We took my team and another team that was doing development tools for Blackbird, -it was for MSN-and we formed a team to create Visual InterDev. When we a new charter to build a tool to address developing for the Web, we created this Visual InterDev product. I was an original member of the COM (OLE) team, and so we started with a COM-based strategy for how you could integrate components. I was on a team that was suppose to take these components and repackage and rebuild a product that would be Microsoft Access, the follow-up and successor to Microsoft Access 2.0 at the time. We had the database design tools which were a component that ultimately became the database design tools in Visual Studio today. We had a forms-based technology package that ultimately became Internet Explorer as you know it today. And we took my product, I was actually part of the Microsoft Access team, and we were working on a future version of Microsoft Access that was based off of the component technology.

And actually we started the product back in �95 when Microsoft changed its focused on addressing the Web. And back then I was the architect of Visual InterDev (VI). Ken: What year was that, do you recall? What version of Visual Studio?ĭoug: Visual Studio 97. So I've been on this product and this vision to create this integrated extensible IDE from starting back in the Visual Studio 5.0 timeframe. Ken: So he said that you consider yourself the cool uncle, is that right? Have you said that before?ĭoug: Yeah, well. Ken: So Jason Weber tells me that he refers to you as the grandfather of the Visual Studio shell.ĭoug: I prefer to consider myself as the father, not the grandfather.

Ken: So we're in building 41, which is kind of the home of Visual Studio.ĭoug: Yep. All the language products that plug in are all integrated in the IDE (integrated development environment).ĭoug: I'm Software Architect for the Visual Studio IDE. Ken: Is that also referred to as the Shell?ĭoug: Yeah, the main shell for the Visual Studio product. I'm the original architect of the Visual Studio IDE. Ken: Who are you, what do you work on, where are we?ĭoug: Well, hello, I'm Doug Hodges. Doug Hodges is interviewed by Ken Levy discussing the history of the Visual Studio IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

Visual basic ide