It seems that a bunch of developers have finally cracked under the pressure of too much information on the future stuff and just not enough focus on the current technology that most developers are working in (referring to .NET 1.1, there).

I definitely understand.

Take a look at Greg Robinson‘s post  and the comments in there as well as Brady Gaster’s. Rob Chartier is wondering the same thing as I.  There are probably more I haven’t seen yet.

I was asked (not trying to beat a dead horse hear on my recent DevSource interview so I’m just NOT going to link to it…but if you read it you would know this question…) what my exposure to developers in my user group was teaching me about developers that Microsoft might not know.

My response was, based on what I see in Vermont.NET, that most developers really aren’t interested in the upcoming technologies. They want to learn what they can use now. I did try to point out that I don’t think Microsoft is unware of this, considering DevDays was mostly about 1.1 and the ASP.NET RoadShow was, also. And just to mention a few others: Microsoft just began releasing a series of 101 demo videos on VB.NET (and it looks like all 1.1); MSDN VS.NET Developer center just put 1 of 3 planned chapters from a new book on VS.NET2003 (from Brian Johnson’s blog).

But it isn’t Microsoft that Greg and Brady (and others) are pointing the finger at so much in regards to the onslaught of future “moving target” technologies. It is the tech magazine publications.

I think in the blogging community there is a very high concentration of people out on the bleeding edge and if Microsoft or the publishers are using this as their gauge of “what developers are thinking and what they want…” then that is probably a big mistake. I [personally] think the folks who are more interested in .NET 2.0 or Longhorn than in 1.1 are a very small percentage of developers.

  Sign up for my newsletter so you don't miss my conference & Pluralsight course announcements!