I was talking with David Berry when we both heard the news about MSDN Magazine shutting down after the November issue. I’m really saddened by it.

The reality is that MSDN Magazine had a dramatic impact on my career, both as a reader and an author. I’d like to share my memories of it.

Years back (I think 1998) I went to one of my first development conferences in Boston. There I saw Chris Sells, Don Box, and Jeffrey Richter for the first time. I left there wanting to figure out how to speak at conferences. I loved the idea of sharing my experience with others. Code camps and user groups were in their infantcy so I didn’t know of another way to scratch that itch.

Because I had an itch to speak, I bugged Chris Sells about how I’d do that, and he told me to write articles. So I did. I researched how to do a query letter and all of that and MSJ Magazine (the predecessor to MSDN) responded. In the December 1999 issue (the last issue of MSJ before renaming to MSDN) I had my first article.

I couldn’t believe that I was in print. I was surprised and scared. The reality is that without that first article, I wouldn’t have spoken at my first conference (WinDev). Without that first conference I wouldn’t have taken a challenging position at DevelopMentor. Without DevelopMentor (and Chris Sells), I wouldn’t have written my first book. Without that first book, I wouldn’t have started teaching. Without teaching I wouldn’t be a Pluralsight author. That long path to the career I have today started with the publishing of that first article some twenty years ago.

I’ll miss you MSDN.