6 ms·

Well the program was always for helping the broader community, whether by writing tools, or participating in StackOverflow, or whatever... it was never a “Hall

by anbop 8y ago

Well the program was always for helping the broader community, whether by writing tools, or participating in StackOverflow, or whatever... it was never a “Hall of Fame” for the best Windows programmers.

mythz 8y ago
It's about helping MS market their products by encouraging devs to pimp their tools/products under the guise of "technical excellence" that everyone used to look up to. An award for being one of MS's best pimpers just doesn't hold the same level of street cred. Now whenever I see someone wearing an MVP badge in their twitter bio I immediately discredit their pro-MS "advice" as an MVP shill wanting to score points towards their next renewal.
- pknopf 8y ago
  Have you ever applied? But really, if the MVP program was what it is said to be, people like you'd be in it. ServiceStack has been a valuable contribution to the .NET community, and your continued development/support of it should defacto make you an MVP.
  - mythz 8y ago
    No, I wouldn't lend credence to a program that serves as an echo chamber to further insulate .NET's bubble. It's one of the marketing tools used to self-reinforce .NET's mono culture - which I view as the worst thing about .NET. It stopped being anything remotely to do with technical merit or being an "MVP" years ago. I'd prefer to see the program abolished, then maybe we'll start seeing more tech diversity in .NET.
    - snuxoll 8y ago
      Thank you for speaking up about the monoculture in .NET, it’s a personal bugbear of mine working in a primarily .NET shop - for all the praise people like to heave on the NuGet package collection so much revolves around Microsoft’s own frameworks and supporting libraries and other products. People have arguments in JVM-land about why you should use X web framework or Y SQL/ORM library or Z foobaz. Too often in the .Net world I see complete dismissal of everything but ASP.Net MVC, EF+MSSQL, etc. Oh, and of course you should use Azure for everything. I freaking love F#, and to a lesser extent C# - but I can’t stand .NET as a whole because of this.
      - sureaboutthis 8y ago
        A relative of mine manages a huge .NET shop in Texas and has said the same thing to me many times.
      - gameswithgo 8y ago
        i see people avoiding EF all the time
        pknopf 8y ago
        Many people are choosing it because it's the blessed way of doing things, but it is crazy overkill and such a heavy hammer for many cases. There is rarely a case to use EF.
        Solar19 8y ago
        What is EF?
        wantoncl 8y ago
        Entity Framework
        sdfin 8y ago
        Does what you say also apply to EF Core? I don't know the previous EF version, but EF Core seemed simple to me. Particularly after comparing it with what I knew about Hibernate.
        pknopf 8y ago
        I have the same opinion on both. My default is to just use ADO.NET with Dapper or ServiceStack.OrmLite.
        JamesBarney 8y ago
        Mind explaining this more? I love EF and how quickly you can get spin up a database and get started writing LINQ queries against it. Also how easy it is to get code reuse which is a pain in the butt with sql, or throw together a multi tenant app with global query filters.
  - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
    Not your OP, but when I was in the program it was because MSFT people found me and awarded it to me based on posts I had already done. I didn't apply. It was in 1992 when the big transition to Windows 3.1 was underway. I had already been assisting people with Windows programming questions on Compuserve, because of my belief that it was then an important transition. I believed it was going to be easier than people thought, and my aid was meant to help people see this. When my priorities changed and I stopped posting, MSFT didn't award me MVP status again. The MSFT self-interest was that the awards were things that made it easier for us to post more, such as comp'ing the minutes we spent in the Windows forum on Compuserve and the like. Although I heard rumors of MSFT leaders/liasons encouraging individuals to post after their awards, I didn't get such communications personally. I bet it's all different now but I have had not been involved.
    - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
      Reading the fine article I can see that the program continued to be in essence the program I participated in, with more responsibility on the participant's part to keep MSFT informed of why one might deserve the award, and less support of late for folks posting intensely technical material such as DDK.
  - otis_inf 8y ago
    I've been a C# MVP for many years before they didn't renew me because I was too critical towards MS' direction (this was before they OSS-ed .NET). When I was awarded, it felt like I received an award for my position in the .NET community. When I didn't get a renewal years later it felt like I didn't get it because I didn't fit into their marketing machine. It was fine by me btw. The free MSDN universal subscription is nice, but that's about it. > ServiceStack has been a valuable contribution to the .NET community, and your continued development/support of it should defacto make you an MVP. Yes, and back in the days when I received my MVP title, this kind of thinking was part of the criteria. Nowadays... no way. It started 7-8 years ago I think when they decided there couldn't be more than X mvp's for a given category and they wanted at least Y mvp's in a given region. So less in the west, and more in say India. While it's fine to make it a more world-wide program and recognize people in communities which are less known to people in 'the west', the criteria to accomplish this changed with it: if you started a user group somewhere in a region without an mvp and someone nominated you, you had a good chance becoming one. This is all OK btw, if your criteria is about evangelizing. If your criteria is about 'the people who are the most skilled in ABC' then it's not. So this shift in who would receive the award changed the program. Nowadays it's rather silly tbh. If you want to get renewed you have to fill in a form where you describe why you want to get renewed. wtf... it's an award you receive. Why would you need to tell MS why you'd want to receive an award you haven't received yet as they decide who gets it...
    - close04 8y ago
      I see the same thing happening with almost all "most valuable" type awards or badges. Every big tech company that has it now uses it almost exclusively as a PR campaign. The MV% roster of some companies looks more like a list of social media influencers than a list of truly most valuable professionals, with the latter losing ground year after year.
  - sqldba 8y ago
    You can no longer apply, they did away with that last year.
- kbp 8y ago
  I don't know a lot about the programme, but I would have assumed there was always a similar focus on Microsoft's interests. Did they used to support people who weren't very interested in new/trendy/popular MS technologies?

by anbop 8y ago

mythz 8y ago

It's about helping MS market their products by encouraging devs to pimp their tools/products under the guise of "technical excellence" that everyone used to look up to. An award for being one of MS's best pimpers just doesn't hold the same level of street cred. Now whenever I see someone wearing an MVP badge in their twitter bio I immediately discredit their pro-MS "advice" as an MVP shill wanting to score points towards their next renewal.

pknopf 8y ago
Have you ever applied? But really, if the MVP program was what it is said to be, people like you'd be in it. ServiceStack has been a valuable contribution to the .NET community, and your continued development/support of it should defacto make you an MVP.
- mythz 8y ago
  No, I wouldn't lend credence to a program that serves as an echo chamber to further insulate .NET's bubble. It's one of the marketing tools used to self-reinforce .NET's mono culture - which I view as the worst thing about .NET. It stopped being anything remotely to do with technical merit or being an "MVP" years ago. I'd prefer to see the program abolished, then maybe we'll start seeing more tech diversity in .NET.
  - snuxoll 8y ago
    Thank you for speaking up about the monoculture in .NET, it’s a personal bugbear of mine working in a primarily .NET shop - for all the praise people like to heave on the NuGet package collection so much revolves around Microsoft’s own frameworks and supporting libraries and other products. People have arguments in JVM-land about why you should use X web framework or Y SQL/ORM library or Z foobaz. Too often in the .Net world I see complete dismissal of everything but ASP.Net MVC, EF+MSSQL, etc. Oh, and of course you should use Azure for everything. I freaking love F#, and to a lesser extent C# - but I can’t stand .NET as a whole because of this.
    - sureaboutthis 8y ago
      A relative of mine manages a huge .NET shop in Texas and has said the same thing to me many times.
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      i see people avoiding EF all the time
      - pknopf 8y ago
        Many people are choosing it because it's the blessed way of doing things, but it is crazy overkill and such a heavy hammer for many cases. There is rarely a case to use EF.
        Solar19 8y ago
        What is EF?
        wantoncl 8y ago
        Entity Framework
        sdfin 8y ago
        Does what you say also apply to EF Core? I don't know the previous EF version, but EF Core seemed simple to me. Particularly after comparing it with what I knew about Hibernate.
        pknopf 8y ago
        I have the same opinion on both. My default is to just use ADO.NET with Dapper or ServiceStack.OrmLite.
        JamesBarney 8y ago
        Mind explaining this more? I love EF and how quickly you can get spin up a database and get started writing LINQ queries against it. Also how easy it is to get code reuse which is a pain in the butt with sql, or throw together a multi tenant app with global query filters.
- cardiffspaceman 8y ago
  Not your OP, but when I was in the program it was because MSFT people found me and awarded it to me based on posts I had already done. I didn't apply. It was in 1992 when the big transition to Windows 3.1 was underway. I had already been assisting people with Windows programming questions on Compuserve, because of my belief that it was then an important transition. I believed it was going to be easier than people thought, and my aid was meant to help people see this. When my priorities changed and I stopped posting, MSFT didn't award me MVP status again. The MSFT self-interest was that the awards were things that made it easier for us to post more, such as comp'ing the minutes we spent in the Windows forum on Compuserve and the like. Although I heard rumors of MSFT leaders/liasons encouraging individuals to post after their awards, I didn't get such communications personally. I bet it's all different now but I have had not been involved.
  - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
    Reading the fine article I can see that the program continued to be in essence the program I participated in, with more responsibility on the participant's part to keep MSFT informed of why one might deserve the award, and less support of late for folks posting intensely technical material such as DDK.
- otis_inf 8y ago
  I've been a C# MVP for many years before they didn't renew me because I was too critical towards MS' direction (this was before they OSS-ed .NET). When I was awarded, it felt like I received an award for my position in the .NET community. When I didn't get a renewal years later it felt like I didn't get it because I didn't fit into their marketing machine. It was fine by me btw. The free MSDN universal subscription is nice, but that's about it. > ServiceStack has been a valuable contribution to the .NET community, and your continued development/support of it should defacto make you an MVP. Yes, and back in the days when I received my MVP title, this kind of thinking was part of the criteria. Nowadays... no way. It started 7-8 years ago I think when they decided there couldn't be more than X mvp's for a given category and they wanted at least Y mvp's in a given region. So less in the west, and more in say India. While it's fine to make it a more world-wide program and recognize people in communities which are less known to people in 'the west', the criteria to accomplish this changed with it: if you started a user group somewhere in a region without an mvp and someone nominated you, you had a good chance becoming one. This is all OK btw, if your criteria is about evangelizing. If your criteria is about 'the people who are the most skilled in ABC' then it's not. So this shift in who would receive the award changed the program. Nowadays it's rather silly tbh. If you want to get renewed you have to fill in a form where you describe why you want to get renewed. wtf... it's an award you receive. Why would you need to tell MS why you'd want to receive an award you haven't received yet as they decide who gets it...
  - close04 8y ago
    I see the same thing happening with almost all "most valuable" type awards or badges. Every big tech company that has it now uses it almost exclusively as a PR campaign. The MV% roster of some companies looks more like a list of social media influencers than a list of truly most valuable professionals, with the latter losing ground year after year.
- sqldba 8y ago
  You can no longer apply, they did away with that last year.
kbp 8y ago
I don't know a lot about the programme, but I would have assumed there was always a similar focus on Microsoft's interests. Did they used to support people who weren't very interested in new/trendy/popular MS technologies?