On Being Blow Away by Technology

While watching Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman, and Brian Goldfarb demonstrate Silverlight 4, I had a range of reactions:

  • Wow! I’ve got to play with this stuff!
  • I’m feeling overwhelmed by the avalanche of technology
  • How will I find the time to do billable work and stay current with this great stuff?
  • Maybe I can convince my client to switch the app in development from ASP.NET 3.5 to Silverlight 4?

It’s all so exciting, unnerving, and, in a certain way, upsetting to be so blown away by technology.

Ken

Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:17 AM by Ken Cox [MVP]
Filed under: , ,

Comments

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:58 PM by Zack Jones

I hear ya! What sucks is when you work in an environment where they are very slow to upgrade to new technology. We just upgraded from SQL Server 2000 to 2005 a month or so ago. Never mind that 2008 has already been out for several months. We could only upgrade to 2005 :(.

Regarding Silverlight I still haven't even made my way through the Silverlight 2 book and now you're talking about Silverlight 4. Slow down, Microsoft!

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:22 PM by zoldello

I think Microsoft have too many people trying to throw out new tools and technologies to justify why they should not be laid off. Silverlight 3.0 just came out and now they are showing Silverlight 4. Also, .NET 3.5 is less than 2 years old and now .NET 4 is coming out soon. How many are still trying to caught up to .NET 3.0? Have you mastered important things in .NET 2.0 yet? Most of the new tools is about trying to pull out the last drops of blood from this thing called object oriented programming or just copying something done somewhere else.

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:55 PM by Thai Anh Duc

Yeah, i have the same feeling for long time. I have been working mainly in ASP.NET from 2.0 to 3.5.

I lost my way with others, since when i started to try MVC, then lots of information about silverlight came up, and WPF, WCF, ....

Just a thought, i have not found the solution to keep up with yet.

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 9:05 PM by V

i'm in the same boat, I only just started scratching the surface of SL 3.0 in the anticipating that 4.0 was coming out next year at Mix. Now you have .NET 4.0 right round the corner whilst I am trying to get my mcpd for 3.5.

The feature list for SL 4.0 is awesome, my only wish is that more companies start moving to SL rather than sticking it out with Flash.

How does one keep on top of everything ?

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 9:53 PM by Ken Cox [MVP]

@V: Only a year ago, I was frustrated by the lack of information on doing data-driven stuff in VB with Silverlight 2 and threw myself into a learning/tutorial project to get a handle on it. That's had a pretty short shelf life! Pity the authors of Silverlight 3 books - they're already out of date!

@Thai Anh Duc: The best way to keep up is through watching videos and working sample code using the technology.  I think Microsoft is doing a better job of coordinating the user education aspects with beta releases. However, I suspect MS developers are like most of us in that it's far more fun to invent (and code) new features than to take a break document what you've done.

@Zack: I've found that financial institutions (especially banks and insurance companies) are the slowest to adopt anything. If the boss is wearing a tie, you can assume he won't stick his/her neck out for recent technology. <grin>

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:38 AM by Garry Pilkington

What I try to do is concentrate on a core area. Although I am proficient at WinForms and am aware of Silverlight,  WPF and others, I try and concentrate on web applications and frameworks. That way I don't get swamped by all these technologies. It is important however to know just enough of these technologies so you can make a sound judgment as to how they could benefit you on a new project.

# re: On Being Blow Away by Technology

Thursday, November 19, 2009 6:47 PM by TD

And people at Microsoft wonder why things like Dynamic Data, Astoria, Cardspace, WF, etc. never caught on. SLOW DOWN!

Leave a Comment

(required) 
(required) 
(optional)
(required)