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New Technologies Trends - Dotmad (on .Net)

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New Technologies Trends

I have written before a short comparison between "old" and newer technologies, but at the beginning of that post I state that part of the choice of a new technology is the market trend towards that technology.

After reading Justin's post showing that moving to ASP.NET is beneficiary because it's becoming a prominent technology I decided to implement his research methods (using Google) on different technologies.

I began by searching for file types

However, this reflects only on files shared on the web, and since JAVA is a web technology (unlike Delphi) the results don't say much.

But Google trends provides a clearer picture - while C# remains stable, other languages are on the decline:

Focusing on the .Net world, you can clearly see new technologies are dominant in Google searches:

WPF vs. Winforms

WCF vs. Remoting

 

 The rise of Framework 3.0 technologies

With Silverlight being the "Hot New Thing" (maybe because it's a web-based technology)

So maybe choosing a new technology is a logical move even if it doesn't offer a significant technological advantage - since keeping older technologies means you are working against the market trend.

So consider switching from Winforms to WPF, from various communication technologies to WCF and from VS 2003 or 2005 to VS 2008 - in the long run the market trend will force you to do it anyway, either through the job market or through customers demands.

פורסם: Feb 25 2008, 09:26 PM by Dotmad | with 6 comment(s)
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תוכן התגובה

ekampf כתב/ה:

If we'd be choosing our technologies based on Google trends we'd all be doing Ruby development right now.

Oh wait, I forgot, Ruby is so 2007 (stuffthathappens.com/.../scala-will-do) ;)

There's something more important than the plain numbers, statistics

and trends - Roadmap.

One of my solution management friends at SAP always used to say that "customers do not buy a product, they buy a roadmap"

Counting ASP.NET pages or looking at trends only reflects the past and present.

Some topic might be hot at the moment (Ruby anyone?) but it doesnt mean its a wise choice for the long run.

The thing missing from the analysis you and Justin are making is the existence of such a raodmap.

ASP.NET is backed by a roadmap which is part of Microsoft's strategy. This means continued support, enhancements etc.

You can't really say that about the competitors (except maybe JSP which is probably part of several vendor's Java strategy and requires some further analysis as I'm not an expert there...)

"Customers buy a roadmap, not a product" - now that's a keeper...

# February 25, 2008 11:45 PM

bugmeister כתב/ה:

Justin's approach is wrong. Counting pages shows nothing. It doesn't prove the point. If a programmer did a whole application on 1 python "page" and another did 20 asp pages, does it really mean that asp is superior?

The same goes for trends. When you look at the trend for ASP, you also include Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Application Service Providers and Association of Shareware Professionals among others. Try the same for CGI.

ekampf is wrong in assuming only .NET and JSP have roadmaps. Python has a strong community backed by the fact that Google uses it heavily. php has a huge user base and a company that leads the product development. The major advantage for php and python and JSP is cost and portability. And the open code.

Stops staring at Microsoft's Ass and look around you: what MS does today, everyone else have done before: .NET Vs. JAVA, Sileverlight Vs. Air/flash etc.

# February 26, 2008 12:41 AM

Adi כתב/ה:

Bugmeister, my focus was comparing technologies inside the MS stack (and as a former Delphi developer it got mentioned as well). I simply don't know enough about non-MS technologies trends (you are invited to write a guest-post on the subject).

Eran, which of the products I mentioned does not appear in MS's roadmap?

And Ruby may be an extreme choice, but try hiring a developer for a winform position vs. WPF position, or a WCF position vs. Remoting.

# February 26, 2008 7:58 AM

ekampf כתב/ה:

I was referring mainly to the ASP.NET vs. others competitors - where you can really compare roadmaps.

In your evaluation since they're all part of Microsoft's stack (except Delphi) its harder to compare. While you can still have questions regarding the direction of Silverlight for example, I guess the main question, when you've already picked your platform vendor, is not whether you should upgrade but when and how?

Preferably leveraging on existing investments rather than rewriting the product.

Here is a question of value vs. cost...

# February 26, 2008 9:30 AM

ekampf כתב/ה:

Oh, just remmembered I did this kind of platform comparison when google Trends first came out: www.ekampf.com/.../TheBattleOfTheBusinessPlatforms.aspx

Looking at it now, the trend doesn't reflect the value...

# February 26, 2008 9:34 AM

Arik כתב/ה:

I think it's better to focus on the product than the technology. It's better to implement another long requested feature, than to switch from ASP.NET 2.0 to ASP.NET 3.5. Ofcourse, as with everything - if you're still into ASP pages than you better switch to ASP.NET ASAP, but if you use ASP.NET2.0 - there's no rush to switch to something newer.

And what bugmeister said is true as well.

Technology is only a tool.

# February 27, 2008 3:53 PM