Thank you, Microsoft
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MehGerbil wrote:
It appears that anything is possible.
Ahhhh, fresh-faced programmers always seem so impressionable and full of hope. And then...
MehGerbil wrote:
Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk:
Reality comes crashing down on them, killing their dreams, dashing previously held assumptions and beliefs over the rocky cliffs of dispair, making them rethink their liberal view of firearms ownership, if only long wenough to "teach those bastards in Redmond a lesson the won't soon forget". Welcome to hell, young Jedi. I have ammunition older than most Microsoft tech, and it's still viable.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001I was the one that introduced .NET to our office 8 years ago. I remember during my interview I asked if I could write any application they gave me in .NET. When I arrived for my first day of work I had a shrink wrapped copy of Visual Studio on my desk. Nobody there had ever tried using .NET so I was sort of a test case. After the first .NET application went live I led a war against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools in the office. We replaced legacy after legacy so that now everything is in .NET and working great. I also moved everyone over from VB to C#. My orginal application is still going strong. I've still not won the war against the horror known as "Access". The point is that the success of .NET has had an impact on my credibility. Had the technology failed in 2005 I don't know if I'd still be employed. So after waiting patiently for Silverlight to mature (all the way to 4.0) I decided to take a risk and make another big move. Instead of support I'm now getting blowback. Well, credibility was nice while it lasted.
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On a different but very related issue... I realised something was wrong the day I (with a decade and a half as a Microsoft developer) needed to ask someone where the 'Save As' option was in the new version of Word. I still find myself wasting time trying to figure out how to do things I've been able to do for years with previous versions. I thought it was early signs of old age, but yesterday I saw a gathering huddled around a PC trying to figure out how to Print Preview. Somebody in Redmond needs to have a Wireless Keyboard shoved so far up their ass that they can type their resignation letter with their tonsils. -Rd
Hit any user to continue.
Richard A. Dalton wrote:
Wireless Keyboard
I can recommend the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. :laugh:
Wout
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xzz0195 wrote:
The other thing I learned is that when a company makes an internal descision to turn to another technology, often the developers and end users are the last to know.
Yep. Like the time I shelled out good money to fly to London to attend VBITS (not for the first time_. I sat there happily hearing all about VB7. Within a few weeks .Net was announced. At no point during VBITS did anyone mention the earthquake that was about to hit Microsoft Developers. That's the kind of stuff that would be nice to hear about .. and oh I don't know ... discuss ... when you pay to attend a conference which is effectively a couple of days worth of Infomercial for Microsoft. I haven't attended a similar conference since. I get actual valuable results from Developer Days and Meetups, most of which are free. -Richard
Hit any user to continue.
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I was the one that introduced .NET to our office 8 years ago. I remember during my interview I asked if I could write any application they gave me in .NET. When I arrived for my first day of work I had a shrink wrapped copy of Visual Studio on my desk. Nobody there had ever tried using .NET so I was sort of a test case. After the first .NET application went live I led a war against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools in the office. We replaced legacy after legacy so that now everything is in .NET and working great. I also moved everyone over from VB to C#. My orginal application is still going strong. I've still not won the war against the horror known as "Access". The point is that the success of .NET has had an impact on my credibility. Had the technology failed in 2005 I don't know if I'd still be employed. So after waiting patiently for Silverlight to mature (all the way to 4.0) I decided to take a risk and make another big move. Instead of support I'm now getting blowback. Well, credibility was nice while it lasted.
Just tell your boss that regardless of Microsoft's plans (real or imagined), Silverlight 4 is still a viable platform. I convinced my boss to move from flash/flex to Silverlight/C#, and it's going okay. We're waiting for approval to move to SL4 so we can make use of the "rich text" control.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001 -
Read it again.
MehGerbil wrote:
VB.NET wasn't VB7 Poke tongue
That's what he said. MS were pushing VB7 whilst they already had .NET ready for release.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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I was the one that introduced .NET to our office 8 years ago. I remember during my interview I asked if I could write any application they gave me in .NET. When I arrived for my first day of work I had a shrink wrapped copy of Visual Studio on my desk. Nobody there had ever tried using .NET so I was sort of a test case. After the first .NET application went live I led a war against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools in the office. We replaced legacy after legacy so that now everything is in .NET and working great. I also moved everyone over from VB to C#. My orginal application is still going strong. I've still not won the war against the horror known as "Access". The point is that the success of .NET has had an impact on my credibility. Had the technology failed in 2005 I don't know if I'd still be employed. So after waiting patiently for Silverlight to mature (all the way to 4.0) I decided to take a risk and make another big move. Instead of support I'm now getting blowback. Well, credibility was nice while it lasted.
While I agree with everything you've said, and followed the same mantra, I will argue about your "against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools ". FoxPro is/was a great tool and is till used by manu many shops out there. I spend 15 years as a Fox/VFP developer until I switched to C#. Now I love .Net, but anyonw who's done any real work with VFP knows the power of it.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
My point exactly!!!' I have been coding for 25 plus years and every time I open a "new and better" version of something I get this very sad feeling that we really have not progressed much. Recently setting up an ODBC connection (for the gazillionth time) and reading the MS help is like reading a latin translation of a Led Zeppelin song in Chinese’s. Other than Android is there ANYTHING NEW OUT THERE... Why cant my cell phone make coffee or something!! New technology..Big deal, it can send and receive text/verbal messages and tell me where I am. I want a paradigm shift!
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Read it again.
MehGerbil wrote:
VB.NET wasn't VB7 Poke tongue
That's what he said. MS were pushing VB7 whilst they already had .NET ready for release.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Henry Minute wrote:
MehGerbil wrote: VB.NET wasn't VB7 Poke tongue That's what he said. MS were pushing VB7 whilst they already had .NET ready for release.
Yep. What he said. Also....VB.Net WAS VB7 Just like VB2008 is VB9 Not that any of us take the version number seriously, but the version numbers are still in there. -Richard
Hit any user to continue.
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
Same really. I'd rather they'd just release something and then concentrate on service packs that fix the bugs etc for a while, maybe with the odd new version that finishes off some of the incomplete bits. As it is the bugs never get fixed and the software is replaced by something totally new a couple of years later, which has its own set of bugs that never get fixed and missing important features etc.
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
Wow a real life example exactly illustrating my point of why the original statements and lukewarm retraction were such a calamity for Silverlight. I've become convinced that in fact it's a safe platform to bet on but your situation illustrates perfectly why it could become a sort of self fulfilling prophecy in a world where perception can quickly become reality.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Yesterday, goldfish, today, pawns. You have to realize that we developers are merely pawns in Microsoft's chess game to market its real meat and potatoes product, namely Windows and secondly, Office. The reason being, the more sexy products we develop for those platforms, and the more we develop stuff that looks and feels like whatever Microsoft's current fancy is (ribbon bars, what a crock of crap), the more the naive consumer will say, wow, look at all those nice shiny apps, or something to that effect. So, the sooner you realize you are a pawn, the sooner you can free yourself of the game. Consider the difference: WPF, Silverlight, C#, F#, .NET, Visual Studio, are all pieces in Microsoft's chess game. HTML 5? There is no "product" that this technology is pushing--it's agnostic, and even more insidious to some, it's not directly connected with profit. Microsoft hates that with a passion because it leads to free thinking and free thinking leads to free action. Microsoft wants you all under the yoke of making money for Microsoft. Marc
Nahh.. the goldfish post was your zenith I think. ;)
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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I was the one that introduced .NET to our office 8 years ago. I remember during my interview I asked if I could write any application they gave me in .NET. When I arrived for my first day of work I had a shrink wrapped copy of Visual Studio on my desk. Nobody there had ever tried using .NET so I was sort of a test case. After the first .NET application went live I led a war against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools in the office. We replaced legacy after legacy so that now everything is in .NET and working great. I also moved everyone over from VB to C#. My orginal application is still going strong. I've still not won the war against the horror known as "Access". The point is that the success of .NET has had an impact on my credibility. Had the technology failed in 2005 I don't know if I'd still be employed. So after waiting patiently for Silverlight to mature (all the way to 4.0) I decided to take a risk and make another big move. Instead of support I'm now getting blowback. Well, credibility was nice while it lasted.
Well to be fair Silverlight is still going strong and the furore will die down soon but as a fellow .net developer with a huge .net codebase already written, tested and alive in the real world for thousands of users I would be a mad man to not go the WPF / Silverlight route for new UI's going forward so I think you made the right decision, you just have to gut through it for the next little while. I felt as you do a couple of days ago but I've since come to see it as nothing more than a huge fuck up by a person at Microsoft that should know better if he holds such a position and a bad response when the shit hit the fan by Microsoft but the reality is nothing has changed from when you recommended it. I've been developing for well over 20 years now and the one thing I learned over that time is that nothing you learn or code with will be around for long anyway, it's like being on a treadmill running the wrong way until the day you decide to retire. Don't fall in love with any technology and keep your eyes on the bleeding edge but don't be the first to adopt if you want to stay relevant.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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While I agree with everything you've said, and followed the same mantra, I will argue about your "against Foxpro and all the other hob-nob tools ". FoxPro is/was a great tool and is till used by manu many shops out there. I spend 15 years as a Fox/VFP developer until I switched to C#. Now I love .Net, but anyonw who's done any real work with VFP knows the power of it.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind
Um..I have done a lot of real work with Foxpro and it's as dead as the parrot in that Monty Python sketch. It was a tool for the time it was in but the world has moved on in just about every way imagineable since then. Don't get me wrong there's no reason any business app made today couldn't be made today in even an old copy of Foxpro but it just doesn't cut it for what people have come to expect out of an app.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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MehGerbil wrote:
While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
Win32 API has been around for at least 15 years and works just fine. Ditto for COM (not that I am a big fan of it).
modified on Thursday, November 4, 2010 10:53 AM
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Win32 API has been around for at least 15 years and works just fine.
Amen!
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - Bertrand Russel
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
I can't say I feel very sorry for Silverlight developers right now. They have staked their livelihood on a single company's whims, a company mind you that has a storied history of changing its mind whenever it pleases. "Oh wow, Win32! Time to-" "Err, .NET is in now? Well OK, let's-" "Oh, WPF? I guess that makes since with Vista-" "Silverlight? Really?!" Just to give some examples of how spastic their desktop development toolchain has been. You may as well buck up and learn HTML/JavaScript because that stuff is proven, platform/company-agnostic, and is only going to grow in the future. Now I'm also a bit of an open web app zealot but I wasn't always that way. I still use Windows and I've always loved C#'s syntax and features - I just wouldn't stake my job on them given the choice.
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My point exactly!!!' I have been coding for 25 plus years and every time I open a "new and better" version of something I get this very sad feeling that we really have not progressed much. Recently setting up an ODBC connection (for the gazillionth time) and reading the MS help is like reading a latin translation of a Led Zeppelin song in Chinese’s. Other than Android is there ANYTHING NEW OUT THERE... Why cant my cell phone make coffee or something!! New technology..Big deal, it can send and receive text/verbal messages and tell me where I am. I want a paradigm shift!
Well as far as servers are concerned, the NoSQL movement has emerged, and JS is becoming more powerful, so you can always look into that. In fact a whole new stack is emerging thanks to how powerful servers and browsers are becoming that directly challenges the frontend/scripting/server language/datastore setup traditionally used. So if you want new and exciting you can jump headfirst into that. As for desktop programs, those aren't going to change because let's face it, the desktop hasn't changed very much since it was introduced. It looks a bit prettier but the paradigm is still the same as it always was for desktop software. (Thankfully though things are moving to the web more and more which I think is great. :-D But your mileage may vary.)
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Nahh.. the goldfish post was your zenith I think. ;)
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
John C wrote:
Nahh.. the goldfish post was your zenith I think.
Oh no! It's downhill from here, I guess! :) Marc
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Same really. I'd rather they'd just release something and then concentrate on service packs that fix the bugs etc for a while, maybe with the odd new version that finishes off some of the incomplete bits. As it is the bugs never get fixed and the software is replaced by something totally new a couple of years later, which has its own set of bugs that never get fixed and missing important features etc.
Dave Parker wrote:
As it is the bugs never get fixed
Bingo. Haven't tried VS 2010, but earlier versions seem to always have the same small set of bugs that the space cadets at Redmond can't seem to fix.
Everybody SHUT UP until I finish my coffee...
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About two weeks ago I suggested to my boss that we move all new development over to WPF/Silverlight. I purchased books and installed VS2010 along with the .NET 4 Framework. I've been working on learning the basics of Silverlight over the past two weeks and so far I love the technology. It appears that anything is possible. Today my boss put a print version of this article on my desk: http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/microsoft-surrenders-silverlight-html5-cross-platform-front-654 Given the clarifications Microsoft has made so far I think the article is ignorant. Irresponsible reporting aside, none of this changes that fact I've been put in a less than ideal situation. Part of the problem is that the life cycle on so many products is getting to be ridiculous. New technologies/methodologies arise quickly, enjoy 15 minutes of fame, and then disappear. My view on this is best illustrated by my actions: I waited until Silverlight 4 to even look at the technology. WPF and Silverlight required a huge investment of time to master. The time involved makes learning "the hottest" every 18 months a foolish waste of time. I don't want VS 2012. I don't want Silverlight 5. I don't want HTML 5. I want a standard IDE that I can use long enough to master and enjoy without three new versions of a platform being introduced while I've yet to complete a project in the original. If they'd slow down a bit and allow a user base to develop maybe they'd enjoy more success. A development life cycle that seems to be driven more by panic than need will destroy adoption. I realize thing are competative, but if the development community is contantly playing catch up I cannot help but feel many of them will get tired and go someplace less dynamic. Where I work we have a 30+ year old mainframe that still does it's job. While we'll never get that from Microsoft I'd settle for something that lasts 5 years.
Microsoft has and will come up with new unproven technologies all the time. Some will stick and some will be abandoned. They have to do that just to remain relevant. That doesn’t mean we, as software developers, need to adjust our development platforms every time something new comes out, especially not for enterprise development. We need to separate personal aspirations from what is best for our employers. We are hired to make our employers money. That’s the bottom line. For enterprise applications, a WinForms client with properly layered service architecture on the server side will provide the most value and reduce time-to-market. Why? Because it has been around for ages and it just works. Couple it with ClickOnce and you get an easy deployment mechanism that works well in most corporate scenarios. If you want to waste your employer’s time and money, go ASP.NET and hack your way around with HTML/CSS/JavaScript/AJAX and all the other components that result in pure technical deficit. From a business perspective, what is the reason to use Silverlight for internal enterprise applications aside from one’s personal aspirations? The only reason I can come up with is if you went down the ASP.NET route (which I did at some point) and are buried in technical deficit and need a way out. It does have some potential in creating less chaos, but only if your employer recognizes that it will take a long time to build a development framework around it especially since it is an immature technology. Though, can you build a business case for it demonstrating cost savings or additional revenue? Ultimately, your choice of development platform really depends on your core business and the applications you develop. In typical scenarios, business applications will be written differently than public-facing applications and as such you should use different development tools to achieve your objectives. Personally, I don’t see a real good business argument for Silverlight. Sure it’s cool and you can do some fancy things with it, but will it make your employer more money? E.g., can you see yourself standing in front of your board of directors making an argument that Silverlight will make or save $2M? If you can come up with a real business argument (other than fear of becoming a dinosaur which your employer does not care about) then go for it. Otherwise, stay with what you have and if you are developing public apps then start looking at HTML 5. I heard Ballmer speak at the recent Gartner conference and my take on it was that they r