Microsoft’s Developer Maze

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Scott over at Lazycoder has something that Microsoft should think about

What I’m really looking for is a chart showing me which technology I should choose when developing my next web application. ASP.NET + AJAX? Silverlight? WPF? Microsoft is falling farther into a technology maze.

This is something that came up in our blogger lunch today with Ray Ozzie. When you develop with Microsoft, the sky is the limit, from the web to the desktop. The problem is that because a lot of this stuff is so new for Microsoft developers, it’s going to be tough for them to figure out when they should use which technology.

I’m not sure the answer is something as formal as specific guidelines, and the community should step up a bit here, but it’s something Microsoft should keep in mind.

[tags]Microsoft, developers[/tags]

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  • http://www.jessewarden.com JesterXL

    ….hell, who says it’s any easier for Adobe?

    1. Should you use Flex 2 or Flash CS3 for your next RIA?
    2. Should you use Photoshop or Fireworks to design it?
    3. Should you ues ColdFusion & Spry instead? On different parts? Which ones? A hybrid perhaps?

    It’s all very subjective and the answers are only solid when you’re 30,000 ft. up. That’s not where the metal meets the road, though. Hopefully enough metaphors to feel like I made an impressive argument.

  • Marlon Smith

    As a MS developer, this is the usual cycle, they talk (early) about a lot about alpha and beta bits, then comes the onslaught of white papers, webcast and free MSDN events. I’ve talked to a couple MS evangelist about this and they assured me that they are getting the message together for developers and a lot will be made crystal clear before and even more by PDC07.

  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    1) Depends on who you are, what you’d like to do… basically Flex for programmatic layout of interfaces, Flash for more freeform visual authoring.

    2) Depends on who you are and what you want to do… Photoshop is the standard full-functioned pixel editor, Fireworks is the most efficient way to do interactive layouts and webwork.

    3) Depends on who you are and what you want to do… Spry is an easy way to manipulate datasets clientside in HTML/JS, SWF work offers richer experiences via Adobe Flash Player.

    Learning the most relevant paths remains something each one of us has to do, agreed.

    Microsoft’s challenge may be a little different, agreed… there is WPF atop full Vista-capable machines, then WPF atop slower Vista and enhanced WinXP machines, then in-browser work with JavaScript logic engine (beta today), then in-browser with Microsoft logic engine (alpha today), then possibly in-browser with Microsoft logic and interactivity written in Python or Ruby with some DOM (alpha tomorrow). There’s also an HTML/JS story.

    jd/adobe