You've got to love "How to Hate Microsoft"

posted Friday, October 24, 2003 7:31 AM

A couple of days ago I came across Scoble's post over on LonghornBlogs.com entitled “How to Hate Microsoft.”  When I saw the post I didn't really pay much attention to it.  I gave it a quick skim but didn't actually read what Robert was saying.  Today I found myself back at the post.  Rather then ignoring it for a second time I decided to read what Mr. Scoble had to say.

Simply put, I love Microsoft.  I've been developing with their technology for most of my professional career. I started working with VB and then moved to the wonderful world of the web when ASP rolled along.  Using Microsoft technologies I've developed a lot of application for myself and clients.  The one thing that I really liked early in my career was how fast I could get myself up to speed on the Microsoft platform.  It always seemed like when I tried to do some of the same things on the Java platform it wasn't quite as easy.

As I've grown professionally the things I look for in a platform have shifted dramatically.  Two years ago I was looking at what Java and J2EE provided developers and thinking that it might be time to leave the Microsoft side of the development world and turn to the dark side.  The frustration of developing distributed applications on Microsoft technology had me on the verge of jumping ship.  How much longer could I take DLL Hell?!?!

Then something happened.  I attended a Microsoft event and heard about ASP+.  It sounded promising, but I was skeptical.  I had been bitten many times by Microsoft technology and wasn't sure what would become the .NET platform would be able to live up to the hype.  I decided early on to adopt this .NET thing, so I got all the beta software I could and tried it out.  I wrote several very simplistic applications in the beta 1 days and really liked what I was seeing.  This was a cool platform!

Since that time I've embraced everything .NET and have never looked back.  I still try and learn as much as I can about J2EE, Java, and all the other alternative technologies out there so that I can try and keep a open mind about the best platform choice for clients, but .NET isn't making that any easier. 

So what does all this have to do with Scoble?  What Scoble said in his post made me feel very confident in the decisions I made two years ago when I was thinking about jumping to the J2EE/Java world.  As if all the talk about what's coming in .NET v2 wasn't enough!  Scoble represents a significant change inside of Microsoft.  They are opening up “their world” for all of us developers to see.  They're giving us very early Longhorn bits, they're writing blogs about the internals of their operation systems, and platforms.  They're embracing their developer community in a truly awesome way.  I am more confident then ever that I made the right choice two years ago when I decided to stick with my Microsoft roots and embrace .NET.  In the coming years I believe we will see a lot of truly amazing things come out of Microsoft.  As a developer I'm extremely excited about all the killer functionality I'm going to be able to provide my clients.  The future looks bright!

2 Comments

# re: You've got to love "How to Hate Microsoft"

Friday, October 24, 2003 9:26 AM by Dave    
Me? I have mized feelings still. MS is very much on the cutting edge and the products they will come out with shortly are quite awesome. Like you, I've used their platforms over the last 8 years to give a major boost to my career.

Yet, some might also argue they are not only on the cutting edge, they are on the bleeding edge. Remember, other than ASP.NET 2.0 and Whidbey, most of the awesome things Scoble speaks of so frequently are not going to be betyond Beat until late 2005 or later. And exactly what kind of hardware requirements will these awesome products have? Will you be able to provide your clients that killer functionality when they take into account the hardware upgrades required to attain it?

Don't be blind. While MS is definitely more open than in recent past, they still have their stockholders foremost in their strategies. Oh, and those damn pesky stock options which aren't worth as much as most holders thought they'd be, thanks to a stagnant market and economy. They are NOT opening up their world and giving us early alpha bits - they only are to those willing to pay a premium price to get them. A premium price for code bits that will likely bear little relationship to the finished code?

I agree though - .NET, particularly ASP.NET has few peers in the marketplace. And the next version by all accounts is a pretty decent leap over the current one (something the last few Office releases have most certainly not been... not including the recent 2003 version).

If you have the right clients, the future for an MS developer is quite rosy. But if you're working in an average size shop, one that has suffered 2-3 years of flat times and has little capital to spare... you're probably way too busy developing solutions that work TODAY to be able to afford the extravagance of dealing with products far off. Should you ignore the things most are excited over at next week's PDC? Not at all. But there's still 2 years to deal with in the meantime.

# re: You've got to love "How to Hate Microsoft"

Friday, October 24, 2003 10:39 AM by Steve    
Dave, I agree that we still have to be somewhat skeptical of what we hear out of the MS camp. We have to remember that much of the hype we hear is pretty far off, and will require some changes before their benefits can be truelly realized. With that said I think there is a lot to look forward to. .NET v2 looks awesome. The idea of having a managed API in Longhorn intrigues me. I'm looking forward to the future, even if its still a couple years off! Heck I'll have plenty to keep me busy as long as I can find a way to get my hands on all the bits their giving away at the PDC!

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