Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Some of you may "recognize" me from other forums, but many may not.
By way of introduction, I have been a professional developer for over 31 years, and have run my own New York based consulting firm for nearly 25 (this April, I can drop the "nearly").
The majority of times, I am contracted by medium ($100M) to large (>$1B) corporations (and some goverment agencies) to either architedect or lead the development of programs in well excess of 1 million lines of code [not counting "designer" or "generated" code].
Since 2002, the majority of our work is based on .Net solutions. The reason is simple. THe total cost of ownership is proven to be significantly lower.
I have first hand been a part of the evolution of technology, from a $750K (in 1972 dollars) machine, that filled a room,and had 4KW of memory and was primarily programmed via Paper Tape and ASR-33 teletypes.
The changes in technology has been rapid over the past three decades, and even with my experience, I spend an average of 15-20 hours per week just "keeping up". When I am leading groups [including talks to students], I tell them that they will have to either do the same, or be left behind.
I am already booking contracts with clients to start filling out their plans for the migration to .NET 4.0 (VS-2010). Companies which have not already put this as a formal item for their 2009 budgets are already behind.
Aside from the new language and environment features, companies (and therefore any professional developer) must already be planning for hardware changes, such as 32-64 core WORKSTATIONS and servers with well upwards of 256 cores.
If you have not been writing software with this in mind for the past year to 18 months, then again you are already behind.
As dilettante stated....Except for the word "probably"..
Quote:
thats just part of the cost of doing business.
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
At about 55 minutes into Stack Overflow Podcast #29 Joel and Jeff go into this very topic.
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
While that link provides a view on technology in general, I fail to see anything specific about .NET nor anything to differentiate it.
On the whole "Beta mentality" issue, an rational mind must realize that the only reason it exists is because IT WORKS!!!! People and companies want/need to have the latest possible items because the benefits outweigh the "bugs". In the technology arena this has ben true since well before I started my career in the early 1970's.
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
@CPUWiz - what "works?" The Beta? Certanly not! Or the process? Yes it does.
And here's why: Developers make poor end users. We all have our own idea of how we think the application will be used. But users bering users have their own way of doing things. That's why Betas and CTPs are so usefull... get something out to the users to bang on to see where the deficiencies are. Anyone who uses a Beta for production is jsut asking for trouble. No, not asking, but sending out an invitation for trouble. Betas are to be used to see where there are problems and to provide feedback.
And I don't see anything in that linked article that says that Betas are bad.... quite the opposite... sounds like some companies could benefit from MORE Betas and testing, not less.
Betas and CTPs are good.
-tg
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Users and developers are definately different. My previous point was targeted at users who accept releases (typically 1.0) that have "less than 100%" functionallity.
Beta and Production is rarely a good match, but there are exceptions. A few years ago I was leading a team and we had to decide to use 1.x or 2.0 technologies (2.0 was in early Beta). Because our release data was after the scheduled 2.0 release date, and the technology would make the job significantly easier (over 2 man years off the budget), we decided to go for it.
As it turns out, our produc was ready for production [over 3000 hours of QA testing] before 2.0 actually released. In this particular case we moved into production the day after the "Go-Live" license came out.
Getting back to .Net 4.0 (and more importantly the enhancements to Visual Studio), my company is already committed to providing our "Planning for the Future" guidelines by mid December. There are definately decisions that can be made today (many should have been made up to a year ago) that will influence how successful a product will be over its entire lifecycle.
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCPUWizard
... [a] rational mind must ralize that the only reason it exists is because IT WORKS!!!! ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
... And I don't see anything in that linked article that says that Betas are bad.... quite the opposite... sounds like some companies could benefit from MORE Betas and testing, not less.
I give up. :ehh:
.
Re: [RESOLVED] Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
Clearly, there is a sliding scale between neophyte and expert. The neophyte has to consult documentation/knowledge sources more often than an expert. The most expert person is therefore the one who least needs to resort to reference material. This is beyond fantasy engendered of argument; the interviewee who can best answer technical questions without saying, `I’d need to look that up in MSDN`, is clearly the most technically-adept, and the most likely to get the job therefore. No one would have much faith in a doctor who routinely had to seek advice from colleagues. Any sensible patient would rather seek out one of those other colleagues! It is sophism in the extreme to redefine ancient terms in order to buttress an argument. We all know what an expert is, what expertise is, and we should not attempt to persuade ourselves that there is somehow a new expertise paradigm.
There is no "new expertise paradigm". I think you're confusing different things.
Let's talk about Doctors for a second. Do you believe that the medicine field doesn't change? You can equate Doctors quite a bit to programmers when discussing the .Net framework (crazy talk? let me explain). As a Doctor you're expected to understand what each organ does, how they connect / work with other organs, and you know how to perform / diagnose in specific specialties such as Brain Surgeon. Do you think all Doctors know all new techniques? Of course not otherwise there would be no such thing as "second opinions".
Now look at the framework. Microsoft has kept .Net 2.0 as the base for .Net 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and now 4.0. This way you know how the framework works, how certain items connect / work with other objects, and you know specific specialties such as ASP.Net or Win Forms development. Do you think .Net programmers know all the new techniques / object? Of course not.
You don't go into an interview and say "let me look at up in the MSDN". That's asinine. What you need to do is understand the foundation of the .Net framework. Once you understand that practically everything else is easy to pick up and understand. You also should specialize in an area to avoid becoming the "Jack of all trades; master of none" guy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
Many of the replies I have received seem to insist that I detest change. I don’t. I do, however, detest change for its own sake. Earlier, I compared restoring a missing notification icon in Vista to doing the same in XP. In response, someone implied that there was a good reason for the new complexity. How it can be a good thing to introduce complexity to what was earlier simple, is beyond me, but no doubt this is the thinking of the new `experts`. Most of us, I imagine, would prefer the military methodology: more power with more simplicity. If it takes a thousand people to destroy a city, then cool; however, if it takes one person to blow up ten thousand cities, then really cool! It is only in the field of software development, apparently, that it is better to go the other way!!
You keep reiterating that you detest change for its own sake but neither you nor anyone else was able to say what was changed for its own sake so I have no idea why you keep stating that...
Anyway, as I already mentioned the simple changes that occurred in Vista were the results of thousands of hours of usability testing (something most companies don't care about anymore) and they found it to be easier / more efficient to do things a little different so they made the changes. You're already accustomed to the previous mediocre solution so it's been a tough adjustment. They can't appease everyone but it also wasn't done just for change sake.
Also, software development is not going "the other way". That doesn't even make any sense. Back 10 years ago working on a GUI was a pain in the ass and required many programmers. Now you can drag and drop GUI components and you're done. If that's not easier.... well I don't know what to tell you. All things in software development have gone this way. When computer graphics started coming about you could either use APIs to draw primitives directly to the screen or interface directly with video card SDKs. Then we went onto OpenGL and DirectX which provide a layer of abstraction and make graphics programming easier. Now we have XNA which makes drawing on the screen stupidly easy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
I have been asked how I think Microsoft should develop their software factories (emphasis in the original). Well, how about, knowing that technology is changing so rapidly (emphasis mine), they DON’T KEEP KICKING OUT NEW FRAMEWORKS/VERSIONS/WHATEVER every cotton-picking six months? Hows about they develop a campus-wide, unified approach to development, so that new Frameworks are NEW FRAMEWORKS, and not (according to one expert who has posted in this thread) sticky new versions with add-ons banged on?? Hows about giving professionals ENOUGH TIME TO BECOME REAL EXPERTS (rather than people who just know how to read MSDN)?
They don't change every 6 months. .Net 1.1 came out in 2003. .Net 2.0 came out in 2005. .Net 3.0 (which were strictly only extensions; not required) was 2006/2007. .Net 3.5 was 2007/2008. .Net 4.0 will be 2010. Hardly every 4 months.
Also, Microsoft already has a unified approach to development. That's why all of the new frameworks are based on .Net 2.0. It's a solid foundation that's familiar with every .Net programmer. Why would you want them to create an entirely new framework every-time? Then you'd have to not only learn the new features but also re-learn how to do all the stuff you used to do. The way they're doing it now, you already know half of what you need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
I don’t see the `good reason` the industry is changing so fast that it is difficult even for an above-average professional to keep up with it all. I don’t see that it is good for the industry – which is my original thesis. I don’t see that it makes sense.
You don't see a "good reason" because you're bitter. The industry has to change and change fast otherwise we'll never go anywhere. Suck it up or find another industry. Look at it this way:
I'm only 23 and for my profession career I've had to learn the following (roughly in order (does not include the typical office tools such as Access, Excel and Word)):
VB6
C++
XHTML
CSS
Photoshop
Illustrator
QuarkXPress
PHP
MySQL
VB.Net
C#
.Net 1.1
.Net 2.0
DirectX
OpenGL
Flash
Flex
Managed C++
ASP.Net
.Net 3.0 / .Net 3.5
The list goes on. I'm not trying to brag either as I'm obviously not an expert in all of those languages / libraries / applications. Did I need to be an expert? Heavens no. For the past 4 years I've focused mostly on C# and I am still learning. Do I consider myself an expert on C#? I'd like to think so but I don't believe I'm quite there yet. I've managed to keep myself as informed as I needed to be depending on where I was career and school wise.
For some reason you think seem to think that it's impossible to keep up but all modern industries are like this.
Car makers - Every year something new comes out. Companies are releasing cars that run on Bio-Fuel, Solar, Electric, even nuclear powered cars. I don't see car mechanics getting pissed off. My father who has been a car mechanic for over 20 years still goes to school to learn about hybrid cars, electric cars, etc.
Medical - Every month you hear about surprising new treatments for many things. Do you think Doctors automatically know about all of these?
In my opinion it's good for the industry. As better programming techniques, frameworks and languages come about it forces the industry to change or die. This helps weed out anyone who wants to work in legacy because that's all they know. If you don't keep up and only know the old and the legacy then why would you expect to flourish? Seems back-wards to me. Sure it can be hard at times but it's doable if you want to stay in this industry.
Re: Framework 4.0? Stop! I want to get off!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
I give up. :ehh:
.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigMeUp
I am just now beginning to feel confident with framework 2.0.
If you are just now "beginning" to feel confident with technology that is OVER 4 YEARS OLD I think there is an issue...compared to many other areas of technology, the evolution .NET is relatively slow.
kasracer made a number of excellent points especially relating the to timing of the various releases, and the high level of compatability.
