Future of programming in Windows Server 2012, IIS

Please DO correct me if I am misinformed but so far this is what I know to be true in Windows 8:

• Desktop is legacy.
• .NET is legacy.
• In order to not use a legacy technology, WinRT is the way to go.
• All WinRT applications must be sold from Windows Marketplace.

Because the above seems to be the case, I plan to no longer develop for Windows "client".

The only option I currently seem to have without changing profession is to "move to server side" and making "web applications" in order to be able to sell directly to my customers or share applications privately.

My question is if any of you know how things will be on the server side regarding IIS and .NET?

I'm a little confused regarding .NET and its future. Will there be some kind of "server side WinRT" for IIS or is .NET the way to go for another 10 years over there?

Thank you

There's nothing like a Lite Beer...

3 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

There's nothing like a Lite Beer...

?

ASP .NET will be the main focus for IIS. So, if you go with ASP .NET, you will be fine.

20 minutes ago, WhatDoYouMean wrote

Please DO correct me if I am misinformed but so far this is what I know to be true in Windows 8:

• Desktop is legacy.
• .NET is legacy.
• In order to not use a legacy technology, WinRT is the way to go.
• All WinRT applications must be sold from Windows Marketplace.

Because the above seems to be the case, I plan to no longer develop for Windows "client".

The only option I currently seem to have without changing profession is to "move to server side" and making "web applications" in order to be able to sell directly to my customers or share applications privately.

My question is if any of you know how things will be on the server side regarding IIS and .NET?

I'm a little confused regarding .NET and its future. Will there be some kind of "server side WinRT" for IIS or is .NET the way to go for another 10 years over there?

Thank you

I agree with your conclusions, but folks at MS would disagree with you and insist that desktop apps and .NET are still supported and being improved.

I also think that with the open-sourcing of ASP.NET that MS has something up its sleeve for a native web framework, something I've called "WebRT".

Will .NET be around in ten years? Will WinRT be around in ten years? Will Microsoft be around in ten years? Nobody knows, and trying to predict it is fruitless. Users don't care what your app is written in as long as it works. There are plenty of apps today that are still using VB6, and running them is still supported on Windows 8.

@WhatDoYouMean:

You can sign up as an OS X developer for $99, and distribute apps directly to your customer. After you sign up and submit your business information to Apple and sign the agreement you will also get preview versions of Mountain Lion and other tools to help you.

While OS X has a store, it is by no means locked down, and I've never heard of any forced integration with iOS.

Hope this helps.

Thank you all for the help.

@01001011, regarding OS X. My computer "life" is with Microsoft. I will be moving away from Windows "client" to server side "web applications" from now on. If there comes a day where I am forced to leave that due to new lock downs similar to what is happening in the client side of Windows, well, I will not switch to OS X but I will change profession and leave the computer industry.

Nothing but personal feeling about OS X, I have never "felt at home in a Mac".

To answer your questions:

• The desktop is not legacy, not every application is a good fit for the Metro environment
• .Net is not legacy

@1001011: Wrong answer. Shouldn't you be hanging out on www.MacsAreTehBestest.com instead of trolling on a site that talks about things you don't understand...?

@ZippyV: I agree with you but MS should make this clear and not send mixed signals like they have been doing for a while now. Ask 10 different Windows developers what the future of Windows development is and you will get 10 different answers. How does this instill confidence in developers, who have been one of the main reasons for Windows's success up until now?

21 hours ago, WhatDoYouMean wrote

• Desktop is legacy. Nope.
• .NET is legacy. Nope
• In order to not use a legacy technology, WinRT is the way to go. Nope
• All WinRT applications must be sold from Windows Marketplace. Not confirmed yet, but probably.

I'm a little confused regarding .NET and its future. Will there be some kind of "server side WinRT" for IIS or is .NET the way to go for another 10 years over there?

Firstly, .NET can use WinRT for Metro applications, and secondly WinRT is about interacting with Metro, so a server version of it wouldn't make any sense.

@ZippyV: I agree with you but MS should make this clear and not send mixed signals like they have been doing for a while now. Ask 10 different Windows developers what the future of Windows development is and you will get 10 different answers. How does this instill confidence in developers, who have been one of the main reasons for Windows's success up until now?

++. Microsoft has really screwed up the message on Metro. It would have been better for them to introduce it as an extension to the startmenu in Windows 8 (like press winkey twice to get there) and then encourage developers to make stuff for it, than making it up as they go along and having experts who are experts at the interface, the architecture, the language, the framework, the security model or the business model - all stumbling over each other and developer not really knowing what to do.

My advice would be to not even attempt to develop for a platform that isn't out yet. Anyone who is betting their business on a platform where Microsoft owns a fraction of your business model, but hasn't told you the details frankly is insane. You don't agree to buy a house before you know how much it'll cost - why are you agreeing to their terms before you know exactly what the deal is? You don't get special points for having an app on Metro before any of your customers even start to upgrade to Win8 RTM.

With this many months to go, developing for Metro is so bleeding edge it's practically self-harm.

If you're in the "glass is half-empty" camp, you can view the following actions and be alarmed if you're a .NET developer:

• MS pimping C++ heavily
• MS pimping HTML+JavaScript heavily for Windows 8 front-end development
• MS promoting JavaScript development on the back-end with support for Node.js on Azure
• MS promoting Java development on the back-end with support for Hadoop on Azure

11 minutes ago, cbae wrote

If you're in the "glass is half-empty" camp, you can view the following actions and be alarmed if you're a .NET developer:

• MS pimping C++ heavily
• MS pimping HTML+JavaScript heavily for Windows 8 front-end development
• MS promoting JavaScript development on the back-end with support for Node.js on Azure
• MS promoting Java development on the back-end with support for Hadoop on Azure

 

If you're insisting on being hysterical, you could look at Azure and decide that everything-is-going-to-change-and-nothing-will-be-the-same-again and then you could quit being a programmer and go and teach yoga in the Himalayas.

Or you could realize that we've been here before.

Java was going to kill off C++. It didn't.
Silverlight was going to kill flash. It didn't.
WPF was going to kill WinForms. It didn't.
HTML was going to be the next everything (remember active-desktop?). It wasn't.
C# was going to kill off C++. It didn't.
Singularity was going to kill C/C++ in the kernel! It didn't.
Even ruby-on-rails was going to kill PHP and ASP.NET! It didn't.

See a pattern?

Just because something is new doesn't mean it is the future. If you choose a new sexy language everyone will be impressed for a while as you show off your animations or syntactical wizardry, but sooner or later you'll look at your sexy new language and you'll discover that it's old and it's ugly and it's useless. Worse - your sexy new language could run off into the sunset as Oracle or Adobe or Microsoft decide it's not worth the effort to support anymore and you're left spitting blood as you're left looking at the source-code and remembering the language you used to love.

@evildictaitor:

That still doesn't answer the question of why Microsoft is doing these things. I think Charles answered it in another thread stating something like Microsoft wanting shine a light in all areas of development where all languages, frameworks, and API's are equally important, use the best tools for you, etc. Frankly I don't buy it. There's always a plan, an agenda, etc. It's good to be prepared with what's coming down the pipe rather than burying you head in the sand. At minimal you can suggest to your boss or customer that MVVM, while more expensive, is the right way to go on a project because of all of the ambiguity and mixed messages coming out of Microsoft.

@evildictaitor:

It's not about dead or alive. It's old vs new, and if technologies people rely on (like .NET) will decline in popularity. There is always jobs in legacy crap but people don't want to get stuck being the ones doing it. You got to always look to the future if you want to get ahead in this industry.

13 minutes ago, Bass wrote

@evildictaitor:

It's not about dead or alive. It's old vs new, and if technologies people rely on (like .NET) will decline in popularity. There is always jobs in legacy crap but people don't want to get stuck being the ones doing it. You got to always look to the future if you want to get ahead in this industry.

I think most developers are afraid of competing with other developers for jobs, so they run to the newest hyped technology to be on a level playing field with everybody else and hope that the demand for developers exceeds the supply. That's what "getting ahead" really means.

27 minutes ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

If you're insisting on being hysterical, you could look at Azure and decide that everything-is-going-to-change-and-nothing-will-be-the-same-again and then you could quit being a programmer and go and teach yoga in the Himalayas.

See a pattern?

Just because something is new doesn't mean it is the future.

I have been developing a cloud backup and restore application for the last 6 months or so, using a custom back-end that isn't Azure.

The biggest issue with "The Cloud" is infrastructure. Millions of people here in the UK are still using ADSL which means maximum upload speeds of 1024K. Even when uploading pictures to Facebook you have the low quality option and the high quality version. I don't see significant improvement to this for the next 5-10 years, so Azure's success will be a slow growing one. There is no doubt about that one.