.NET 3.0: What’s in a name?
I can’t say I’ve ever put much stock in online petitions, but the petition to encourage Microsoft to call WinFX WinFX instead of .NET 3.0 makes some extremely good points. I encourage everyone to read the arguments made in the petition, and I would just like to add that while the name WinFX will add yet another name to Microsoft’s already unnavigable sea of brands it will essentially be a one-time hitch for developers to get over (“I have .NET 2.0 installed.” “But do you have .NET 2.0 with WinFX?”). Sure, it would be nice to avoid this, but the introduction of Vista will completely swamp any minor difficulties associated with ascertaining whether or not WinFX is installed. You’re smoothing out a minor dimple on a giant speed bump. The fact of the matter is that people will know if they’re running Vista but they do not know what version of .NET they are running (or what .NET is). That will account for a huge number of consumers of WinFX-based applications, while I think the rest will be aware of the Vista launch and will be more likely to notice that they’re installing some sort of “Vista Windows” patch to their XP installation than that they’ve upgraded their .NET version.
I do not want to get to the point where people don’t want to upgrade their .NET installation because Microsoft is always releasing a new version. I do not want other CLR implementations to fall out of sync because they do not support a particular API that is not a core .NET technology. I do not want the C# version associated with a .NET version to be different unless you are deliberately trying to break the C# – CLR development connection.
Thanks for posting.
I really should have encouraged everyone to spread the word.