Avalon is not just Flash

Ian Griffith - Avalon is more than "eye candy"

"One of the problems with trying to present technology in public for the first time is that it can be very hard to make it clear what the benefits are. With some of the best technologies, the benefits only become obvious once you've actually tried using it. The .NET Framework is a case in point - a lot of people are initially very sceptical about it, but once they try it, they're usually hooked."

lenn wrote:

Ian Griffith - Avalon is more than "eye candy"

"One of the problems with trying to present technology in public for the first time is that it can be very hard to make it clear what the benefits are. ... ...The .NET Framework is a case in point - a lot of people are initially very sceptical about it, but once they try it, they're usually hooked."

I Agree. I remember reading a Wall Street Journal report sometime in 2001/2002 saying .Net was nothing more than an Auto Web Form completion tool and that there were already free tools like roboform or something to that respect.

I think it depends on who it is presented to.

OK - I guess you are right in that if you had to explain the benefit of electricity before its first applications where invented you would be hard pressed to sell it.


.....but we are not talking a quantum leap here. I think sometimes we need to take a step back and really learn how to give presentations on differing levels.  What I mean is give the one paragraph business overview.  Then the 3-5 paragraph business overview for folks that where hooked with the one paragraph version.  Now if you can't hook the business line (I know a lot of techies really cringe at this) then your doomed. You have to tell the guys paying for it - hey this will do this for you.  You 'Will' have quantifiable benefits.  It will have paybacks.

In short if you can't hook the business line then the technical line really does not matter .....in most cases.

Once the business line is on board you need to do the same with he tech line....and here is where you can't BS as much as you might with non-techies.

Just my thoughts...too often (often seen in the old Unix Crowd) there was a thinking well if you don’t understand this technology you should not be using a computer...I'd like to here a heart surgeon tell a patient ....well if you don't understand heart surgery I can't let you have the operation.

Got a new invention - quantify it...then build it...then use the as built product (or prototype / beta) features to gain momentum and interest. If you cant do this at this stage - pack it up...or get someone else on the project as an evangelist.

Bruce J Hafner
Silicon Mindset,Inc.

Out of interest, was that in reply to the quoted paragraph, or was that in reply to my original article that this quote was taken from?

I'm guessing the former, since you seem to be responding just to that paragraph rather than the main thrust of the article. If you're interested, the original is here, and an architect on the relevant team replied here, and I replied to that here.

For what it's worth, I don't think the reason for the misconception had anything to do with the competence of the presentations, which is what you appear to be implying. I believe it was a conscious decision on Microsoft's part to push the technical aspects for the rather obvious reason that the audience at the Professional Developers Conference was mostly made up of Professional Developers...

So the point of the article wasn't really to have a go at the presentation, but to call out a different aspect of the technology. I think they put across precisely the points they meant to put across on Avalon at the PDC.

I agree with what you are saying in the post (haven't read the article, don't see how you guys posting your articles let's me communicate with you in ways I could not have where the article was published) but I don't think .Net is a case in point. Sure .Net is a whole lot more than could be presented to someone in one sitting, so your bound to get comments like the one mentioned regarding the web form autofill. To me though, .Net was a dissapointment. I remember reading articles and stuff on MSDN in 1998/1999 and being really stoked about what was coming. But when it actually hit, other than the CLR stuff, I felt I had been lied to immensly. I mean, ASP.Net is really a rip off of all the techniques that we (the developing community) have been doing over the past few years. Not to mention, that the whole auto even wire up stuff is a *huge* hack. But when you (presenting entities) call something a "revolution", your pretty much setting yourself up for this stuff. AS far as people being hooked as soon as they try .Net, this is prolly because they have only been coding in VB/ASP and haven't honestly (and with due dilligence) tried any of the other technologies that .Net (except the CLR/CLI) so blantantly copies.

lenn wrote:

Ian Griffith - Avalon is more than "eye candy"

"One of the problems with trying to present technology in public for the first time is that it can be very hard to make it clear what the benefits are. With some of the best technologies, the benefits only become obvious once you've actually tried using it. The .NET Framework is a case in point - a lot of people are initially very sceptical about it, but once they try it, they're usually hooked."

Good seeing you again, Lenn. How's the new job?

Old Thread, look at the post dates. Lenn hasn't come back.