Longhorn Transparency
The great benefit of Microsoft's new development direction transparency is that it reduces the probability of real lemons (i.e. products that no one wants) since there is very early feedback. The problem with the long term transparency is that's its really difficult to get excited about the new technology after the initial rush. Take the Still Crazy After All These Bindings article by Chris Sells. Normally I would be really interested in .NET articles on data binding. My background is with process control and SCADA software development (visual representation of the physical world such as a mine or factory on the computer screen). In those technology sectors, data binding concepts have been an implicit aspect of such systems since time immemorial (well at least since the late 80s when I was first exposed to them).
The article relates to data binding in Longhorn. When first seeing it on my blog feeds, I clicked through to check it out. The problem was that it just didn't seem worth the effort to read the details. Longhorn is not going to be released until at least 2006. Even then its going to be 2 or more years before the momentum of a new major Windows release carries through to the general software development marketplace. Hey, it was three years after .NET was released before there was any movement in the software jobs marketplace for .NET developers. Whidbey isn't released yet and there's a whole bunch of functionality that I'm itching to use on real development work. Waiting for the data binding enhancements in Whidbey is frustrating enough, let alone waiting for Longhorn related functionality.
Still... there are people with much more spare time than me and hopefully they'll supply the feedback loop to Microsoft. All in all, the new Microsoft Software development transparency approach is way better than what they used to do. I keep telling my 17 year son that lots of things in life are a feedback loop (picture a father sounding like a broken record ;). For example: controlling the shower temperature, driving a car, doing Year 12 assignments and exams. If you're not getting the results you want, then obtain some feedback information and adjust to suit! The same applies to software development companies.