In reading first
Ole
Eichhorn's entry and the
followup
by Martin Spedding, I'm beginning to wonder if the developer community is starting
to get spoiled. >
I agree with Ole's assertion that in order for a programming platform to succeed,
it has to be relatively easy to grasp. Otherwise, people jump ship before they truly
get a handle on the situation. Where I have trouble is their second assertion that
.Net is more "cool" than easy. I'll agree that .Net, be it VB, C#, or whatever else,
is definitely cool... *however*, the coolness is 100% derived from how easy it makes
things.
I'm not trying to grab a .Net evangelist position (not
that I'd argue)... I just have a hard time with people complaining about it. I've
heard numerous VB programmers complain that the jump to VB.Net was too much of a leap,
that they didn't know where to begin. I could understand this if we were still in
the pre-beta days with near 0 documentation, but when you can head to your nearest
bookstore, and find a metric
pile of books on the subject, the arguments get weak. The problem is, developer
types (including myself) have a habit of picking up the docs for a new language/technology/whatever,
reading the first few chapters, and running off to their IDE of choice to get started.
The remaining 600 pages of the book wind up as a reference... not good. I've gone
back and really read the books that I have, and my cluefulness has
shot straight up. In fact, every project I finish makes the last one seem 10x sloppier.
This is what I believe is called experience,
something that one can only gain by doing, not complaining.
These technologies are never going to served up on a silver platter. They will most
likely be drawn into Frontpage.Next much like ASP was, but you'll still wind up with
Frontpage websites. If you want to use .Net in your development, you've got to be
willing to put forward the time and effort... otherwise, you might want to consider
it a hobby and start looking for a new line of work.
The bottom line is, from here on out .Net is only going to get more complicated, and
more integrated into everything that Microsoft does. If you don't like it, there's
always the other guys.
- G
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