Thinking about the Future
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All, Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about where to invest my training time over the next 5 years. I am perplexed. I do primarily Winforms development now, I have a couple of commercial products, with some ASP .net. I am ready to update my skills and have been trying to decide where to place that investment. Should I do WPF,Silverlight? Should I do Mono? Should I just give up on MS and do C++? I think the reason for the quandary is that in all my research there are a number of people saying the MS is going to abandon this or that technology. I am all for learning what I need to in order to do my work but I don't have the desire to learn every piece of crap that MS puts out. I am a pragmatist and I want to learn to a level of excellence what I need to do my work. I have a couple of large commercial products that I want to position on the correct platform but I can't be rewriting 100k lines of code at every MS whim. Recently I have been thinking about just moving everything to C++ but that seems like a daunting task. Anyway any constructive suggestions would be appreciated.
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All, Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about where to invest my training time over the next 5 years. I am perplexed. I do primarily Winforms development now, I have a couple of commercial products, with some ASP .net. I am ready to update my skills and have been trying to decide where to place that investment. Should I do WPF,Silverlight? Should I do Mono? Should I just give up on MS and do C++? I think the reason for the quandary is that in all my research there are a number of people saying the MS is going to abandon this or that technology. I am all for learning what I need to in order to do my work but I don't have the desire to learn every piece of crap that MS puts out. I am a pragmatist and I want to learn to a level of excellence what I need to do my work. I have a couple of large commercial products that I want to position on the correct platform but I can't be rewriting 100k lines of code at every MS whim. Recently I have been thinking about just moving everything to C++ but that seems like a daunting task. Anyway any constructive suggestions would be appreciated.
Conversations that I've had with some of the MS insiders recently suggest that the following are worthwhile technologies to invest in: HTML 5 (this includes the WCF vNext, CSS 3, JavaScript and ASP.NET MVC) Silverlight WinC++ WPF (it's still going strong). With HTML 5, you'll have a very transferrable skill because while there's an MS flavour, HTML 5 is not MS specific.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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All, Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about where to invest my training time over the next 5 years. I am perplexed. I do primarily Winforms development now, I have a couple of commercial products, with some ASP .net. I am ready to update my skills and have been trying to decide where to place that investment. Should I do WPF,Silverlight? Should I do Mono? Should I just give up on MS and do C++? I think the reason for the quandary is that in all my research there are a number of people saying the MS is going to abandon this or that technology. I am all for learning what I need to in order to do my work but I don't have the desire to learn every piece of crap that MS puts out. I am a pragmatist and I want to learn to a level of excellence what I need to do my work. I have a couple of large commercial products that I want to position on the correct platform but I can't be rewriting 100k lines of code at every MS whim. Recently I have been thinking about just moving everything to C++ but that seems like a daunting task. Anyway any constructive suggestions would be appreciated.
Unit Testing and Test Driven development are becomming more mainstream these days so definately improve in that area if need be. There is a lot of ASP work around so that could be a good direction but as a Winform developer, you may find Silverlight/WPF a more natural progression. I wouldn't throw your .NET skills in the bin. I'd work on developing them in new directions. Also LINQ, WCF and EF aren't looking like going away any time soon.
"You get that on the big jobs."
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Conversations that I've had with some of the MS insiders recently suggest that the following are worthwhile technologies to invest in: HTML 5 (this includes the WCF vNext, CSS 3, JavaScript and ASP.NET MVC) Silverlight WinC++ WPF (it's still going strong). With HTML 5, you'll have a very transferrable skill because while there's an MS flavour, HTML 5 is not MS specific.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Thanks Pete. That was a good info to have. :thumbsup:
Sandeep Mewara [My last tip/trick]: Browser back button issue after logout
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Thanks Pete. That was a good info to have. :thumbsup:
Sandeep Mewara [My last tip/trick]: Browser back button issue after logout
You're welcome. I just wish MS would state their position clearer, then there wouldn't be this fud.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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All, Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about where to invest my training time over the next 5 years. I am perplexed. I do primarily Winforms development now, I have a couple of commercial products, with some ASP .net. I am ready to update my skills and have been trying to decide where to place that investment. Should I do WPF,Silverlight? Should I do Mono? Should I just give up on MS and do C++? I think the reason for the quandary is that in all my research there are a number of people saying the MS is going to abandon this or that technology. I am all for learning what I need to in order to do my work but I don't have the desire to learn every piece of crap that MS puts out. I am a pragmatist and I want to learn to a level of excellence what I need to do my work. I have a couple of large commercial products that I want to position on the correct platform but I can't be rewriting 100k lines of code at every MS whim. Recently I have been thinking about just moving everything to C++ but that seems like a daunting task. Anyway any constructive suggestions would be appreciated.
Porting your well-running apps to a different technology/platform is something I wouldn't suggest. It has a very heavy price that does not justify the benefits. Continue to develop/support your apps in their current platform as long as they're good to go. Porting to a different platform is something to be considered only when the current platform does not support the features required, then it makes sense to do a complete rewrite.
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Conversations that I've had with some of the MS insiders recently suggest that the following are worthwhile technologies to invest in: HTML 5 (this includes the WCF vNext, CSS 3, JavaScript and ASP.NET MVC) Silverlight WinC++ WPF (it's still going strong). With HTML 5, you'll have a very transferrable skill because while there's an MS flavour, HTML 5 is not MS specific.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
What exactly is meant by "WinC++"? I'd be interested into the background of this recommendation... In my (humble) opinion, the further away you get from Win32 APIs (assuming this is what you meant) the better off you might be in the future. Or did you mean the plain ANSI C++ as implemented by Microsoft?
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What exactly is meant by "WinC++"? I'd be interested into the background of this recommendation... In my (humble) opinion, the further away you get from Win32 APIs (assuming this is what you meant) the better off you might be in the future. Or did you mean the plain ANSI C++ as implemented by Microsoft?
If you want to know more about WinC++, this[^] article is a good place to start.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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All, Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about where to invest my training time over the next 5 years. I am perplexed. I do primarily Winforms development now, I have a couple of commercial products, with some ASP .net. I am ready to update my skills and have been trying to decide where to place that investment. Should I do WPF,Silverlight? Should I do Mono? Should I just give up on MS and do C++? I think the reason for the quandary is that in all my research there are a number of people saying the MS is going to abandon this or that technology. I am all for learning what I need to in order to do my work but I don't have the desire to learn every piece of crap that MS puts out. I am a pragmatist and I want to learn to a level of excellence what I need to do my work. I have a couple of large commercial products that I want to position on the correct platform but I can't be rewriting 100k lines of code at every MS whim. Recently I have been thinking about just moving everything to C++ but that seems like a daunting task. Anyway any constructive suggestions would be appreciated.
Personally to me, this is a very interesting question. Many moons ago (over 15 years), I had to make a decision similar to this. Of course, many moons ago technology choices were a little limiting with defined camps. So my decision was based on what I enjoyed doing the most? To which technology will can I see myself doing every day? Back in the day, many may laugh and some reminisce, I was mainly doing DOS based development and before any type GUI based development. The ole command line with line numbers in BASIC when the IBM/Intel based PC was a relatively new technology. Development languages were emerging and technologies growing in all directions. Being a little seasoned, already in the in industry for several years, experience with microcomputers and main frames. I did a little of this and a little of that from desktop publishing, database development and applications on the various platforms, the question was still what do I enjoy doing every day? I have digressed, but to make a longer story short, I did pick a technology I enjoyed. I learned every aspect of it inside and out. Like looking through the source code, understanding its design structures, how the entire system ran and relationships between the systems. I understood the system to the point where, I could make the thing sing and a cup of coffee. And I learned not just the technology or system, but I also picked up design, architecture and the appreciation of how development is an art form. Not knowing your background the answer would be make a choice that you will enjoy doing.
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Personally to me, this is a very interesting question. Many moons ago (over 15 years), I had to make a decision similar to this. Of course, many moons ago technology choices were a little limiting with defined camps. So my decision was based on what I enjoyed doing the most? To which technology will can I see myself doing every day? Back in the day, many may laugh and some reminisce, I was mainly doing DOS based development and before any type GUI based development. The ole command line with line numbers in BASIC when the IBM/Intel based PC was a relatively new technology. Development languages were emerging and technologies growing in all directions. Being a little seasoned, already in the in industry for several years, experience with microcomputers and main frames. I did a little of this and a little of that from desktop publishing, database development and applications on the various platforms, the question was still what do I enjoy doing every day? I have digressed, but to make a longer story short, I did pick a technology I enjoyed. I learned every aspect of it inside and out. Like looking through the source code, understanding its design structures, how the entire system ran and relationships between the systems. I understood the system to the point where, I could make the thing sing and a cup of coffee. And I learned not just the technology or system, but I also picked up design, architecture and the appreciation of how development is an art form. Not knowing your background the answer would be make a choice that you will enjoy doing.
I completely agree with you and know where you are coming from. I too 'back in the day' enjoyed every day. Today is a bit different though. We use to be able to learn a language and be pretty sure that we could compete for 5 to 10 years and we could master our craft. Today sadly it is not the same IMHO. Everyday MS gives us 14 new things that we MUST learn... **RANT OVERTED** I have loved everyday of my life as a developer/architect for the past 25+ years. I have no intention of changing just trying to get a feel for where to bet my training time over the next 10. Thanks JD