Web 2.0, Meet .Net 3.0

An anonymous reader writes to mention an eWeek article about Microsoft's move to rename WinFX to .Net Framework 3.0. Microsoft has also announced the availability of the beta version of the MSDN Wiki, the company's first step toward allowing customers to contribute to Microsoft's developer documentation. From the article: "It is purely a branding change, company officials said. The gist of the issue is that Microsoft has two successful developer brands in WinFX and .Net, and the company has seen 320,000 downloads of WinFX -- and 700 signed GoLive licenses -- since the December Community Technology Preview, and more than 35 million downloads of the .Net Framework since the November launch. "

Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing.

[Anonymous Coward]

.NET 1.3 to .NET 2.0 was practically an entire different platform, and I can't get any of my .NET 1.3 software to compile and run right under .NET 2.0.

And now .NET 3.0 is literally an entirely different platform family from .NET 2.0?? Kind of like how JavaScript has nothing to do with Java?

Given that they're the most powerful platform vendor in the world, with the ability to force adoption of virtually any programming environment, language or library that they choose, Microsoft sure does seem to act desperate sometimes.

Not News

[Anonymous Coward]

WinFX was a technology code word for the new .Net based replacement to the Win32 API. It's ALWAYS been .Net from the get go. Move along ... nothing to see here

Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing.

[rakslice]

Yeah...

From the article: "Microsoft has decided to avoid any confusion in the naming scheme for its core developer technology [...]"

Before my brain shuts down in order to protect itself and I start drooling on myself, I should say that it's one thing for tech journalists to be clueless and incoherent; it's another entirely for them to report something that's exactly the opposite of what's happening just because it's in the corporate press release.

Cool Aid

[truthsearch]

I went to the main "WinFX" page and followed the first link [msdn.com] about the rename. Right there in black and white I see all I need to know:

".NET Framework has becomes the most successful developer platform in the world."

I'm going to put down my cup of coffee, pick up the cool-aid and jump right on it! Just another Microsoft developer blogger trying to market for them. And they wonder why only current customers listen.

On a related note, I thought WinFX was originally just the replacement for WinForms, the original .NET objects for laying out application windows. One reason I dropped Windows development is because I got sick of all the ever-changing libraries. And I don't mean gradual improvements. I mean every year they tell you to drop a whole library and switch to something completely different.

S.O.P.

[scottsk]

"purely a branding change" -- Standard operating procedure for MS -- they rename their stuff like clockwork. Trace the history of DDE, OLE, COM, DCOM, ActiveX, .Net etc etc etc (same basic stuff) or their alphabet soup of database access methods which all boil down to that incredible confusing ODBC control panel doodad. (And you have to install the drivers on EVERY DESKTOP, too, or at least you used to...) If MS is not renaming their techologies, they're reorganizing the company.

Re:One-upsmanship

[Tim C]

Troll, huh? One fairly major part of the whole Web 2.0 buzz is AJAX. AJAX (at least as it's usually implemented) relies on the XMLHttpRequest object, which was created by MS.

Now it's true that noone really used it for a long time, partly because it was only implemented by IE. It's also true that you can simulate asynchronous requests using hidden frames (something my company did back in 99), but that also never really took off (and probably won't now).

I think it's fair to say that MS were ahead of everyone else. I think it's also fair to say that they completely squandered their lead, sitting on a technology that they didn't have the vision to use to the full.

More confusing

[HalAtWork]

As if people weren't confused enough as to what .NET was anyway... At first Microsoft had named their future version of their OS "Windows.NET", they have .NET My Services web services, there's a .NET conference, a ".NET Enterprise Server", a .net TLD.

Not only this, but .NET was supposed to be a common language runtime environment, and now it's encompassing APIs that are not specific to the environment but specific to a certain version of Windows.

Now they're bringing this same confusion to WinFX? WinFX used to be the three pillars to the new Windows API to be included in Vista, encompassing Avalon (presentation layer), Indigo (communications layer), and WinFS (metadata database for the filesystem). Then some of these pillars were dropped, and now apparently according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] there are four pillars. I'm not sure if these will still be available [about.com] for Windows XP, and where Windows 2000 stands. Not only that, but will Mono have to re-implement major parts of Windows just to be .NET 3.0 compliant?

Anyway, all this makes me wonder, what is MS trying to accomplish with this moving-target definition of WinFX and .NET? They should just hold all announcements until they ship a product, IMHO.

Vista?

[kripkenstein]

TFA says, "Microsoft is continuing to roll out--slowly but surely--new branding that will be part of its overall Windows Vista campaign". So, supposedly, this is part of the marketing strategy for Vista.

I guess when your product isn't good enough, you need other ways to get it sold.

Re:Cool Aid

[sjelkjd]

Soma is not a random blogger, he is the VP of developer division [microsoft.com]. How did this get modded insightful?

Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

*coughshillcough*

Given that his .sig says "Yes, I do work for Microsoft" and has done for ages, and also that his comments are generally informed and relevant, I'm not sure how you can call him a shill. :-)

Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing.

[amliebsch]

Since the .NET dll's live peacefully with each other across versions, you could still be writing .NET 1.0 applications if you really wanted to.

Re:Vista?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

I guess when your product isn't good enough, you need other ways to get it sold.

Or Microsoft could just give away their product for free, like other vendors who make products that aren't "good enough" to sell to the public.

Not always a bad idea.

[SanityInAnarchy]

You know, I like my stripped down Linux desktop. I don't usually install the KDE or Gnome libs, and avoid programs that would require me to.

But you know what? Dependencies aren't always bad. My system, like most, comes bundled with glibc. And, in a proprietary world, a virtual machine (compile once, run anywhere) makes a lot of sense, especially if you can make it as common on a Windows system as glibc is in the Unix world.

I like the idea of .NET being bundled with Windows. If MS can reasonably keep to the standard, and keep the standard reasonable, I could develop apps on my Linux box, test them on my Mac, and deploy them on Windows, and people would just double-click the EXE and never know it used .NET, or that it was written for anything other than Windows. I doubt that would become a reality -- pretending to support a platform you don't test against is suicide -- but bundling .NET is a step in the right direction, technologically.

Sucks for Java, but I don't like Java much right now. .NET makes it easier to call out to the standard environment, and other languages. And while it does make it easier to tie yourself to a platform, it also makes it easier to use nice cross-platform libraries like sdl, wxwindows, opengl...

So, technologically, bundling is the right thing here. But MS isn't a technology company, so this is probably motivated at least partly by their ongoing war against Java.