Gustav Brock
gustav at cactus.dk
Sat Sep 11 12:29:54 CDT 2010
Hi Shamil I understand your concern, and you are right - it is not very clever to chose a development tool where you may get trapped. However, as I see it, LS doesn't lock you out from any feature of Visual Studio. C# and VB.NET are at any point no more than a click or two away and you can create all the custom code and forms and reports you may need. Again, I'm convinced that the lack of true knowledge of databases is the main trap for amateur (including most super user style) developers. For us this trap is very distant. Because I feel that one of the fun parts of designing an application is thinking out the perfect data model, I spend much time on this, and I've seen several times that exactly doing so makes it possible to twist and expand the application in any direction the client later may think of. Or - putting it the other way - you have all experienced the deep breath you take when you study an inherited application where the client asks you to make what seems a minor modification while you can see that issues are piling up because of initial bad design. Thanks for link. Interesting comment indeed. /gustav >>> shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru 11-09-2010 08:16 >>> Hi Gustav -- Thank you for your extended note and your "first hand" experience with LightSwitch. So, LightSwitch desktop UI is also Silverlight based? (from keynote video I didn't get that) IOW this tool should be better called "Silver-Light-Switch" ? (Does it "smell" a bit as "Silver-Bullet" just based on its title?) <<< Of course, like Access, this is a dangerous tool for those not knowing relational databases - but for you and I and our fellow list members who know about databases, this could be a very strong tool - mastering this could make you very competitive for small projects. >>> Yes, and I'd suppose this tool is also "dangerous" for you and me :) Yes, I see you noted - for "small projects" - but how often "small projects" quickly grow into "big ones" - almost always in my experience, and what about yours? I guess it should be very similar... IMO when working with such a tool one is becoming a "lazy developer". I can be wrong but the "hidden danger" of such a tool IMO is that while one is working using it on a small app it works well but then, suddenly(?!), they hit the wall - and there is often no resources and no will to "break that wall" - and an application degrades steadily, its support costs grow (astronomically), and then it gets abandoned. Everybody here "been there seen that" many times I suppose... Yes, as a prototyping tool is looks good - and prototyping both business datamodel + FE rough interface/navigation/data validation but when prototyping is done - "throw it away", and make "real handwritten software". I can be wrong of course, we will see... But Test Driven Development (TDD) and Domain Driven Design (DDD) is a synonym for professional agile software development for me, and LightSwitch looks so different from TDD/DDD mainstream tendence... LightSwitch still looks more like "VB6 v.2010 on .NET Framework+WCF/SilverLight+EF steroids" with all the dangers of VB6 in creation of "world best spaghetti code"... Yes, the fact is that business software isn't that a rocket science experience with a lot of routine repetitive tasks and code and UI templates "crying for" automation for ages now - still no good results - would we finally get good results now with LightSwitch? Let's hope so, just hope... But the more business software development automation fails to deliver a universal tool the more it's becoming clear that there couldn't be such a tool in principle? LightSwitch is a high level framework on top of several frameworks - such a "vertical structure" of stacked frameworks usually results in a rather rigid construction. Hunting for RAD and flexibility and in fact getting into the opposite direction in long run (for big projects) + becoming a "lazy developer": it was like that before - why it should be different this time? Doesn't "The Mythical Man-Month" by Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks) and the "The Design of Design" of the same author tells us that the real breakthrough in (business) software development automation is yet very far from nowadays if ever happens? The main losses/overheads in (business) software development as it's known are in the area of communicating customers'/stakeholders' requirements to the business analysts/software designers/developers - LightSwitch (as VSLive Keynote speech states) is going to solve/significantly diminish the losses/overheads of this core issue - I doubt it will work well here... Microsoft is investing so much into high level software development frameworks these days as they never did before - is that more "a marketing move" or a long term well thought through strategy - who knows? No doubts Microsoft can afford world best computer science analysts and software developers - did they find how to make a "Silver-Bullet" this time? I can be wrong, feel free to accept all the above as a rumbling... Just found this note "LightSwitch Extensibility: It Ain't Just Hype" http://geekswithblogs.net/andrewbrust/archive/2010/08/21/lightswitch-extensibility-it-ainrsquot-just-hype.aspx Thank you. -- Shamil