[Sussex] .NET and Linux - a contrarian view

[Geoff Teale]

Mark wrote:
------------
> I thought it might be worth posting an opposing viewpoint 
> about the move
> to .NET. I think it's easy for us who appreciate the advantages of
> open-source systems to assume that the closed-source world will have
> trouble overcoming its problems. However, there is much genuine
> innovation going on in places like MS.

<snip>

A very well written response, and a number of good points.  I will agree
that Visual Studio .NET in itself is not a bad product, and is indeed well
designed by very respectable people - some of the intent is skewiff and
things like forcing you to add proprietary extensions into C++ programs just
make me VERY VERY ANGRY |:-|. 

I counter on a few things:

Big shops are often _just_ as likely as small shops to code badly.  My
experience of a very large software house (as opposed to the small one I
work in now) is that there were pockets or real talent surrounded by hoards
of cowboys and I know this experience to be replicated.  Interestingly
though there is at least _less_ of this in the C++ and Delphi teams than in
the VB teams.  VB is considered an "easy" language as such it is deemed
acceptable to employ an infinite number of monkeys to geta job done - often
this backfires, as the lack of design skills (or even an appreciation of why
design is necessary) lead to the usual rule of bad developers: time left
till project completion tends to be constant.  

Small shops tend to be more driven by an overriding culture, if the managers
understand programming then standard are enforced and good software gets
written.  To this day I can say that the number of good programmers I have
met who are working in VB can be counted on one hand, the number of adequate
programmers working in VB I've met I could probably count on my other hand
and both my feet, the number of bad programmers I've met working in VB
number in the thousands.

Never-the-less these are the people whose code is out there and working to
some degree, and companies will not give it up lightly. 

I don't think anyone but the enlightened will go with third party offerings
to get them across to .NET  - most Microsoft shops can't see beyond
Microsoft - for these reason I also don't think they'll take the Borland
route.  

What I see happening is this:

1. Big software houses will jump on the .NET bandwaggon and do whatever it
takes to deliver some kind of product - they hope the customers will jump
with them.

2. Small software houses and Internal dev teams will hang on with VB6 until
it becomes obvious that they can't hang on any longer, then, in a panic
they'll try and use the Microsoft tools to move their code forward, they'll
salvage what they can and eventaully accept that they will have to knock
something up quickly to satisfy their now very pissed off management and
work from there - this happened to a lot of people going into Y2K.

3. The people in both the above categories, who have management who actually
keep one eye open whilst they are snoozing, will have already started in
projects to move their software to new toolsets, be that .NET or otherwise.
A small proportion of them will have learnt the simple but important rule:
if you climb into bed with Billy "Big-Boy" Gates you may like it at first,
but in the morning, when you wake up, you're going to have a very sore
bottom and find yourself out in the cold.

-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org
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