I've been sitting on an idea for months and I'm still excited about it.

I think there's potential in an online version of the MSDN library docs that allows you to edit, build and run example code in your browser. A kind of prepared scratch-pad. This solves a problem that I've been referring to as ConsoleApplication99 syndrome.

I'm going to document building the service in a series of articles, I'm doing this because:

1. As I'll be working on this alongside my main job, sharing progress with you should help keep me motivated and focused. I'm not going to out-right promise stuff, but I know I'll feel more obligated.
2. Silly decisions will stand out. If I have to justify my decisions with you, I'm far less likely to spend hours on things that don't matter to *you* - the reader and potential user.
3. Money. I'll be spending some in place of spending extra time. Justifying expenses openly will be an interesting (and useful) exercise.
4. Your feedback will help shape the project.

I've started investigating the feasibility of the project and have made some conclusions:

• The service will use an API called MTPS to fetch MSDN Library content.
• Republishing this content is within Microsoft's terms of use.
• Security issues will be addressed with cloud computing (Litmus has 400 instances with Amazon EC2, so I'm familiar with it).

When I have specifics, I'll share them properly. Right now I'm just keeping an eye out for show-stoppers.