Web 2.0, Meet .Net 3.0 177
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. "
Re:Web 2.0 beats Net 3.0 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Web 2.0 beats Net 3.0 (Score:5, Informative)
The
You don't need to download
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:5, Informative)
I think you mean version 1.1 of the .NET Framework, not 1.3. Also, we published a very detailed list of breaking changes from 1.1 to 2.0 on MSDN [microsoft.com]. We never take a breaking change lightly, every single one of these would have been reviewed with a great deal of scrutiny to ensure that we really were doing the right thing under the circumstances.
With regard to .NET 3.0 (no longer WinFX 3.0), it's the next version of the .NET Framework. As a result, it includes new features, like WPF (Avalon), WCF (Indigo), and a ton of other cool, new things. This is merely a marketing change, no more.
Re:Web 2.0 beats Net 3.0 (Score:3, Informative)
The fact that they decided to make their hotmail service work "better" in IE is a child of the shameful proprietary Active X web that they tried to create.
Their current approach to web client technology is based on a completely different philosophy that embraces standards.
If you study the
Re:This could represent a step forward (Score:3, Informative)
The search at the MSDN is nearly useless. It needs to be completely redone. Half the time I am looking for something on the MSDN I have to Google it.
It has one of the worst search algorithms I've ever seen. Whoever came up with it should be fired and replaced.
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:5, Informative)
Search is crap but the content is not so bad (Score:2, Informative)
But once you found the right article, it tends to be OK. Actually Google can help you there, the chance that it points you to a useful MSDN article is better than using the search function on microsoft.com.
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This could represent a step forward (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft just seems to be kind of flailing. (Score:3, Informative)
Hey Spry - XP should automatically ungroup those buttons when you do close other windows and make more room. I can't speak for your exact scenario, and why exactly it wouldn't be ungrouping them when sufficient room exists. I was able to find this feedback link for Windows Vista [microsoft.com]; you should put forth your thoughts there. No guarantees of a response, but it's certainly better than not submitting feedback at all. Conversely, you may want to send your thoughts on through the Email link on the Windows Ux blog [msdn.com]. I see they have no blog posts registered there at all (a pity), but the email link is pretty much guaranteed to be good.
Anyway, back on topic :-). I agree that this is somewhat confusing. We (everyone working in the Developer Division, and all of the people working on the rest of the next-gen Windows stack: WPF, CardSpaces, Workflow Foundation, etc.) live and breathe this stuff every hour of every day, but I can imagine that keeping on top of it under any other circumstances can be tricky. Russ, the Product Unit Manager for the DDCPX team, commented earlier on exactly this point, but I'll reiterate his high-level comments for posterity's sake. Essentially, .NET FX 3.0 is the .NET FX 2.0 (the Whidbey release, and likely what you already have on your computer today), along with a bunch of new frameworks and technologies, including the Workflow Foundation, the Communications Foundation (formerly Indigo), CardSpaces (formerly InfoCard), and Presentation Foundation (formerly Avalon).
In theory, an application written to target v2.0 of the Framework should work 100% as well on 3.0 as it did on 2.0. Of course, in reality it never hurts to double-check, but you shouldn't see any functional differences. It should run just as well.
With regard to Winforms, the technology is still very much alive and kicking. A few of our Product Managers have commented on this far more eloquently than I can, but essentially, we believe that the Windows Forms functionality in .NET will be critical for us and for ISVs for many years to come. Visual Studio uses 7.5 million lines of managed, CLR-using code [msdn.com], virtually all of which uses Windows Forms for its UI today. We'll be using Winforms in our product for quite a while yet. It certainly has not been abandoned. The new stuff (I am a huge fan of WPF) is incredibly cool, and the functionality and power it provides is truly remarkable. However, no one can move over to it overnight, and we totally recognize this fact. Please let me know if you have further questions, and I will be sure to answer them to the best of my ability.
Re:More confusing (Score:2, Informative)
I've not seen any official word that
WinFX, or