So Ifound this blog post by a colleague of mine (who is just entering the blogosphere)... and I had to comment..
I'm not trying to show you quotes out of context, because the entire article has apretty consistent context, but I will piece together a few quotes in which I think theviews are somewhat contradicting...
I began writing applications and immediately felt handicapped by it's lack ofsoftware engineering features.
While VS .Net does a good job of allowing developers to quickly and easily createcode, it does not provide an out of the box rich toolset for engineering and architectingapplications.
So, while you feel handicapped (impaired, dysfunctional) at writing codebecause the lack of software engineering features, which we both agree are available justnot included, you still state that you can easily and quickly write code. Granted writingcode != writing quality code with the help of toolsets.
“Lo! Men have become tools of their tools.“ - Henry DavidThoreau.Yes I know there are companies, and open source projects that have been started toenhance the VS .Net development experience... however I still see people waiting forMicrosoft to incorporate these tools before using them.
Are you simply so comfortable with your current processes and procedures that youchoose not to challenge yourselves with alternatives?
I strongly feel it up to us to determine the environment in which wework.
This is an assumption, but it seems as though your thesis is that there is notan active approach to commandeer Microsoft into providing us with a tool that is valuableto software engineers and that we need to become active to a point in which Microsoftwill hear us. If there are tools available and when you want something, you'll findand use it or create it. That's being active, not passive. Yes, Microsoft is takingadvancements into engineering tools being placed into the IDE, but its a process that isgoverned by their internal staff, because it's THEIR product. They ARElistening and the tools ARE coming. We have what we need right now to accomplish thesame tasks. We're given the tools to create exactly what we want out of our IDE. I agree,we must be active, but we can't expect immediate results from Microsoft to follow everyone of our little heart's desires.
You mention in another section that each group needs a different set oftools.
I strongly feel it up to us to determine the environment in which wework. For many of us our application domain and role dictates the environment in which wewish to work. For those people writing business applications consisting mostly of movingdata around and performing a few calculations you want it one way. For those peoplewriting toolsets and controls to be used by other people you may have a different set ofneeds. Those of you out there writing and architecting frameworks you may need yetanother set tools. People who spend a majority of their time debugging or mainting codemay desire something different altogether... and on ... and on ... and on... you get theidea.So what is the solution? a) Microsoft creates a gigantic, fully-featured,expensive (you'll whine), create any software easy IDE (Which I KNOW YOU have feelingsagainst) b) Create many different toolsets for various steps in the process (which theyattempt to a degree) yet refine each tool to every need of each group c) make theirproduct with core functionality and give the ability to extend the product to suit yourneeds, thus being creative and active and also setting up another entire market ofsoftware.
Seems to me that Microsoft is choosing the right choice (C) IMHO. Theautomobile industry is a solid model for this scenerio. They provide somewhat customizedproducts in which the user has a HUGE list of what they can do to taylor it to exactlywhat they want out of it. This has lead to a booming industry and an extremely creativemarket segment.
[UPDATE] Seems as though Avonelleis talking about this as well...