What Dot Net?

Seattle Times (via The .NET Guy): "What happened to .NET? Microsoft's flagship strategy for "any time, anywhere computing from any device" has sunk like a stone. By now we were supposed to be seeing initial .NET applications, but the new rallying cry seems to be for Palladium, a security initiative that has met with the same skepticism and resistance from the developer community that .NET inspired."

Answer: we're less than six months from version 1.0 of .NET.  Where were the DOS applications six months after 1.0?  Where were the Windows applications six months after 1.0?  Where were the Java applications six months after 1.0?  Where were the Web applications six months after Mosaic 1.0?  Have DOS, Windows, Java and the Web "sunk like a stone"?

Actually, most of the author's points are perfectly reasonable, just the sort of thing analysts -- and software architects -- need to know.  "How are Windows and Office XP upgrades going?  What is Microsoft doing about the international trend toward open software?  What is the acceptance outlook for Microsoft's new subscription-based upgrade policies?"  In that context, a question about the adoption rate of .NET makes sense.  How is takeup going?  What is Microsoft doing to promote further takeup?  When can we expect .NET to move from the intranet to the Internet?  What factors do customers say are affecting takeup?  When can we expect the so-called .NET Enterprise Servers and the .NET Building Block Services?  What information can I give my team, right now, to enable us to make strategic choices for the next twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six months?

And the author is right to point to scepticism within the developer community.  For Windows developers, .NET is a huge step forward from Visual Basic, Delphi and MFC.  But because it's a huge step, people are cautious about taking it.  Will my COM components still work?  How much of my VB application will I have to rewrite?  Do Support know enough about installation, configuration and monitoring to support this new technology in the field?  Can I afford that risk?  Anyone who isn't sceptical is doing their business and their colleagues a disservice.

But there's a big gap between being sceptical and being negative.  The sceptic insists, "Convince me."  The negativist says, "I don't want to be convinced."  Within the Windows community at least, I don't hear much of the latter, the main sources being the very vocal VB.Classic loyalists.  If the community as a whole is sceptical, good.  If the community as a whole were negative, then Microsoft would have a problem and the author might have a case.  (But don't bet on it.  You'd have been hard pressed in 1985 to find anyone who didn't run a mile from Windows 1.0, and look where we are now.)

Myself, I try to be sceptical: I'm worried about the risks, the immaturity of the platform, the lack of tools, the lack of well-documented best practices, the support issues, yadda yadda yadda.  But I'm more positive than negative: I believe that .NET technology, even at this early stage, is worth considering, provided you understand the risks.

And to write off .NET because we haven't seen major applications within six months seems ludicrously premature.  No technology that requires a dramatic shift of developer focus has done so, at least not in the PC era.  Ask the questions, definitely.  Prejudge the answer, no.