Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Top Devs Don't Seem To Like Own Tools
ericatcw writes "Through tools such as Visual Basic and Visual Studio, Microsoft may have done more than any other vendor to make drag and drop-style programming mainstream. But its superstar developers seem to prefer old-school modes of crafting code. During the panel at the Professional Developers Conference earlier this month, the devs also revealed why they think writing tight, bare-metal code will come back into fashion, and why parallel programming hasn't caught up with the processors yet." These guys are senior enough that they don't seem to need to watch what they say and how it aligns with Microsoft's product roadmap. They are also dead funny. Here's Jeffrey Snover on managed code (being pushed by Microsoft through its Common Language Runtime tech): "Managed code is like antilock brakes. You used to have to be a good driver on ice or you would die. Now you don't have to pump your brakes anymore." Snover also joked that programming is getting so abstract, developers will soon have to use Natal to "write programs through interpretative dance."
Yes, in some respects, programming is becoming easier and more unqualified people are able to do it.
But I think that these guys are really missing the boat. The closer the programming environment can come to providing domain-relevant expression tools to the user, the better they will be able to create programs that fit their domain.
In addition, content these days is a form of programming. Whether it is HTML/CSS or word processing or spreadsheets, the distinct line between what is a program and what is pure data is blurred beyond recognition. So a programming language for interpretive dance would probably find the Natal very useful.
"Managed code is like antilock brakes. You used to have to be a good driver on ice or you would die. Now you don't have to pump your brakes anymore."
Might have been more appropriate to compare it in that people in the high performance arena (nascar) don't like antilock brakes because of their limits and the separation you get from your task at hand. (you lose your "feel for the road")
Tho I'm a little strangely biased, I miss the days of assembly, when 10k was a LOT of code to write to solve a problem, thing ran at blindingly fast speed with almost no disk or memory footprint. Nowadays, Hello World is a huge production in itself. 97% of today's coders don't have any idea what they've missed out on and just accept what they've got. Even someone that understands the nerf tools like VB at a lower level can get sooo much more out of them. I recall taking someone's crypto code in VB and producing a several thousand-fold speed boost because of my understanding of how VB was translating things. They didn't know what to say, they'd just accepted that what they were doing was going to be dog slow. (and unfortunately the users are also falling under the same hypnosis)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
because the modern Microsoft development tools need that infernal Dotnet library to be loaded and then when it gets messes up any software that depends on it does not work.
Indeed. One of my PCs has a broken '.Net framework' which can't be fixed without a complete reinstall of the operating system: even Microsoft's own 'completely obliterate every last trace the bloody thing' uninstaller isn't enough to remove all the traces which prevent it from reinstalling properly. As a result, a lot of new software simply will not run.
Fortunately I do most of my useful work on Linux or Solaris these days so not being able to run random Windows software is no big deal, but '.Net' is such a monstrosity that it makes 'DLL Hell' look good in comparison; if even Microsoft can't fix it when it breaks, what chance do users have?
But the OP may be right if it is statistically true (I don't know that it is) that there exists high correlations between "good" programmers preferring a text editor and/or "posers" preferring Visual Studio.
I'll buy the former, but absolutely *not* the latter.
Coding with a simple text editor, make/gcc/etc, and gdb implies a fundamental set of skills: familiarity and comfort on the command-line, ability to (presumably) write and invoke Makefiles, ability to use gdb (which, let's face it, ain't pretty for a newcomer), and so forth. So it stands to reason that there's a greater chance such an individual has the skills necessary to write decent code (also known as "trial by fire"), as a poorer developer would likely be scared away.
But I find it very difficult to believe that, given a population of VS users, there's a disproportionate number of crappy developers (ie, that the ratio of skilled to unskilled developers exceeds the ratio in the software developer population at large). A weak developer will obviously use any tools that make the job of writing code less daunting, and a good IDE definitely fits in that category. And a strong developer will use whatever tool makes their job easier, and guess what? VS is a *damn* good tool, particularly if you're targeting the .NET stack.
So I'd would say this: A developer that's happy using a simple text editor/compiler/debugger combo has a greater than average chance of being a good developer. But you can assume nothing about a developer who chooses an integrated IDE over the aforementioned environment if given the choice.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that any developer who actively *shuns* IDEs without good reason (and, BTW, simple familiarity is a good reason... mindless elitism, however, is not) deserves as much skepticism as one who isn't capable of using the editor/compiler/debugger environment, as they're expressing dogmatic tendencies that can be deeply counterproductive in the work environment.