when he has expertise in other areas as well.  Fighting this exact type-casting is one of the things that eventually lead to the Wilson O/R Mapper – he wanted to prove that he could do stuff in other areas.  That incredible job eventually with all the extra time ended; you can’t be paid to do nothing forever.  Now that Paul’s working full time again, he doesn’t spend as much time on the message boards as he used to.  He does visit when he gets the chance, and he is a very active local blogger.

So now we all know where to find Paul online if we need to ask him questions – the ASP.Net forums and his own blog.  The next question we had for him was where does Paul Wilson go for help when he needs it.  Paul told us that he does occasionally look in some newsgroups and websites, more often some reference books, and he told us that he stands on the shoulders of much smarter people than himself.  He didn’t mention any names (to protect the innocent) but he told us that if he brought some of his brightest friends to chat with us, we’d all feel quite stupid in comparison.  Brendon and I both felt Paul was being a bit modest, but we accepted the story that where Paul is smart, some of his friends might be brilliant.

We wrapped up our conversation with a quick talk about the Atlanta .Net Regular Guys’ mission. Paul’s been a strong online presence for quite a while now, but we don’t get to see him in person all that often.  With the exception of the upcoming Code Camp, Paul doesn’t have any plans to present at any of the User Group meetings.  So we asked him what we could do to draw him out of his house and into the community a bit more.  While he wouldn’t actually commit to anything, Paul told us that he was very appreciative of our efforts to publish the user groups’ calendars and keep him informed of who’s coming to speak at which events.  He mentioned that he might be enticed into coming out to hear some of our future presenters.

Well, that’s about all that I have for this Tale from the Trenches.  Stay tuned – the next episode should show up in about two weeks.

— Matt Ranlett