[Year 12 SofDev] O/T "Windows developers .. to Linux"

[Stephen Loosley]

At 10:01 PM +1000 9/7/07, Antony Barry wrote:

"Windows developers begin slow defection to Linux" .. Two years ago, the number of developers writing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform fell, while the opposite was true for Linux -- this has now become a trend ...

<http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Windows-developers-begin-slow-defection-to-Linux/0,130061733,339279528,00.htm>

In response, at 02:10 AM 11/07/2007, Frank O'Connor wrote:

Mmmm ...  I don't think many hard-core platform developers and committed MS software architects will switch (hey there's too much moolah to be made), but, the legions of small VB developers and in-house enterprise VB users are getting a tad miffed. 

Mainly because the easy to use IDE of the past (VB6 or Visual Studio before 2003) has pretty much disappeared, and they don't like the complexity and added workload of its replacement - especially for the tasks they used to use it for - quick hacks, small applications, front ends for MS databases (Access and SQL Server) etc etc.

I think the reasons are many ... but include:

1. MS doesn't support 'classical' Visual Basic anymore. VB6 support went out the door a few months back.

2. Ditto for COM (and COM+) It's all .NET now.

3. The current version of Visual Studio ain't a 'plug and play' puppy like in the past - still has a nice GUI, but it's an order of magnitude more complex.

4. .NET is in many ways as complex as JAVA ... and the vast majority of MS developers were COM users from way back. To build an application they just did the GUI, embedded the program logic and controls in it, and used the necessary networking libraries if they were networking it. Many never had to write serious code in their lives ... spent all their time in Winforms or other GUI tools.

5. Visual Basic.NET is in many ways as complex a language as C++ - contains about 78 new operands and functions over the old VB, has a heap more API and functional settings, and now incurs a development process and method a lot more like that which hard coders have utilised in the past.

6. If you're developing for .NET you're probably better off using C#  (think JAVA on a diet) ... but, any way you look at it, programming for net requires as much effort, dedication and skill as doing JAVA or Object C.  MS still takes a lot of the effort out of it by providing huge multi-purpose libraries (for any number of common application and enterprise functions) but there is no way it is as 'user friendly' as the old Visual Basic.

7. MS changed many of the 'rules' with Vista (and .NET), and a lot of developers might change.
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Cheers people
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia
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