4 ms·

Microsoft Dynamics tries to be a no-code platform (although you can add DLLs if you want to) and it's a nightmare. Your entire app is built into a giant XML fil

Microsoft Dynamics tries to be a no-code platform (although you can add DLLs if you want to) and it's a nightmare. Your entire app is built into a giant XML file. It can take 45 minutes for this XML to be imported. In the repo, the XML is taken apart into thousands of small XML files. Any change to the app has to be done as follows: 1. build the giant XML file 2. import it into the platform 3. make the change (e.g. update a form or database column) 4. export as XML 5. shred it into thousands of little XML files Then you discover that one simple change in the app has turned into dozens of changes in XML files. And you have to figure out which of those changes to include in your commit. If you guess wrong, then unpredictable things can happen. If you're tempted to bypass all this by just editing the XML directly - sometimes it works, and sometimes the whole thing is deemed invalid, which you discover when importing it and you get an extremely unhelpful error message. The original idea was that you can define a data model, forms, and some business logic in a no-code manner. But it's a nightmare when you have a team of software developers working on an app.

jksmith 5y ago
Oh lordy, this is waking up some bad memories of using Dynamics for a huge project. As a team of 50, we started having to extend the crap out of it with c#, which made me question the use of the tool in the first place. So we called in an expert, who proceeded to tell up that if you didn't stay as close out of the box as you could with as little c# customization as possible, then we'd run into problems, which of course was the issue. That was in 2015, and the tool may have gotten better, but at the time, it was only capable of some basic crud applications, along with some pretty good interop with msft office. Point is, if it's a no/low code solution, the whole solution ultimately better be in the box. Otherwise you're screwed. So how do you come up with a uniquely competitive product from no/low code if the whole solution must already essentially be in the box? Maybe the best use case is internal IT needs.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  This is typical enterprise stuff, Sitecore, SharePoint, SAP, LifeRay, AEM, .... Out of the box they are always very generic and then it is expected that a team of consultants, certified from agencies with vendor partnership, drop in to perform the actual customization.
  - jksmith 5y ago
    The whole scene was funny because while the MSFT Dynamics sales guy was really trying to be helpful, the MSFT Azure sales guys couldn't give two shits about the tool and wanted to give it away as bait to get customers into Azure. That was my take at the time.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Yeah have seen it happen as well, with other products though.
kgeist 5y ago
Our company tried to replace our decade old custom-built legacy CRM with Microsoft Dynamics but for some reason their enthusiasm quickly evaporated, they abandoned the project and now decided to modernize our legacy CRM instead. Now I know what could be the reason, thanks.

jksmith 5y ago

Oh lordy, this is waking up some bad memories of using Dynamics for a huge project. As a team of 50, we started having to extend the crap out of it with c#, which made me question the use of the tool in the first place. So we called in an expert, who proceeded to tell up that if you didn't stay as close out of the box as you could with as little c# customization as possible, then we'd run into problems, which of course was the issue. That was in 2015, and the tool may have gotten better, but at the time, it was only capable of some basic crud applications, along with some pretty good interop with msft office. Point is, if it's a no/low code solution, the whole solution ultimately better be in the box. Otherwise you're screwed. So how do you come up with a uniquely competitive product from no/low code if the whole solution must already essentially be in the box? Maybe the best use case is internal IT needs.

pjmlp 5y ago
This is typical enterprise stuff, Sitecore, SharePoint, SAP, LifeRay, AEM, .... Out of the box they are always very generic and then it is expected that a team of consultants, certified from agencies with vendor partnership, drop in to perform the actual customization.
- jksmith 5y ago
  The whole scene was funny because while the MSFT Dynamics sales guy was really trying to be helpful, the MSFT Azure sales guys couldn't give two shits about the tool and wanted to give it away as bait to get customers into Azure. That was my take at the time.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yeah have seen it happen as well, with other products though.

kgeist 5y ago

Our company tried to replace our decade old custom-built legacy CRM with Microsoft Dynamics but for some reason their enthusiasm quickly evaporated, they abandoned the project and now decided to modernize our legacy CRM instead. Now I know what could be the reason, thanks.