B# .NET Blog

I'm currently in the middle of preparing my talks for a trip to Europe the first two weeks of March (I’ll post a conference/session list later this week). One thing I love about speaking to (technical) audiences is to bring rather theoretical but essential topics in a way that’s easy to consume in the short time available for a session. There are two main strategies: use a lot of pictures or do a lot of on-stage coding. The latter is definitely the most fun both for me and for the audience and I try to apply it wherever possible. However, having a graphical illustration of the concepts used in the subsequent coding demos is often a good idea to make things stick.

Starting with this post, and in the next few ones, I want to share out some of my illustrations. Notice my artistic talents are limited to Paint and PowerPoint :-). I’ve removed the slide titles though, so that the reader can try to map the illustrated concept back to something familiar (or still unfamiliar) in the domain of types. Some advice:

1. Go through the pictures in order (left-to-right, top-to-bottom traversal of the table) as graphical notations are reused subsequently.
2. Pictures are grouped as well, e.g. 1 and 2 belong together, where groups start with abstract concepts and concretize them, e.g. indicated by an increase in color usage.
3. Transitions between adjacent pictures could be made more gradual in some cases (i.e. an abstract concept is concretized a few steps at once).

Today’s series shouldn’t be too hard, although I’m biased obviously :-). Some hints: blocks are passive things that compose but are themselves composed. Humans are active (sometimes). Think in terms of objects, types and functions.

Answers can typically be formulated in C# syntax or pseudo-syntax. As we go further in this series of posts, some things might no longer have a notation. If that’s the case, answering with a theoretical term will be required (or using syntax from another language).

Figure 1	Figure 2
Figure 3	Figure 4
Figure 5	Figure 6
Figure 7	Figure 8
Figure 9	Figure 10
Figure 11 (extra)	Figure 12
Figure 13	Figure 14
Figure 15

Good luck!