While I am always attracted to Java and Open Source, I’m also not adverse to pitching in on other projects, including those using .Net. C# is really quite a good language. There I said it. I know it is a clone of Java in many ways, but it is quite clean and well thought out, for the most part.
One of the biggest differences working on a Java and .Net project is the Microsoft lock-in on the latter. Sure, the database may be SQL Server or Oracle, but other than that, most .Net shops buy the whole Microsoft tool-chain hook, line and sinker. Microsoft Server, VisualStudio, TeamTest, TFS, WCF, etc.
And most .Net developers are quite happy with this. They don’t get the disdain that other developers may show towards them. Microsoft produces tools they like and know. And lately I also notice that they like and know their iPods, iPhones and iPads…
What? How is it that Microsofties are all in love with Apple? The once and always adversaries for the desktop. I didn’t get it at first. Was I misreading people.
And then is started to dawn on me. While Microsoft has crushed its competition though market weight, with some say a monopolistic edge to it, it has at least done so, for the most part, in a competitive way. No closed app store for Microsoft. Apple, champion of great design, has recently been criticized for its controlling approach to its ecosystem.
And that’s where some .Net developers become fanbois. In many ways, the .Net development environment has become a closed shop. If you like Microsoft tools, you are comfortable there. Similarily, if you like iOS apps, you are also comfortable. So it is not so much that .Net developers are defecting to Apple, it is that Apple is adopting the close ecosystem model that .Net developers have already become comfortable with in the Microsoft development ecosystem.
Or maybe they are just overwhelmed, like the rest of us, by the Paradox of Choice…
I used to hoard programs. Or more specifically, installation programs. If you’re old enough, and a geek, you probably know what I’m talking about. When the web came along in the mid-90′s every geek’s computer I knew had a “downloads” directory full of stuff like:
- netscape-install-1.2.7.zip
- pkunzip.something.exe (or .sh)
- ftp-tool.or-other.zip
I don’t have that anymore. If I want an application I download the latest version or use my update manager to get or update it.
My bookmarks in the browser window used to be full of stuff too. Every time I’d see an interesting page I would bookmark it into the long list of “WORN” URLs (“Write Once Read Never”). I then moved to del.icio.us, since it had better tags and meant I could get to them from anywhere. I don’t even bother doing that anymore either. Google is my friend.
And who still doesn’t have a music folder crammed full of mp3 files, bought, ripped, downloaded or otherwise acquired?
Why did we hoard all this stuff, why don’t we any longer, and what’s up with music?
We hoarded since the cost of downloading was high and we were afraid of losing it. But we learned over time for installation programs that they were always being updated and it was only getting quicker to re-download them. Easier and safer to offload the management of them to the internet. Need to re-install Firefox? Got to http://www.getfirefox.net . Or more probably, type it into Google, and have it remind you of the URL.
Segue into bookmarks. I hardly ever looked at my bookmarks, even on del.icio.us, and so have handed the job of finding stuff to the internet. The search engines are all good enough that if I want to show my kids the “Who’s on First” routine I do a four second search.
Music remains the hoarder’s treasure. A variety of reasons make it so. There is the obvious licencing issues, but more importantly music is more like applications than links or install programs. Something that costs a lot (in time) to download but that we want to use over and over again. Faster bandwidth can reduce this download cost, but there is still the issue of ownership. Unlike videos, the value of a piece of music goes up the more you listen to it, so renting it (even through subscription services) is something unattractive to us. If copyright laws restrict us in how we can access it, we want to control the music we do have, and that means having it sit on our metal.
We hoard two things: things we use infrequently but are hard to find or expensive to get; and things we use a lot. The first go away as the network and its services improve; the second are unlikely to.
Which is why I’m skeptical of user-targeted cloud services ever taking off.
Posted 1 year, 11 months ago. Add a comment