I think your approximations are pretty close, although I don't see too many people saying that DLinq isn't "hot". Looking at your list, I am definitely closer to the left side, but not in every category...
Hot: My hair cut
Not Hot: Justice's hair cut
There's nothing that glamorous about the OOTB stuff that MS puts out. However, I'm glad to see a shift in thought on MS's part about open-source - such as with AJAX.NET. With a community of people creating better applications and tools, i hope it'll humble MS to recognize grassroots efforts and get in the trenches with us.
Yeah, MbUnit instead of NUnit. ;)
Dude, I don't know what Tech Ed's are like in Europe, but in North America they have somethign that automatically makes it kewler than any RubyCon or CodeCamp:
Seriously...when I can go to a code camp, load up on Coke Cherry One and protein bars ALL DAY LONG, then I'll happily move Tech Ed into that right hand column...but until then...
;)
D'Arcy
I missed Castle Windsor on the list ;-)
I've been wondering about this too, especially as I find myself dissatisfied and frustrated with Microsoft packaging and efforts at market segregation. You can see it in Visual Studio, starting with the Express Editions and working up to VSTS in its many spledors. It is present in the too-many choices for Office 2007 and in the configuration choices for Vista.
The problem with chopping up the products this way is that you and I and others don't fit those cookie cutters. It is back to having to accept a Chevrolet bench seat designed for some average driver.
Instead of improving modularity and plug-and-play, as do many of your left-column components, there are high permeability barriers among configurations that seem more about business models than who we are and the variety of ways we may want to do things.
My favorite catch-22 this week: I have a Tablet PC that has no way to upgrade its graphics adapter. I have installed Vista Ultimate for one principle reason: I want Bit Locker. I also like features I can get with the Home Premium version (such as improved tablet functions, SUA/UAC, and better handwriting recognition). Oddly, I have to commit a registry hack to get Bit Locker enabled (I need to use a USB key, which the help says I can have, it just refuses to actually offer that version). But the real downer is my graphics rating of 1.0. This is not a problem for me -- the non-Aero display works just fine -- except for some reason Media Player presents DVDs badly on Vista. Also, some Microsoft Apps refuse to install (such as the Movie Editor) because they claim the graphic capability is not good enough. None of these are too painful, but it shows the brittleness of these arbitrary slicings into different price points and, presumably, target audiences.
I also sense some haste and carelessness in how Vista has been carried out.
This approach is too brittle for software and tools and it is feeling increasingly dissatisfying.
CVS is hot? Ug. Given a choice between CVS and VSS, I'd rather poke my eye out.
Linq to NHibernate is hot (to be fair with Linq :)
@Roy: Thanks for the addition and clarification. I was a little confused by the list initially (hence my own post). I don't necessarily subscribe that "everything MS is not" approach. I am looking forward your further thoughts on it though.
Agree mostly on the HOT, but I love SCSF, so I don't agree with the NOT on that.
HAHAHA!
I don't entirely agree either. but the HOT/NOT format made me laugh!
If taken for comedy - this is great. If taken too seriously - this is BAD.
I would move CSV to NOT, and VSTS Source Control to HOT.
Add SubVersion with NHibernate in HOT
Add Linq to HOT
.NET 2.0 to HOT (still), .NET 1.1 to NOT
MS AJAX to HOT.
ReSharper to HOT, Plain Jane Visual Studio.NET to NOT.
Hot: Contrived Hot-or-Not lists
Not: HotOrNot.com
:)
It's over for CVS, it's all Subversion now.
It's also over for NUnit, it's all MBUnit now.
XP is also out, while Scrum is rising.
MVC is heading out while MVP is heading in...
Great list.
The framework is hot - adding LINQ is hot, WPF is hot, etc...
Building tools that already are established in OSS world - definitely not hot. (ie. MSUnit, DLinq over NHibernate)
If you look at that list, that is the theme.
missed SubSonic on the list.
nice job though, and humorous...made me smile.
thx.
is .NET 3.0 really hot?
Just few thoughts on some of the rows of the table, but for many of them the answer is in my opinion that .NET is not used only in the enterprise/daytime job world, but also in the opensource and hobbistic space, so for the people that do it in the spare time, as hobby free ( = as in free beer) is better.
ORM: it's a more OO way to access data and spend less time building the DAL.. and the Entity Framework is not available yet, and DLinq has been discontinued.
CI: Team Build is not CI... probably if MS had add CI in TFS probably more people will use it
SourceForce vs Codeplex: one is around since 10 years, the other less than 1 year. Given the success it has, I guess it is having a lot of success
Google Gear sucks, don't see the point in offline storage for online applications
Conferences: Codecamps are free, Teched and so are very expensive
UnitTesting: NUnit, MbUnit are available since a lot of time, MSTest just with TFS...
Blogging tool: I would say Community Server is hot as well... just a bit more complicated and bloated then the tools on the left. And, please, don't even try to compare MSN Spaces to a blog engine: no customization, lack of the basic social feature of blogging... this can be compared to MySpace or, maybe, to Blogger, but not to personal blogging engine as Subtext, Wordpress and so on
One question: what do u refer to with Object Builder?
I'm not sure what this HOT/NOT is about.
I'm interested in what I will use. That means a fairly detailed analysis including things like "will it be around, or at least supported, in x years".
The HOT idea looks like a fashion parade. Especially with languages that seems a dangerous way to decide. (I'm personally enthusiastic about F# and Powershell at present. Though the former is still a research language, so only for those who go in with their eyes wide open. Wouldn't touch CVS, though SVN might be good, but what about Vault?)
An interesting approach would be to figure out what "developers like me" are thinking rather than putting all developers in a single "basket".
Is .NET 2.0 already on the way out? Aren't most employers still looking for 2.0 developers?
You don't like the application blocks much do you?
DDD, I think that is certainly how.
Saying Web Forms or DLinq or Application Blocks or WCSF is NOT hot is untrue, and besides they all use underlying concepts that are not fixed - they can evolve to use concepts from the HOT column, and you know it's ironic how much up front design is necessary to start a movement. ;-)
Coming to .NET from the open source (Python) world, perhaps I have a different perspective.
CVS is defintely not hot (SVN is though). .NET 2 is not yet out, few people are adopting .NET 3 for production just yet (or even looking at is as far as I can tell)...
XP is not out, it is less 'enterprisey' than scrum and so will always be 'cooler' to some eyes.
NUnit does have a lot of respect.
MVC is not out - but I think it means something different in our world...