Karl Seguin

.NET From Ottawa, Ontario - http://twitter.com/karlseguin/

07, 08, 09, XX - Years of the .NET Programmer

Since it's very beginning, .NET has been a dominate player in the market place. Within a couple years, Microsoft was able to leverage it's unique position and assert .NET as a power house. For many of us it's lead to great personal growth and opened new opportunities. Job positions are plentiful (CNN named .NET one of the top 5 "Big demand, big pay" jobs) and industry growth continues at an amazing pace.

What's really impressive is that all this has happened with only partial support from Microsoft. It's been hard for desktop applications written in .NET to gain the same traction as, say, ASP.NET applications - simply because you can't rely on the .NET framework to be installed on the user's PC.

With the eminent release of the .NET Framework 3.0 on Vista and XP, .NET is going to go through an insane surge that will make it's initial release seem timid. We aren't just talking about migrations either. The rich multimedia capabilities of the .NET Framework 3.0 coupled with the vast market penetration of XP and Vista is going to result in the emergence of completely new markets. It'll be like Web 2.0 for the desktop - except for real.

CNN thought .NET programmers were in demand before? I'm glad I don't work in HR.

If you're actually enthusiastic about programming and want to be on the cutting edge, download the CTPs today and start playing around. As best as I can tell, Microsoft is throwing it's entire weight behind this. Microsoft is basically saying "This is where Windows programming is going" and where Windows programming goes, so too does the money.

Published Sep 20 2006, 08:10 AM by karl

Filed under: Short Outbursts

Comments

Brian said:

While I do think there are some reasons to create a desktop app, I think MS is putting their weight behind it for one reason only, they need upgrades of windows.... The reason they are 'pushing' these technologies, is because they want to pull development off the web and back to the desktop, which means people need a newer OS.

I primarily develop web apps, and have seen NO compelling reason to move to smart client, MOST things can be done either server side, or if you need the interactivity, then through AJAX/etc...

# September 20, 2006 8:52 AM

karl said:

You might be right about their motives Brian (in part atleast). And I hear you on the web vs desktop thing, but I use so many desktop apps day to day that it's plain to me that the web isn't even close to being where it would need to be.

I use writely.com and google calendar's on occasion and I'm amused at these "word" killers. True, the .NET framework 3.0 doesn't exactly target those types of desktop apps and most of the demo's we've seen have been "why not just use the web (like the cool BBC one)". Whatever you think about the technology, I hope you agree that it will quickly turn into one of the hottest market for any programmer to engage.

# September 20, 2006 6:07 PM

Chris Stewart said:

I tend to agree with the comment that the web just isn't ready. While you can build very productive applications with the web, it simply doesn't provide the developer with as flexible of an environment. In the real world, where security is crucial, we'll never have the same flexibility on the web. I think each serve distinct purposes and in the very near future the "semi-fat-client" will reign supreme once again. Use the desktop for what it is good at, presentation and control. Use the web for what it is good at, on-demand, distribution, and scalability. Present information with the desktop with up to date information from WCF services.

# September 21, 2006 7:14 AM

Tim Coker said:

The other side of this argument is visualization apps. I work in a steel mill, and for most things (99.999%) the web is great, and that's where its done. But I just finished up an app for displaying the shape trace of a coil 3 dimensionally using the xceed controls, and there's no way this could reasonably be done with a server-side solution. The desktop works great because the user can spend all their CPU cycles rendering the surface as they interact with the surface.

# September 25, 2006 7:59 AM

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About karl

I'm a developer living in Ottawa, Ontario. I like to focus on medium to large scale enterprise development, maintainable code, DDD and unit testing. I occasionally speak at conferences, am an editor for DotNetSlackers and contribute to projects here and there.