5 ms·

Don't get all conspiracy theory on us. Sad to see Eric go (just started working with him!) but glad that he's moving on to other great things.

mythz 14y ago
Doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to figure out C#/.NET is no longer Microsoft's sole flagship strategy for developers... Microsoft have recently discontinued their only managed .NET cross-platform managed UI effort in Silverlight in favor of the multi-language Win 8 SDK with JavaScript, C# and C++ bindings. Most Windows applications are still being written in C++ where you would barely notice the difference if Windows didn't have .NET installed, this is in stark contrast for instance with Apple's positioning of their own XCode/Obj-C development platform they've used to build OSX, which essentially would be a glorified terminal if you took away all Obj-C libraries and applications. Microsoft have also made significant investments in JavaScript and node.js, with even Anders moving off C# to work on TypeScript for a bit. Basically they're business models have changed where they're now positioning Azure (their new server strategy) as a multi-platform cloud strategy with support parity for .NET, node.js, Java, PHP and Python: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ So I don't think it's a stretch to observe there has been in-fact a "Difference in strategic position" with Microsoft's attitude towards C#/.NET.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  > Doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to figure out C#/.NET is no longer Microsoft's sole flagship strategy for developers "Sole Flagship" strategies, be they for language or DB, whatever, are doomed to fail. The company has "picked a winner," reducing internal diversity and competition between approaches. Past a certain size threshold, a big company has become a number of interlinked ecosystems. Promoting standards to reduce friction of internal information sharing is the way to go. This enhances the positive effect of internal competition, instead of squashing it.
  - mythz 14y ago
    >> "Sole Flagship" strategies, be they for language or DB, whatever, are doomed to fail. Riiight, cause standardizing on a single platform and maintaining one set of documentation and cultivating 1 shared knowledge-base is really hurting Android's use of Java and Apple's use of Obj-C.
    - stcredzero 14y ago
      I was talking about internal big company directives. The ones I've seen failed (Shell Oil), unless they were about infrastructure. (Amazon, Wells Fargo) Android and iOS are a different case. The diversity they both want, they are getting. The diversity iOS doesn't want is controlled. In a big company, the ecosystems have mostly been internal, and standardizing interoperation has traditionally been about internal efficiencies. App ecosystems aren't necessarily like that -- they are for external consumption. (Though one could make the argument that Intents are about efficiency within the Android ecosystem.)
- WayneDB 14y ago
  I think that you're reading the tea-leaves all wrong. You also have made a few unproven claims. Chief among them to my mind, is that Microsoft has made a "significant investments in JavaScript and node.js". Significant compared to what? Certainly not compared to .NET which has been a gargantuan decade+ investment. In my opinion: A strong cross-platform C# eco-system is simply not good for Microsoft. They had to kill Silverlight. By backing Javascript, they bought some time. Silverlight was getting too good. Microsoft does not want a good, easy-to-use cross-platform kit with static-typing and native capabilities to exist. Anything cross-platform from Microsoft is a head-fake, a bare-bones concession, or someone's pet-project that grows into a monster which will have to be killed. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am.
  - mythz 14y ago
    >> Significant compared to what? Significant, in the fact that there's now a less clear choice of what to use when developing a Windows 8 UI or server application. >> In my opinion: A strong cross-platform C# eco-system is simply not good for Microsoft. In that case it's a conflict of interests, as it may not be good for Microsoft, but it's certainly good for the .NET community which lets .NET developers re-use and leverage their work on multiple platforms. Fortunately we have Xamarin filling this void, but if it wasn't for them .NET developers would be missing out on the most exciting mobile platforms to date: iOS / Android.
- brc 14y ago
  From this I see that C# as a UI language is not the future, that's hardly surprising. There is no doubt that Azure is being pushed as a back-end, and front end is targeting web ui, metro, and other mobile devices. Silverlight never got market traction, so needs to be dropped. But all that code on the Azure servers - that's all going to be .net based. Of that there is little doubt. I think the problem here is conflating UI language usage with language usage in general. The bulk of app code is going into service layers, and they are all written on C#.
joe_the_user 14y ago
I know nothing about this particular situation but it pretty well known that power-struggles are the default mode of operation in many large corporations (and Microsoft in particular) and that further almost any manager who leaves a company without being escorted out in handcuffs is going to be "leaving for great things" according to all concerned. Thus speculation about power struggles and corporate emphases is natural unless the company is unusually transparent and/or all of the managers' product are doing well. Not that managers don't leave for better things on a regular basis but making that the leaving-mantra sadly has reduced its credibility. Edit: It would be "conspiracy theory" to light on one explanation and push it blindly without overwhelming evidence. But speculation in the dark is fine if it is labeled as such. Real, concrete information is better than speculation the dark. If one could count on such concrete information from Microsoft and others, one would want avoid.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  >any manager who leaves a company without being escorted out in handcuffs is going to be "leaving for great things" according to all concerned. That may be true, and would perhaps be applicable to this case, if Eric were a manager. He is not. He is (was) a Principal SDE. This means he writes code and likely has lots of input into high level architectural/design decisions. Any influence he had over the actions of others is likely due more to respect for his technical acumen than any kind of managerial title. I suspect the closest he would come to being a manager would be any mentoring (official or unofficial) that he did, which is likely more effective than being someones official boss :)
  - joe_the_user 14y ago
    Sure but isn't the point that he is high enough on the "totem pole" that diplomacy needs prevail over all else? It's not their particular authority over others but their general importance to the company's image and the company's importance to their image which incentivizes everyone to use euphemisms in the situation of a departing of manager. It seems logical that the case of a Principle SDE would be similar.
jbevain 14y ago
Huh, I'm definitely not going “all conspiracy theory” on you. And by you I guess I mean Microsoft? The perception from the outside, or let say, my perception, is that both .net and C# along (C# being the flagship language for the platform) don't have the same place in Microsoft's strategy than they had say 4 years ago. Eric being one more visible .net profile leaving Microsoft, I'm just saying it's interesting to wonder if that's related.
- Locke1689 14y ago
  ...I'm not saying that we didn't land on the moon, I'm just saying it's interesting to wonder if it really happened. But you're absolutely right -- I'm glad I know now that I'm working on a new C# compiler for a dead language that no one uses. Oh, and by "us" I meant HN. If you haven't noticed, I've been part of this community for quite a while. Edit: This comment is maybe snarkier then I meant it. Add an eye roll or two and you'll get the gist.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    No offense but you're reading waaay more into it than what they wrote. "Difference in strategic position" doesn't equate to "dead language that no one uses" and a question into the departure of a high-profile MS exec doesn't rise to the level of moon landing lunacy. Unless you have some sort of inside knowledge about what the parent comment to yours actually meant I can only assume that this discussion in general is hitting too close to home for complete objectivity on your part. I also don't think that being signed up for a site for a longer duration of time inherently gives you any right to speak for the entire site, even in a conversation with one of relatively less "seniority" on the site (whatever that even means). It's nice that you clarified what you meant by "us" but that wasn't being debated and it didn't add to any points you've made.
    - ericlippert 14y ago
      I am neither high-profile nor an executive.

mythz 14y ago

Doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to figure out C#/.NET is no longer Microsoft's sole flagship strategy for developers... Microsoft have recently discontinued their only managed .NET cross-platform managed UI effort in Silverlight in favor of the multi-language Win 8 SDK with JavaScript, C# and C++ bindings. Most Windows applications are still being written in C++ where you would barely notice the difference if Windows didn't have .NET installed, this is in stark contrast for instance with Apple's positioning of their own XCode/Obj-C development platform they've used to build OSX, which essentially would be a glorified terminal if you took away all Obj-C libraries and applications. Microsoft have also made significant investments in JavaScript and node.js, with even Anders moving off C# to work on TypeScript for a bit. Basically they're business models have changed where they're now positioning Azure (their new server strategy) as a multi-platform cloud strategy with support parity for .NET, node.js, Java, PHP and Python: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ So I don't think it's a stretch to observe there has been in-fact a "Difference in strategic position" with Microsoft's attitude towards C#/.NET.

stcredzero 14y ago
> Doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to figure out C#/.NET is no longer Microsoft's sole flagship strategy for developers "Sole Flagship" strategies, be they for language or DB, whatever, are doomed to fail. The company has "picked a winner," reducing internal diversity and competition between approaches. Past a certain size threshold, a big company has become a number of interlinked ecosystems. Promoting standards to reduce friction of internal information sharing is the way to go. This enhances the positive effect of internal competition, instead of squashing it.
- mythz 14y ago
  >> "Sole Flagship" strategies, be they for language or DB, whatever, are doomed to fail. Riiight, cause standardizing on a single platform and maintaining one set of documentation and cultivating 1 shared knowledge-base is really hurting Android's use of Java and Apple's use of Obj-C.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    I was talking about internal big company directives. The ones I've seen failed (Shell Oil), unless they were about infrastructure. (Amazon, Wells Fargo) Android and iOS are a different case. The diversity they both want, they are getting. The diversity iOS doesn't want is controlled. In a big company, the ecosystems have mostly been internal, and standardizing interoperation has traditionally been about internal efficiencies. App ecosystems aren't necessarily like that -- they are for external consumption. (Though one could make the argument that Intents are about efficiency within the Android ecosystem.)
WayneDB 14y ago
I think that you're reading the tea-leaves all wrong. You also have made a few unproven claims. Chief among them to my mind, is that Microsoft has made a "significant investments in JavaScript and node.js". Significant compared to what? Certainly not compared to .NET which has been a gargantuan decade+ investment. In my opinion: A strong cross-platform C# eco-system is simply not good for Microsoft. They had to kill Silverlight. By backing Javascript, they bought some time. Silverlight was getting too good. Microsoft does not want a good, easy-to-use cross-platform kit with static-typing and native capabilities to exist. Anything cross-platform from Microsoft is a head-fake, a bare-bones concession, or someone's pet-project that grows into a monster which will have to be killed. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am.
- mythz 14y ago
  >> Significant compared to what? Significant, in the fact that there's now a less clear choice of what to use when developing a Windows 8 UI or server application. >> In my opinion: A strong cross-platform C# eco-system is simply not good for Microsoft. In that case it's a conflict of interests, as it may not be good for Microsoft, but it's certainly good for the .NET community which lets .NET developers re-use and leverage their work on multiple platforms. Fortunately we have Xamarin filling this void, but if it wasn't for them .NET developers would be missing out on the most exciting mobile platforms to date: iOS / Android.
brc 14y ago
From this I see that C# as a UI language is not the future, that's hardly surprising. There is no doubt that Azure is being pushed as a back-end, and front end is targeting web ui, metro, and other mobile devices. Silverlight never got market traction, so needs to be dropped. But all that code on the Azure servers - that's all going to be .net based. Of that there is little doubt. I think the problem here is conflating UI language usage with language usage in general. The bulk of app code is going into service layers, and they are all written on C#.

joe_the_user 14y ago

I know nothing about this particular situation but it pretty well known that power-struggles are the default mode of operation in many large corporations (and Microsoft in particular) and that further almost any manager who leaves a company without being escorted out in handcuffs is going to be "leaving for great things" according to all concerned. Thus speculation about power struggles and corporate emphases is natural unless the company is unusually transparent and/or all of the managers' product are doing well. Not that managers don't leave for better things on a regular basis but making that the leaving-mantra sadly has reduced its credibility. Edit: It would be "conspiracy theory" to light on one explanation and push it blindly without overwhelming evidence. But speculation in the dark is fine if it is labeled as such. Real, concrete information is better than speculation the dark. If one could count on such concrete information from Microsoft and others, one would want avoid.

ryanmolden 14y ago
>any manager who leaves a company without being escorted out in handcuffs is going to be "leaving for great things" according to all concerned. That may be true, and would perhaps be applicable to this case, if Eric were a manager. He is not. He is (was) a Principal SDE. This means he writes code and likely has lots of input into high level architectural/design decisions. Any influence he had over the actions of others is likely due more to respect for his technical acumen than any kind of managerial title. I suspect the closest he would come to being a manager would be any mentoring (official or unofficial) that he did, which is likely more effective than being someones official boss :)
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  Sure but isn't the point that he is high enough on the "totem pole" that diplomacy needs prevail over all else? It's not their particular authority over others but their general importance to the company's image and the company's importance to their image which incentivizes everyone to use euphemisms in the situation of a departing of manager. It seems logical that the case of a Principle SDE would be similar.

jbevain 14y ago

Huh, I'm definitely not going “all conspiracy theory” on you. And by you I guess I mean Microsoft? The perception from the outside, or let say, my perception, is that both .net and C# along (C# being the flagship language for the platform) don't have the same place in Microsoft's strategy than they had say 4 years ago. Eric being one more visible .net profile leaving Microsoft, I'm just saying it's interesting to wonder if that's related.

Locke1689 14y ago
...I'm not saying that we didn't land on the moon, I'm just saying it's interesting to wonder if it really happened. But you're absolutely right -- I'm glad I know now that I'm working on a new C# compiler for a dead language that no one uses. Oh, and by "us" I meant HN. If you haven't noticed, I've been part of this community for quite a while. Edit: This comment is maybe snarkier then I meant it. Add an eye roll or two and you'll get the gist.
- mpyne 14y ago
  No offense but you're reading waaay more into it than what they wrote. "Difference in strategic position" doesn't equate to "dead language that no one uses" and a question into the departure of a high-profile MS exec doesn't rise to the level of moon landing lunacy. Unless you have some sort of inside knowledge about what the parent comment to yours actually meant I can only assume that this discussion in general is hitting too close to home for complete objectivity on your part. I also don't think that being signed up for a site for a longer duration of time inherently gives you any right to speak for the entire site, even in a conversation with one of relatively less "seniority" on the site (whatever that even means). It's nice that you clarified what you meant by "us" but that wasn't being debated and it didn't add to any points you've made.
  - ericlippert 14y ago
    I am neither high-profile nor an executive.