I read an article in some rag called The Register. I got the feeling this is a British newspaper. But I am not sure. The article reviewed the rise of .NET and whether it achieved Microsoft's goals. I thought I would discuss some of the point brought up by the article.It has been almost ten years since .NET first came out. This was a major shift in the Microsoft Windows platform. We were coming off Active X controls and the MFC framework.
.NET brought the common language runtime, as well as the new C# programming language. The base protocol used was XML. The goal was to combat Java from Sun Microsystems.
If you look at the programming language landscape today, C# is a success. A lot of people use it. More importantly, there are many jobs which require C# experience. One thing that is a bit disturbing is that Microsoft it not eating their own dog food. They don't seem to be using .NET for developing their own products.
The article concludes that .NET is positioned for the business app segment. This is the industry I work in. So it is a shame that I am not hot on the latest technologies in .NET. Time to study up.
