One of of the many nice things about being an MVP is that we can get MSDN magazine at a reduced rate. It is a very interesting magazine on a number of levels. It keeps you posted on what new Microsoft developments are coming down the tracks. It has some nice background articles about the machinery which underlies Microsoft Technology. It is stuffed with adverts for add-ins for development tools and useful libraries (you should not write anything new until you've checked these out, there is a lot of stuff which could make your life a lot easier). And it has articles like the one in the back page about the Phoenix project.

If you are into compilers (and who isn't) then you will find this very interesting. It is the future of compiler development as far as Microsoft is concerned. It is going to give developers a very useful in on the compilation process, so that you can add behaviours and features to the implementation of your product which would normally be impossible. It reminds me a bit of the Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure  which lets you get hold of all of the guts of .NET, albeit in a non-production version. With Phoenix you will be able to plug into the compilation and code generation process to add custom operations or diagnostics in a very useful way. They seem to be very open to academic involvement, if you have a project in this area, or are thinking of doing one, it is worth giving them a yell.