The software giant launched its part-blog, part-geek-forum site on Tuesday, Channel9.msdn.com, amid little fanfare. The site was created by employees at Microsoft who are convinced the software giant could do more to promote free discussion with outside developers.
But Tuesday morning on its launch, the site didn’t have the pressing conversation that might help developers tune-up their projects when looking under the hood.
“Are you a one-spacer or a two-spacer?” asked developer Bill Hill on why some put one space after a period.
Another developer responded: “One good thing that HTML did for us – turn period-space-space into period-space.”
Channel 9’s name refers to the audio channel most airlines use to allow passengers to listen in on conversations between flight crew members.
The site arrives amid strong efforts aimed at bolstering the software giant’s support among developers. Microsoft is hosting a conference this week for “1,500 Most Valuable Professionals,” a program for outside software experts who assist in providing support through online forums, and the company is also launching the Microsoft Security Summit,a traveling series of security-related events for developers, starting this week.
Content on the site includes video and audio clips of Microsoft developers who talk on subjects from security to .Net architecture, ordinary blogs and snapshot-filled mobile blogs, discussion forums devoted to developer issues and a collection of “wiki” forums for sharing code.