I am afraid Robert Scoble only added to the confusion and/or frustration with
this post. In short, the question some people have now is - if all three pillars of Longhorn are not going to be in it, what's left?
Scoble: “Avalon and Indigo are much more important for developers now that they're on XP and Server 2003 too.” This is supposed to somehow justify cutting of all three pillars, but I don't see how.
The problem is that Avalon will NOT be the same on XP/2003 and Longhorn (at least that's how it was supposed to be, due to the fundamental compositing features of Longhorn that will not be present on XP/2003). As a desktop developer that does it for a living close to 10 years now, and using MS technologies only, I'm not sure what will XP/2003 version of Avalon bring to me. However, I had a good idea on what Avalon will bring to me with Longhorn, and I didn't mind that it was not going to be present on XP/2003. Historically, that's how things were - when was the last time that Microsoft back-ported features from a new OS into older ones? Never. If you want new stuff, you have to upgrade.
Thus, I think this is just a marketing spin on a terrible delay. Unless Indigo and Avalon (and WinFS) will have exactly (or close to) the same feature set on all OS-es. If they are not, how is Longhorn different from XP SP3 + Avalon + Indigo + WinFS? Why do we need a new OS if crucial new features are coming in the form of add-ons? Why wait another year and a half? If these pillars are not crucial, what is?
I understand from Scoble's post that Microsoft hasn't told us everything yet. That's fine, but I suggest they start talking. Even if it means bits and pieces of information left on Microsoft blogs.
The developers you are referring to, Robert, need to be informed on what's coming. Saying that we just need to “wait, there are good things to come” is not enough. Not after so many reschedules and feature cuts. I am sure that Microsoft has valid reasons for all this, but due to the long development cycles (especially when new platform is involved) we need to know more and we need to know now.
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I just read a post on Channel 9 where a member states, and I quote (name withheld to protect the innocent) “Right now I'm stuck doing applications work, sometimes on the windows platform, and I hate it.” Needless to say the rest of the post glorified Open Source model, Linux etc -- usual stuff.
I've been working with Microsoft technologies almost exclusively for close to ten years now. In the meantime, Windows as a platform changed (improved a lot), Microsoft grew stronger and weaker at the same time, some new competitors arrived (both in the Web space and on server/desktop) one of which is Linux.
If for some reason Microsoft lost dominance on the desktop (where most of my work is) and Linux took over, that would most likely mean that market for Windows programmers would shrunk and there would be more work for Linux developers. If I hated Linux development and refused to learn more about that platform I would end up doing the same the guy above does. But if I didn't like what I was doing I would be a lot less successful, on top of the fact that I'm ignoring the larger market for my services. That makes no economical sense and would make me miserable most of the time (working on what I hate).
I choose not to be religious about technology (just as much as I am not religious about the brand of my household appliances, car or furniture). If market switches into another direction, so will I. If I am strong enough to lead the change, that's something else - but there are not many among us who are capable of that.
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This blog is not popular (I am not living in denial) but here and there a post links to some other popular blog. Even more rarely a popular blogger would link back to me.
Apparently this is enough for comment spammers to notice me. For days during a month or two I would occasionally get two spam comments on seemingly random post. Lazy as I am, instead of taking protective measures, I would just log in and delete them.
However, the last few days have become unbearable. This unfortunately coincided with me being on a business trip and unable to update my web server software remotely. I think I started getting around 20 spam comments per day. Now this requires active counter-measures.
I think it works. I haven't received anything in the last day or so. Will keep the fingers crossed...
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So I got your attention with the title, huh? ;) Ignore it - I'm talking about similar attitude today, though - Internet access speed and how it changes our habits.
If you are a MSDN (Universal) subscriber, you know how much space the quarterly shipment takes. After Microsoft started giving discounts to companies that switched to DVD media only this became less of a problem, but it still is hard to find what you're looking for among all those platforms and languages.
ADSL2+ is becoming a reality, and it is soon coming in my area too. We're talking about speeds of up to 25Mb/s if you are close enough to the telecom equipment. It is understood that the price I pay now (29.99€) stays, and that it means unlimited download.
All this means that it is a lot faster for me to go online and download anything from Microsoft MSDN Subscriber site, than to sift through a pile of CD/DVD media. I stopped backing up various applications that I buy as well - takes me more time to catalog where it is, than to simply go online and download.
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