Frameworks
The Future of the Readers Choice Awards
This year marks the 18th annual Visual Studio Magazine Readers Choice Awards. As the scope and depth of development has expanded, we've expanded our awards to follow suit.
This year saw the addition of several component categories, reflecting increased activity in Silverlight and RIA development, mapping and GIS, and a number of other areas. We also added categories reflecting the increasing use of tools for team-based and data-centric development. The goal is simple: To recognize the tools and components that are important to developers today and will remain vitally important going forward.
A few clear winners emerged from our balloting this year, most notably Developer Express, which hauled in seven Readers Choice Awards. Like other successful component makers, Developer Express has expanded beyond components, with tools like CodeRush and eXpress App Framework. Similar products from traditional component providers, such as Infragistics Quince Pro and Telerik WebUI Test Studio, also earned top honors from our readers.
Not that there isn't a place for pure-play vendors in our survey. JetBrains ReSharper once again locked up the Readers Choice Award for best General Development Tool, as well as the coveted Editors Choice Award for Most Valuable Developer Tool. Red Gate Software again earned multiple awards for its profiling and SQL-themed solutions.
Even as we congratulate the winners of the 2010 VSM Readers Choice Awards, we set our eyes on next year's program. What do you think of the changes and additions to the categories this year? Are there categories we need to add or consolidate? E-mail me at [email protected].
About the Author
Michael Desmond is an editor and writer for 1105 Media's Enterprise Computing Group.