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Web 2.0, Meet .Net 3.0
An anonymous reader writes to mention an eWeek article about Microsoft's move to rename WinFX to .Net Framework 3.0. Microsoft has also announced the availability of the beta version of the MSDN Wiki, the company's first step toward allowing customers to contribute to Microsoft's developer documentation. From the article: "It is purely a branding change, company officials said. The gist of the issue is that Microsoft has two successful developer brands in WinFX and .Net, and the company has seen 320,000 downloads of WinFX -- and 700 signed GoLive licenses -- since the December Community Technology Preview, and more than 35 million downloads of the .Net Framework since the November launch. "
Wow, how innovative! I wish the PHP documentation had user contributions too...
I'd like to propose that the first standard of Web 3.0 be to stop coining stupid phrases for every day things. Web 2.0, Dot Com's, etc.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
From TFA: it's about the .Net Framework (the programming object model), not about the nebulous "web 2.0" bullcrap.
No digg.
Please, educate yourself before trolling utter rubbish like the one in your comment. Some people might believe it.
.NET technology that is used for web browsers is ASP.NET. ASP.NET produces standards compliant xhtml and JavaScript that is sent to your browser. The only place where you will need to upgrade to .NET 3.0 is in the web server. Server side browser technologies never leave the server. They translate its content to something that your browser will understand. When you click "view source" you are not viewing .NET, you are viewing its output.
.NET 3.0 to run .NET 3.0 browser apps in the same way that you don't need to download PHP, Python, Ruby or Perl to your computer to use Slashdot or Digg or Google, etc.
The
You don't need to download
With dynamic OLE licensing 6.23.0 That's my vote.
Yeah...
From the article: "Microsoft has decided to avoid any confusion in the naming scheme for its core developer technology [...]"
Before my brain shuts down in order to protect itself and I start drooling on myself, I should say that it's one thing for tech journalists to be clueless and incoherent; it's another entirely for them to report something that's exactly the opposite of what's happening just because it's in the corporate press release.
I think you mean version 1.1 of the .NET Framework, not 1.3. Also, we published a very detailed list of breaking changes from 1.1 to 2.0 on MSDN. We never take a breaking change lightly, every single one of these would have been reviewed with a great deal of scrutiny to ensure that we really were doing the right thing under the circumstances.
With regard to .NET 3.0 (no longer WinFX 3.0), it's the next version of the .NET Framework. As a result, it includes new features, like WPF (Avalon), WCF (Indigo), and a ton of other cool, new things. This is merely a marketing change, no more.
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
"purely a branding change" -- Standard operating procedure for MS -- they rename their stuff like clockwork. Trace the history of DDE, OLE, COM, DCOM, ActiveX, .Net etc etc etc (same basic stuff) or their alphabet soup of database access methods which all boil down to that incredible confusing ODBC control panel doodad. (And you have to install the drivers on EVERY DESKTOP, too, or at least you used to...) If MS is not renaming their techologies, they're reorganizing the company.
.NET 2.0 web technology is cross browser compatible. It produces standards compliant xhtml and JavaScript. Its beta AJAX Atlas library currently works equally well in both Firefox and IE.
.NET framework you will notice that there are not any plans to embed it into the browsers like Java or Flash plugins currently do.
The fact that they decided to make their hotmail service work "better" in IE is a child of the shameful proprietary Active X web that they tried to create.
Their current approach to web client technology is based on a completely different philosophy that embraces standards.
If you study the
Troll, huh? One fairly major part of the whole Web 2.0 buzz is AJAX. AJAX (at least as it's usually implemented) relies on the XMLHttpRequest object, which was created by MS.
Now it's true that noone really used it for a long time, partly because it was only implemented by IE. It's also true that you can simulate asynchronous requests using hidden frames (something my company did back in 99), but that also never really took off (and probably won't now).
I think it's fair to say that MS were ahead of everyone else. I think it's also fair to say that they completely squandered their lead, sitting on a technology that they didn't have the vision to use to the full.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
As if people weren't confused enough as to what .NET was anyway... At first Microsoft had named their future version of their OS "Windows.NET", they have .NET My Services web services, there's a .NET conference, a ".NET Enterprise Server", a .net TLD.
.NET was supposed to be a common language runtime environment, and now it's encompassing APIs that are not specific to the environment but specific to a certain version of Windows.
.NET 3.0 compliant?
.NET? They should just hold all announcements until they ship a product, IMHO.
Not only this, but
Now they're bringing this same confusion to WinFX? WinFX used to be the three pillars to the new Windows API to be included in Vista, encompassing Avalon (presentation layer), Indigo (communications layer), and WinFS (metadata database for the filesystem). Then some of these pillars were dropped, and now apparently according to Wikipedia there are four pillars. I'm not sure if these will still be available for Windows XP, and where Windows 2000 stands. Not only that, but will Mono have to re-implement major parts of Windows just to be
Anyway, all this makes me wonder, what is MS trying to accomplish with this moving-target definition of WinFX and
Twinstiq, game news
TFA says, "Microsoft is continuing to roll out--slowly but surely--new branding that will be part of its overall Windows Vista campaign". So, supposedly, this is part of the marketing strategy for Vista.
I guess when your product isn't good enough, you need other ways to get it sold.
Soma is not a random blogger, he is the VP of developer division. How did this get modded insightful?
You like the MSDN's search !??!!?
The search at the MSDN is nearly useless. It needs to be completely redone. Half the time I am looking for something on the MSDN I have to Google it.
It has one of the worst search algorithms I've ever seen. Whoever came up with it should be fired and replaced.
Given that his .sig says "Yes, I do work for Microsoft" and has done for ages, and also that his comments are generally informed and relevant, I'm not sure how you can call him a shill. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If you get a chance to pass along my comment (below) to someone in Microsoft's marketing department I would appreciate it.
I have largely avoided Microsoft products over the past 20 years because I couldn't easily figure out what is what. It seems like every six months or so Microsoft renames their technologies in an effort to make them sound new. The actual result (in my case anyway) has been to think "Crap! I just got through learning FOO and now they're dropping it for BAR! I'm going to forget about Microsoft as it is clearly a technological treadmill and the people involved have no long term vision of where they are going!".
The fact that BAR is just FOO with a new name and a few tweaks doesn't change things. Now I can't tell when I am reading a three month old article about FOO if *any* of it still applies. It is all incredibly *DAMN* frustrating!
What I want are products with major, minor, and patch version numbers. The product name should never EVER change. Patch number changes should be fixes and only break existing code that depended in some way on the bug. Minor number changes should be enhancements with zero breakage of existing code. Major number changes can break existing code but should try not to.
Thank you for reading and I hope someone in marketing will get the message. I like what I have seen of the latest crop of Microsoft development tools but I am too spooked by Microsoft marketing to believe investing my time in learning the ins and outs won't ultimately be wasted.
Maybe he was talking about upgrading from Java 1.3 to .NET 2.0, I can see how that would cause many problems...
Yeah right. How many years has Win32 and DirectX been in use?
Actually, I can tell you how to do one better than that. Go to the weblog for my Corporate VP, S. Somasegar, and leave that feedback for him there, or by sending him mail through the Email page. He does read the feedback posted there, and tries to always respond back.
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
The rebranded WinFX (now .NET Framework 3.0) contains the RTM release of .NET Framework 2.0 (the runtime) as well as WPF (Avalon), WWF, and WCF (Indigo). It represents a superset of the 2.0 runtime.
Yes, I work there too.
I agree that the MSDN search function is worthless, because it is way too inaccurate and will swamp you with lots of topics that are not really related.
But once you found the right article, it tends to be OK. Actually Google can help you there, the chance that it points you to a useful MSDN article is better than using the search function on microsoft.com.
C - the footgun of programming languages
You should have to change almost nothing to get a .NET 2.0 app working in .NET 3.0. The new version is essentially .NET 2.0 plus WinFx.
Since the .NET dll's live peacefully with each other across versions, you could still be writing .NET 1.0 applications if you really wanted to.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
It's pretty much acknowledged that MSDN's search is awful, hence them changing it. You can test drive the new version and feed back comments onto the search blog (even if they can't get the ratings on blog posts done correctly!).
Of course with us we were running a web server with the 1.1 framework on a 32bit server when we ran into performance issues because we were more than 1000 times the traffic we regularly get. Fortunately this was an Opteron box so we popped on 64bit Windows and the 2.0 framework since 1.1 isn't available. Everything worked without having to make a single change to any of our code.
That is not to say their aren't some funky things that won't transfer over but you speak out of just plain ignorance or prefer to focus on minor details that affect but a few people. With that said I've never had a Windows update break anyOf course this is all moot considering updates in any corporate setting don't occur automatically but after happen after approval and testing so you'll know if it'll break your app assuming you have a proper testing environment which I definitely know a few don't. Of course I don't know any development houses which don't since staging on a production server is well, you know, not wise ;)
Don't mean to be harsh but realistic here. You're gripes are completely inaccurate so if you really want to gripe go ahead and find valid gripes. I'm not sure what they would be with the framework but I'm sure there are some out there.Doesn't seem like it if they never used it, and you could do the same thing through other alternatives.
It's not like Microsoft invented the idea of a client-side dynamic web page before anyone else.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yes, this is absolutely correct. Mods? This is definitely an informative post.
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
Have you logged bugs against the problems you've run into? If you have found migration issues between ASP.NET 1.1 and ASP.NET 2.0 that are not reflected in any of our docs, we'd like to know about it. Please let us know through our feedback portal at http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?Si teID=210, or by posting a message on one of our ASP.NET forums
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
The web server I deal with at work has .NET 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 web apps all running side by side. I even have .NET 2.0 apps in a virtual directory inside a .NET 1.1 app and it all works perfectly. I also have not had a problem with a windows update breaking anything.
I have largely avoided Microsoft products over the past 20 years because I couldn't easily figure out what is what. It seems like every six months or so Microsoft renames their technologies in an effort to make them sound new.
.net, it does look re-designed from the ground up and much more in the direction of a good API.
That used to piss me off, but now I just remind myself that the more complex the API is the better. Allow me to explain my reasoning:
Take the old Win32 API for example. It is very ugly and badly designed, I'm sure not many would disagree with that. Try making a reasonably bug free user interface with it, obeying general guidlines from offical software like iexplore & explorer. Toolbars, menu, maybe a list that looks like explorer's file list too.
You'll find that it takes even a seasoned programmer months to fiddle around with the bugs, incompatibilies, undocumented functionality *even when using the built in controls*! (toolbar, menu and listview controls). They are both badly designed and made, just like the API itself.
So why is this good? Because many rival companys or programmers will likely give up after a few weeks/months of wasting time with such a frustrating thing. Sure, many will and do continue to struggle through it, but think of the competition for me if it was a well laid out API that was perfectly understandable and worked as expected.
It relates to the problem of programmers becoming commoditized by easy newer and higher level languages such as vb, access. From the small glimpse I have seen of
I realise there is more to programming than technical knowledge of an API. A non-programmer who knows an API well will still have bad general design ideas, for example. I don't disagree with that at all. But whenever trying to decide what a good new project would be, I would recommend that programmers look for software that is just too hard, or too boring to write. That is where the money is imo.
You know, I like my stripped down Linux desktop. I don't usually install the KDE or Gnome libs, and avoid programs that would require me to.
.NET being bundled with Windows. If MS can reasonably keep to the standard, and keep the standard reasonable, I could develop apps on my Linux box, test them on my Mac, and deploy them on Windows, and people would just double-click the EXE and never know it used .NET, or that it was written for anything other than Windows. I doubt that would become a reality -- pretending to support a platform you don't test against is suicide -- but bundling .NET is a step in the right direction, technologically.
.NET makes it easier to call out to the standard environment, and other languages. And while it does make it easier to tie yourself to a platform, it also makes it easier to use nice cross-platform libraries like sdl, wxwindows, opengl...
But you know what? Dependencies aren't always bad. My system, like most, comes bundled with glibc. And, in a proprietary world, a virtual machine (compile once, run anywhere) makes a lot of sense, especially if you can make it as common on a Windows system as glibc is in the Unix world.
I like the idea of
Sucks for Java, but I don't like Java much right now.
So, technologically, bundling is the right thing here. But MS isn't a technology company, so this is probably motivated at least partly by their ongoing war against Java.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Hey Spry - XP should automatically ungroup those buttons when you do close other windows and make more room. I can't speak for your exact scenario, and why exactly it wouldn't be ungrouping them when sufficient room exists. I was able to find this feedback link for Windows Vista; you should put forth your thoughts there. No guarantees of a response, but it's certainly better than not submitting feedback at all. Conversely, you may want to send your thoughts on through the Email link on the Windows Ux blog. I see they have no blog posts registered there at all (a pity), but the email link is pretty much guaranteed to be good.
Anyway, back on topic :-). I agree that this is somewhat confusing. We (everyone working in the Developer Division, and all of the people working on the rest of the next-gen Windows stack: WPF, CardSpaces, Workflow Foundation, etc.) live and breathe this stuff every hour of every day, but I can imagine that keeping on top of it under any other circumstances can be tricky. Russ, the Product Unit Manager for the DDCPX team, commented earlier on exactly this point, but I'll reiterate his high-level comments for posterity's sake. Essentially, .NET FX 3.0 is the .NET FX 2.0 (the Whidbey release, and likely what you already have on your computer today), along with a bunch of new frameworks and technologies, including the Workflow Foundation, the Communications Foundation (formerly Indigo), CardSpaces (formerly InfoCard), and Presentation Foundation (formerly Avalon).
In theory, an application written to target v2.0 of the Framework should work 100% as well on 3.0 as it did on 2.0. Of course, in reality it never hurts to double-check, but you shouldn't see any functional differences. It should run just as well.
With regard to Winforms, the technology is still very much alive and kicking. A few of our Product Managers have commented on this far more eloquently than I can, but essentially, we believe that the Windows Forms functionality in .NET will be critical for us and for ISVs for many years to come. Visual Studio uses 7.5 million lines of managed, CLR-using code, virtually all of which uses Windows Forms for its UI today. We'll be using Winforms in our product for quite a while yet. It certainly has not been abandoned. The new stuff (I am a huge fan of WPF) is incredibly cool, and the functionality and power it provides is truly remarkable. However, no one can move over to it overnight, and we totally recognize this fact. Please let me know if you have further questions, and I will be sure to answer them to the best of my ability.
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.