fallenrogue.com

Why?

I'm already regretting this post.

@Scott: why regret? Because I don't want to be divisive. I like that folks are bringing issues like this to the table. I'm just not certain that its been anymore than noise. If my comments become fodder for yet another pithy flame war then I will regret saying anything at all. I don't regret my opinion but rather my ability to be sure than the post would not be mistaken as a sardonic compliant instead of the continuation of the conversation that I intend it to be. (from my iPhone. Sorry if its choppy)

(I've really got to fix that comment order bug one of these years...)

Well said. This is _constructive_ criticism and you end with the desire to help. You're not simply stirring up the pot and watching geeky fireworks fly, so no regrets!

One thing I'll say is that Scott H. and I probably could have talked for a few hours. His podcast needs to fit in :30 minutes and, I think, he did a pretty masterful job in dividing it in half: half community/definitional and half "what's it look like in practice, gimme an example." I just answered his questions to the best of my ability and from where I stand (opinion).

I felt one of the hardest questions was about reach (how do you reach noobs and the Nebraska Forestry Department's Chief Architect). We can keep making better and better tools, keep sharpening the saw, keep innovating, but -- as you point out -- it doesn't much matter if we enter gigs where we can't use those tools or if no one has heard of them. It's the whole "if a bear shits in the woods..." problem.

I have a better idea how to crystallize alpha geeks than organize a learning campaign. I'd love to do the latter, but it's going to take a village. Beyond that, it's going to take attempts that *might* fail, to get out there and make this happen.

I'll contact you on the back channel with my mobile number. Maybe we can brainstorm sometime?

@Dave: sounds like a plan, thanks for taking the post in the spirit in which it was intended. Looking forward to chatting!

I think that we need to recognize that we're in a time of transition when it comes to being a Microsoft developer. A lot of new technologies and ideas around the .NET framework have been coming out and I think that everyone's still sorting out how to best implement things. A lot of new ideas (TDD, Agile) have been coming to the forefront of discussions about development, and these aren't things that seem to have necessarily been considered - built in from the ground up - in a lot of areas in the framework. Because of that, fitting them isn't easy and often requires a lot of work to implement.

Unfortunately, a lot of the ideas just don't translate quite as smoothly. We've been talking a lot about mocking lately. RhinoMocks, NMock and others are good frameworks, but you just don't have the sort of syntactic sugar that you have in other languages (notably Ruby) to make things as nice and as clean as they could be.

C# simply isn't as dynamic as other languages, but that doesn't mean that people can't people can't take ideas from those areas and try to move forward with them. It's just going to take some time to get to best practices that are generally agreed upon. That's something that's tough with Microsoft development because you have a lot of different ideas from a number of developers and vendors as to what's the best thing going. And then if Microsoft comes out with something (like their MVC implementation), there's pressure to jump to that because it's coming from the source.

Ultimately, I think we simply have to be patient and continue to have these sort of discussions so that Microsoft and their development community can continue to work together to try to develop better practices and tools. It's clear from how accessible that people like Hanselman and Guthrie are, that Microsoft is listening. And it's clear from the amount of buzz that the alt.net movement is gathering, there is a desire from .NET developers to embrace some newer ideas.

And that's why you shouldn't regret this post. You've got the ear of a prominent figure in the Microsoft world and and the ear of a prominent figure in the alt.net movement. You've chucked in your 2 cents and I know you won't hesitate to add more :)

Here is another question. Why? Why should you spend your time trying to bring this to .NET? Why not just use Ruby? I have been trying to use Ruby more and more instead of .NET because I enjoy it more. I still use .NET because I have things I don't want to re-write or because the client wants .NET... but I fully expect in a couple of years to be more and more Ruby focused.

What makes you want to try and bring Ruby to .NET when Ruby is so good at being Ruby?

@James I assume you mean this question rhetorically, yes? As if to say: "Why on Earth would someone waste their time building rspec for .net? when C# and VB clearly don't have the capabilities to port rspec's design aesthetic as well as it's functional purpose?"

To that, I couldn't agree more. I personally expect many paradigms to shift in the community when the DLR is hosted in Visual Studio and it doesn't matter that my test cases are written in Ruby or C#. That will make my life fantastic.

The reason folks want/need to bring Ruby to .net is because, and this is my opinion, that .net is all brains and no beauty. Many new languages seek to bring elegance to .net and Ruby is chief among them. Make no mistake, when Ruby comes to .net in the form of IronRuby, I want it to be Ruby. Not Ruby# or VisualRuby or any other MS interpretation of Ruby. I want it to be Matz's Ruby at the latest version ASAP otherwise it's sound and fury.

When I was consulting, many of the programs that I wrote were Ruby to support the .net assemblies I was delivering. The shop was .net and they wanted .net but that didn't mean that if Ruby was a better fit they didn't get it. My current focus is somewhat different than it was when I was consulting and therefore makes me want Ruby to come to .net more than I've ever wanted it before.

This comment is more philosophical than perhaps tactical, and probably does nothing to add value to the conversation unless someone is looking for a root cause. So you can stop reading this if you want to. I don't intend to NOT add value, but I think that might be the result of my comment.

I think some of this traces directly back to higher education. My view of college is to prepare a person to get a good job working for somebody else. When you work for someone else you do what they say to do. So the output of a software development higher-ed curriculum is to churn out cookie cutter developers, not developers that think for themselves (or marketers, or financial analysts, or whatever). Not too many creative thinkers here. Think 1000 folks in the new Tata development center in Milford, OH. How many *really* creative innovators will they hire? Especially if they are working with the local universities and their computer science and information systems programs.

Microsoft is the easiest platform on which to create these cookie cutter developers that do what they are told. Java's probably next. You won't find it in PHP, Ruby, Erlang (what?!), etc., as these folks gravitate towards those platforms because they are innovators. To me it's no surprise there is no strong innovation in the MS world. And that, from my perspective, defines the innovative extent of most run-of-the-mill Microsoft corporate developers. Hey, it sells licenses, and the "what can you do for me" attitude keeps people hooked in waiting mode rather than innovation mode.

It takes an interesting perspective, an innovative thinker, an entrepreneurial spirit to break out of the cookie cutter mold and define community rather than stepping in and blending into an existing community, and only a few ever do, or see the value, in thinking out of the box.

Great post.

This is exactly why I had such a difficult time with the alt.net movement. It seemed so cliche when I came from the Java world and we had been doing all of this years ago. It felt awkward to me for us, as "alt.neters" to be waving a flag that had already been flown.

In the end, I warmed up to the alt.net guys because, at the end of the day, their intentions were sincere and they are all super sharp, super nice guys. Every world needs a group to push for what is right.

Regardless, I think you're right - there's a fundamental different in the Microsoft development world compared to others. It's more commercialized and capitalistic. Many Microsoft developers I've seen typically don't have that underlying driving force to innovate, be first, take down the big guy, do something better than an existing application, etc... there's an underlying spark that comes from most non-Microsoft worlds that seems to cause those folks to continually push the boundaries (often labeled "zealotry", but I disagree).

Now, that's not to say we don't have our share of smart thinkers in the .NET world. I'd be daft to even suggest it. But, those smart thinkers take that same drive and determination and rather then innovating, they capitalize on it by starting businesses, evolve their careers, and so forth.

We have a few that push those boundaries, the Hanselmans, the Don Boxes, the John Lams... but they are certainly few and far between in our realms.

And, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with any of this, at all. You see where I am. :)

And, of course, I'm but only one opinion.