Jason Mauss' Blog Cabin

The names have changed

I recently read here about the name changes given to Indigo and Avalon. From now on...

Indigo = Windows Communication Foundation
Avalon = Windows Presentation Foundation

Perhaps Microsoft will feel like renaming a portion of Enterprise Service to "Windows Transaction Foundation" or maybe a portion of the .NET Framework for WinForms controls to "Windows Template Foundation" ?

Ok, sorry, bad joke. I know.

UPDATE: It seems that, in addition to stealing his first name, I've stolen Jason Bock's joke about the new names for Indigo and Avalon. So, in addition to it being a bad joke, it wasn't even original! Guess I won't try to make that transition into comedy any time soon.

Preparing for Indigo

W00t! I got accepted to Project Fazr!

As Ryan announced on his blog, I've joined up with Project Fazr. I'm really excited about the potential this has. I can't wait to share more information with you as things develop. (And as I'm allowed to talk about it, of course) I'd encourage anyone that likes the idea to talk with Ryan about joining us.

In the year two thousaaaaand

If you watch Late Night with Conan O'Brien with any regularity - you probably already understand the title of this post. If not, basically this is my attempt at clairvoyance with regard to the software industry

1. Personal computers will become more and more powerful, and also continue to fall in price. The irony of this will boggle minds as the browser becomes the most used desktop application by far. 4.8Ghz processors and 2GB of ram will be used to "make that JavaScript scream". Firefox will show in Task Manager as using 472mb of ram. Wait, sorry...that last part is already happening.
2. Some company somewhere will come up with a "WebOffice" suite of applications that offers such a large percentage of the functionality actually used by Microsoft Office users that people will pay $20 a year for using WebOffice and never suffer through another 45 minute install or upgrade of Microsoft Office only to find out other applications need to "configure office" when they're run. Inevitably, animated .gif's of clippy will make at least one appearance.
3. The claim that "The Browser/Web is the new OS" will have a snowball effect and gain more momentum than most people have predicted. Longhorn Vista will boast a cool new feature set - most of which will be heard by those already using the browser for e-mail, photo sharing, document sharing, VOIP chatting, and most of the stuff that's already easy and seamlessly done over the web. These people will be heard to say, "I guess I'll upgrade for the spiffy new UI" with a confused look on their face.
4. Microsoft will research the feasibility of offering Visual Studio as a web application. After stumbling through the development of a proof-of-concept application, they'll buy the company that made "Web Office" and put them to work on it.
5. New technology businesses starting up won't need to employ anybody that knows how to administer e-mail server software, database server software, etc. They'll simply pay a monthly fee to have it hosted for them or use a free service. The majority of revenues generated for these types of server products will come from sales to hosting provider businesses.
6. A few years after that, nobody will be using Outlook, Enterprise Manager SQL Management Studio, or any form of desktop software to connect to their server products. Rich JavaScript/AJAX/DHTML browser UI's will take their place. Hundreds of gigabytes of disk space will go unused forever. The average "temporary internet files" folder will be 42.7GB in size.
7. Component vendors will be selling more copies of DHTML widgets than for Win32, .NET, or Java. Combined.
8. Media streaming technologies will see major improvements and your collection of movies, mp3's, and television shows will be stored online, accessible from anywhere but most often accessed from a device at home.
9. Broadband and WiFi will become ubiquitous and homes will enjoy T1-speed connections coming in, and Gigabit speeds across their home networks. LAN Party enthusiasts (nerds) everywhere will use this as an excuse to increase the number of get-togethers they have.
10. Soon after that, telco providers will stop offering anything but VOIP over a broadband connection. If you tell the company you are still on dial-up, they will put you on hold while they tell their colleagues what a loser you are.
11. Several people will submit comments on this post about how "oh yeah?..well I'm so cool I already (have or do) that!!". I will reload my apathy cannon.
12. The "Xbox 900" will come out, which will do two and a half rotations each time you turn it on. Tony Hawk will be used heavily to market it. Meanwhile, Sony will wonder, "doesn't anybody care about substance?" as sales of the PS4 diminish.

Well said...I'm very impressed.

I'm usually just satisfied with reading good blog posts and don't necessarily care about linking to them. But since I thought, "this is probably the best post he's ever written" after reading this by Scott, I feel compelled to link to it. Wow, dood. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I'm of the same school of thought as Scott both when it comes to Joel and this article of his. I agree that if you're a "software company" in the sense that all (or the majority) of your profits come from selling copies of shrink-wrap software, then yeah, you need to be hiring rock star developers or you'll soon be in trouble. However, I would say without a doubt that the top 3 most brilliant developers I have the honor of being friends with work for companies whom live and die by their internally developed and maintained software, and don't even resell it to other businesses. And these aren't small businesses either. One is a major aerospace company, one is a multinational bank, and the other is a multi-million dollar real estate agency.

I have no doubt that these guys could join a team at Joel's company (FogCreek) and be very productive and beneficial to his company. They can code better, produce betters architectures, problem solve better, and just plain think better than most developers I know. But their skill is definitely not going to waste because they fall into the corporate IT developer role.

Anyway, read Joel's article, and then Scott's post in response...it's some good thought-provoking reading.

Database Design Article on Developer.com and back from vacation

While I was all over the east coast for vacation it looks like my article on database design for breadcrumb link data got posted on Developer.com. I did all of the graphics for the article, which I hope add to the content in terms of making it understandable.

In unrelated news, I arrived home after being gone for 12 days. My wife and I toured Washington D.C., New York City, Newport, Rhode Island (for the Tennis Hall of Fame induction ceremony and tournament semi-finals) and Boston. We saw the DC Nationals and Yankees play in their respective home stadiums and I must say I had quite a lot of fun. We wanted to see a game at Fenway really bad but the Red Sox weren't playing while we were there because of the All-Star break. We did get to see Fenway and the green monster, though.

Newport, RI was probably the biggest surprise of the trip to me. It's an absolutely gorgeous area right on the Atlantic Ocean. The Tennis Hall of Fame and other historical significance make it a tourist town in a way but it wasn't too crowded while we were there. The seafood there is killer, as it probably is in any town that sits right on the ocean. Definitely a town I would recommend for weekend getaways or even for a week of vacation. Just make sure you can get a deal on a room there. Most rooms within Newport run ~$200/per night or higher from May through October.