I remember years ago going to a Visual FoxPro conference and throughout the entire conference they spoke only of this new thing called .NET. I saw the warning signs and even though VB.NET would have been the natural path from Visual FoxPro I saw additional warning signs, i.e., most of the new projects coming from the P&P teams were in C# - not VB.NET, that clearly told me that "it is time to move on using C#". Two years later I was a MCAD in C#.NET and within a few more years was shocked to witness Visual Basic get pushed off the cliff; I never saw this coming and it sent a clear message "OBSERVE THE WARNING SIGNS". A few years later there were more warnings signs about a new UI they called WPF so I abandoned WinForms and continued on my path following the "Microsoft Yellow Brick Road".
So I have to ask the question - how have I read the warning signs so far?
Today I checked in code and UML (Use Case and Sequence Diagrams) for my http://SolrContrib.Codeplex.com project which was so very, very close to finally being "the platform" that would be used for all applications that I would use for development from this point forward - it would support Desktop, Silverlight, ASP.NET MVC and Phone. This is a feat I have been trying to accomplish since July of 2007 when I started the http://SDMS.CodePlex.com open source project and came real close on my http://PasswordMgr.CodePlex.com project (I actually got to release this) before its future started unraveling like all of the projects before it because the framework(s) became obsolete before they even had a chance to mature.
Periodically I start doing my rounds for software updates (seemed appropriate as I was so close to being done with the framework) and I saw that Unity had a release for 3.0 and it was geared for Windows 8 - so I did a little research which eventually had me end up at the following link.
Future directions for C# and Visual Basic
So that you don't have to imagine the look on my face as I watched the video clip, I'll give you a picture:
I saw the warning signs once again - more pronounced then ever before, my http://SolrContrib.Codeplex.com infrastructure in all of its glory was now obsolete. I saw as much attention applied to the "Classic Windows Desktop" of Windows 8 as I did WinForms after WPF came out - absolutely none; everything was about Metro and Roslyn CTP.
Not that I wasn't impressed! I'm just as impressed as I was when I saw .NET and WPF for the first time - coolest thing since Apple Pie and as always I'm jumping on that band-wagon as soon as the holidays are over (January 2012), I'll be rolling up my sleeves and preparing my brain to be wiped (like all of my code) so that I can start all over (again).
The question I have to ask myself is "will the new framework that I will create using Metro be obsolete before it is finished", I think we all know the answer... But on the brighter side - it never gets boring and you can't lose by staying on the "Microsoft Yellow Brick Road"!!!
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