.NET Roadshow

[Ivan Hawkes]

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Just got back from the .NET roadshow in London today and I'm finding it hard 
to work out whether I was impressed and liked the technology or not.

The editor was fairly slick, but then they've had five years to work on it 
since the last one so you'd expect that. The whole thing is targeted at 
low-skilled programmers and people who value eye candy and quick development 
over quality work. It's a frightening prospect watching the barriers to entry 
on programming being lowered even more. I dread to think the quality of 
programmers I'll be interviewing in a few years time. 

On the plus side, it was very slick, and highly productive. That's the kind of 
stuff we gotta get into KDevelop. I liked the integration of SQL tools, but 
that's mainly because I develop web based data driven sites all day at work. 
Basically they've taken a bunch of leftover code from MS Access and dumped it 
into the IDE. Still amusing to watch them switch to Query Analyser in order 
to create the stored procs, since they were talking up how good the 
integration with SQL was, an I had to do exactly that when playing with it 
earlier last month. Even better was to watch the demonstrator have to exit 
and reload the software when Intellisense stopped working and he couldn't 
remember any of the function calls. 

I know that the business world is going to follow this trend, like plague 
followed the movements of rats through Europe, they just can't help 
themselves. That means I have to learn it, and even recommend it as a 
solution where appropriate. What I hope the KDevelop team can do is show the 
people out there that there are alternatives to the Micro$oft solution.

Maybe we have to look at ways we can make programming under *nix easier for 
people who are used to the Redmond way.

- -- 
Ciao,	
     Ivan Hawkes <BlackHawk>

    "Life, don't talk to me about life...", Marvin the Paranoid Android
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