News flash: .NET runs on XP and Vista

I was surprised to read the post that Matt Asay (of CNET) wrote (that hit TechMeme in a big way), touting Evans Data's report that claimed that only 8% of developers are targeting Windows Vista, while 49% are targeting XP.

It showed an astounding ignorance of how software is developed for the two operating systems -- without having read the report, it certainly calls into question whether Evans Data and Asay have any idea what developing software for these platforms is like.

In almost every case, it's not an either/or situation: .NET runs perfectly on both OSs, and almost all software written in .NET runs on both. If Evans and Asay don't know that, they're not qualified to be writing reports like these (or writing about reports like these).

If the survey forced developers to choose XP or Vista-- it was either designed by someone who doesn't understand the platform, or it was designed to try to make developers make a choice that would result in a controversial headline.

And for Asay to blindly quote the survey shows a predilection for Microsoft-bashing (and ignorance as well). The comments on his post, however, make it clear that many of his readers do understand the software world, and understand that the dichotomy is a false one.

The study didn't mention Mac OS X at all, but Asay still finds reason to put in a good word for it. I wonder if it ever occurred to him that most software that runs in Leopard would still run in Tiger. Or possibly even Panther. And that developers can target the platform without targeting a particular version.

Anand Iyer of Microsoft has a good post up here that discusses this in more detail.

Technorati tags: microsoft, vista, xp

Calling Early Adopters

Our customers range from the very pro-Microsoft to the quite agnostic--we've tried to walk a line that allowed the .NET-embracers to get the most out of technology, while letting non-programmers with a pile of desktops tap into their computing power quickly and easily.

It's sometimes a difficult line to walk.

Anyway, this post goes out to the former group: the .NET-lovers, the early adopters.

Rob and I have posted (and he's done some twittering) about some of the technologies we've been investigating over the last couple of weeks: Workflow Foundation, Microsoft Distributed Cache (Velocity), Mono. We've done some very cool, very interesting things here in the lab -- and we are interested to hear your perspective on them.

We'd like to talk to you if you're using any of these, or if you're interested in using them. How are you doing it? How would you like it to interoperate with your grid?

Drop me a line at dan at you-know-who-ipede dot net and we'll set up a LiveMeeting.

Technorati tags: mono, velocity, workflow, digipede

In the Digipede Lab: Velocity and Mono

I haven't been keeping up with the other Digipede bloggers...but in case you haven't seen it on John's and Rob's blogs, we've got some interesting stuff happening in the lab here at Digipede world headquarters.

Rob talked about the work he's done playing with Mono. He's pretty understated about how cool the work he did was. Of course, as Rob says, it can launch Linux specific binaries. But also:

it is able to run our .NET development patterns.

That, to me, is the real potential here (and it's also what makes Mono so cool) -- taking the awesome developer experience of .NET and making it available on multiple platforms. We've said it over and over again: developer experience matters, and reducing the time it takes a developer to get his software running on the grid is extremely important. This could let people leverage our development tools even more.

Rob's and John's caveats all stand: this is not a product, it's not slated for release, etc.

Running elsewhere in the lab: Velocity!

I'm very excited about Microsoft's foray into the distributed object cache field -- mostly because I talk with our customers, and our customers have been begging for this.

I started doing performance testing here in our lab, and I can tell you this: it can dramatically improve performance for moving data on the grid.

Hey, Digipede customers -- if you want to know more about these proofs-of-concept, e-mail me directly: dan at youknowwhere dot net.

Photo credit: blary54

Technorati tags: mono, velocity, digipede

Increasing Velocity

At TechEd yesterday, BillG and friends made a very interesting announcement: Microsoft is releasing a distributed, in-memory object cache (code named Velocity). For details, check out the Velocity Blog.

MDavey is already on record asking the right questions: how will it interact with the grid (thanks for the mention, Matt)? Will there be push? How does it compare with the commercial object cache solutions already on the market?

Can't wait to get my hands on that CTP!

Technorati tags: velocity, distributed cache