Visibility

It is one of my goals to continue to grow our Application Development service offering at Inetium this year.  Look for us to be focused on our reputation and visibility over the coming months.

If you are looking for experts on the .Net platform, WCF, Smart Client Software Factories (SCSF), SQL Server, ASP .Net, MVC, WPF, SilverLight, and other related .Net technologies… ping me.

What’s the most productive development language?

I received the following question today:

Can you provide any studies or analysis that quantify the programmer productivity benefits of C# vs VC++?  Thanks!

What I’m looking for is from a developer perspective, I’m sure there’s plenty of studies out there to be found

I thought this was such an interesting question that I just had to share my response:

From a developers perspective, that’s tough because everyone has their own opinions… with that said, I can provide you mine

In my experiences, I’ve noticed the greatest factors affecting productivity is people, understanding the problem, and applying the right tools and technologies to solve the problem.  During the envisioning of a new project, my recommendation is for people to do the following:

· Take an inventory of the team; understand everyone’s current skills and desires.  As a colleague of mine said recently, “The nice thing about newer technologies is that they are exciting to work on.  Doing the same thing over and over again, just becomes work”.  In terms of productivity, if you can take advantage of new technology while minimizing the learning curve and risk… this person is going to be wildly more productive on the new stuff because they love doing it.  The key for every team is not always new technology however… it’s about what gets them excited.

· Apply the appropriate technology for the problem at hand.  This requires you having talented people that have a solid “toolbox”.  If find yourself on a team or in an organization that only has one or two tools without an understanding of what is happening in the marketplace, those people are going to solve every people with the limited toolset they have, and that may not be the best choice.  Someone with these characteristics is often referred to as a person who carries a Golden Hammer.  For many situations, VC++ will be the right tool, and in many others it will not.

· Finally, consider your future.  Your future technology direction will be impacted by the decisions made on this project.  If you are moving to a new technology platform for your future, that’s an investment.

I realize that I didn’t answer the question, but that was intentional.  The Microsoft .Net platform is very feature rich and has a huge following.  Additionally, you can take advantage of the platform with the use of many different languages, managed C++, C#, VB .Net, and F# just to name a few.