Microsoft needs to give developers a break...

Tags: .NET C#, .NET Visual Studio .NET, Atlas, CardSpaces, Development Team System, Recommendations, Tech Geek, Visual Basic

 

As some of you might know I'm one of those hardcore guys that live on the bleeding edge. I don't like sitting back idle and watch the world go by. Almost everything I own which is electronic I make at least the attempt to modify/hack the thing to make it suit my needs. My wife has to hide her mobile phone for fear that I will get my hands on it and convert it into a remote for our lights.


With that said, I'm really starting to feel that Microsoft simply needs to give the developer a break. Sit back and relax with Visual Studio .NET 2005 for a minimum of 3 to 5 years. Get service pack 1 for 2005 nailed down and proceed towards service pack 2. They just need to let it mature and actually behave like we all know it can!

 

21 Comments

  • Hardeep Virdee said

    Totally agree with you there Rob... I likewise like to be on the cutting edge, but the pace of change and constant release of new features is hard to keep up with. Also, I have had the feeling that the quality has been slipping a lot of late e.g. VS 2005 SP1 has 1200 bug fixes. Hmmm... not a good sign!

  • pm said

    thanks for pointing out. developers need a family life too, you see. the pace at which microsoft is spitting out technologies, developers just don't get time to "get" it and implement it.

  • pm said

    there are many organisations who have not really adapted vs 2005, framework 2.0 or atlas technolgy. And microsoft has already released framework 3.0 many of these organisations will be jumping to vs 2007 directly.

  • Joe Chung said

    That isn't going to happen. Microsoft was already under way with Visual Studio Orcas before Visual Studio 2005 came out. The next version of Visual Studio is already available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP).

  • Rick Strahl said

    No kidding Rob... I'm like you in that respect, but I'm starting to serious burn out on information overload. I don't even know where to turn anymore to even pick my area of expertise. It's getting spread too thin to keep up with the technology as a whole.

  • dwahlin said

    I have to agree with you as well. It used to be that you could focus on one area (ASP.NET for instance) but now even focused technology areas have a lot of new things coming out. In one sense it's fun, but from the perspective of a CIO it must be annoying since they just want some stable ground to work with that they don't have to upgrade every year just to stay up with the latest technology.

  • mattpil29 said

    Couldn't agree more. How about 2 years of fixing all the little things that we have to 'work around' also known by microsoft as 'behavior is by design'. Matt

  • johnny said

    I'd like to comment, but I'm too busy trying to learn about WPF! And once I learn that, I'll be too busy to comment because I'll be too busy learning about _____ and ______! Will my program work on Vista? When will that component vendor release their Vista compatible component so I can relearn that as well! I'm so busy trying to learn new technology, once I learn it and start to apply it, it's time to learn something new!

  • Rich S said

    Amen -- couldn't agree more. I've been working non-stop for the last 11 months on .NET 2.0 after getting a relaxed start on 1.X -- all of my efforts have been on my own time, which means I've been the nocturnal developer -- putting in enormous hours in the middle of the night -- all whilei being a parent of 2 young kids. I'm getting really really tired -- but have to continue to be a viable in .Net. I feel like I'm finally getting comfortable -- but, dread how/if Orcas will put me back again. The ridiculous thing is, many developers I know are so much farther behind than me. R

  • Adel said

    Could't agree more, it's too much... strongly agree with Dee comment. the problem being is .NET Framework model is so open for ideas. thanks for opening this issue Rob

  • Anonymous said

    My god I hope MS doesn't listen to you. Don't you remember the nightmare wait that came after VC6 -- I don't want my tools to get that far behind again. I for one am thrilled that MS is regularly updating their tools and technologies.

  • Marcos said

    Another vote for you !!! Completely agree with you, anyway my brain said NO to vista and NO to Atlas and I´m living a more peaceful life =) I love VS 2005 but we cant use it at work until the Sp1 and I don't want to touch any CTP and something like this, hahaha This is what M$ made to a DevGeek, too much dude too much Cheers

  • lb said

    oh yeh. This is so true. I feel like I haven't slept in two years. One new product release, language re-think, after another.... a continual barrage... it's excellent but it's so exhausting. make's you wish for a simpler time and so on. little incremental improvements that improve the reliability, the usability, the performance -- but don't require relearning, complete reinstalling... evolution not revolution... at least for a few months ;-)

  • Andreas said

    In fact ms has already talked abit about the version after the next visualstudio (orcas , hawaii or what ever they call them). I think they are about to bit their tail on this "highspeed" roll out. I mean that there are still a lot of systems running in com+/mts and vb6 environment. And the .net platform is moving on to fast, In a larger project that last for 2-3years you cant just re architecht it just because ms release a new version, and at the same time you almost must do it since they wont let your stuff run on the new platform or stop suporting it since it is 5years old or so. I'm seriously think about telling my customers to go on the java platform instead since it is more stable and it will still be working in lets say 10years from now. What happens to MS platform no one realy knows , except for BillG that is:)

  • Rusty Zarse said

    A good friend of mine once said the same thing about 2.0. His objection was that most of the Microsoft articles featured next gen features and there wasn't enough attention on the real-world, here and now technologies. He had a point but, in restrospect, later admitted he was not compaining so much about Microsoft but rather comaplaining about his job and his lack of opportunity to use these innovations. If you consider that all the new features are created to enhance our toolset as software developers and reduce the amount of work required to solve business problems or provide more robust behavior, its hard to argue the Microsoft shouls "slow down and let people catch up" I'm sure the Ruby community would agree with you that Microsoft should give up trying to be the best...

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