Running the Development Treadmill

Readers sound off on the latest issues facing developers.

Running the Development Treadmill
Kathleen Dollard's article on the changes in the upcoming version of Workflow [Ask Kathleen, "Windows Workflow Changes Direction," January 2009] reminded me that the same thing happened with SQL Server DTS 2000/2005, as well as with the MapPoint object model and ADO. Now SQL Notification Services was dropped in 2008? Are you kidding? It makes you wonder: How many times do you have to relearn things you used to know how to do?

I'm a strong believer in the Microsoft developer platform, and I believe the tools do get better over time. But using us as beta and field testers ain't right. It costs us and our companies time and money. Now I have Biztalk, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow, and LINQ on the "wait-and-see" list, with more to come, no doubt. If Microsoft still believes that developers are the foundation of its business, it needs to reconsider this strategy. Gates himself talks about the great companies of yesteryear that couldn't see when they started doing things wrong, like DEC, Wang, and Novell (and now General Motors?). It's a mistake to alienate the developer community. Every company has -- or will have -- a Toyota in the rearview mirror.

Hey Bill! Come back for awhile; we need you to clean house!

Matt Fritz, originally posted online

Examples Would Be Nice
Bill Wagner's article covering what VB developers should know about C# would have been more useful if he had anchored the gee-whiz discussion of iterators, lambdas, and closures with at least a mention of the closest approximation in VB.NET functionality, so that we could have gotten a clue as to what the differences are and why we should care [C# Corner, "What VB Devs Should Know About C#," December 2008]. As it is, this read more like a "things I like to do in C#" article than an aid for folks trying to bridge the gap between VB.NET and C#.

Bill Clardy, Orange, Calif., originally posted online

Correction:
The recent First Looks review of Compuware's DevPartner Studio contained an error when discussing the capabilities of that tool's Performance Analyzer ["Understand What Your App Does," January 2009]. Performance Analyzer can be configured to analyze ASP.NET applications running on both local and remote computers. You can read an updated version of the review online at VisualStudioMagazine.com that explains the general steps you need to take to use Performance Analyzer with ASP.NET.

VSM regrets the error.

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