Whidn't-It-Bey Nice To Have Them Today?

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends... I felt the need to start my editorial off with a little Progressive Rock reference after learning at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) last week that Don Box and Jeff Richter are both (like me) fans of the genre. I was so busy attending to .NETDJ duties at the conference, that I learned very little else - other than that:

Whidbey is going to be the most stunning .NET release yet.
Yukon is going to be the most incredible database in history.
Longhorn is going to be the most amazing operating system ever.

I managed to glean these facts from the keynotes I was able to attend in the mornings, the 50+ SYS-CON Radio interviews that I conducted and the wild parties that I attended in the evenings. One example of these parties was the outstanding Band on the Runtime performance on the roof of the Standard Hotel. The exact details of what transpired are under NDA, but I can tell you that the jam band formed by Carl Franklin (drums), David Chappell (keyboards), Ted Pattison (vocals and guitar), Francesco Balena (saxophone), George Bullock (guitar), and Don Box (bass) is truly a musical force with which to be reckoned - even if their set was completely lacking any discernable influence from Yes, Genesis, or even Marillion.

Why the Penguin Can't Cut It
At the end of last month's editorial I promised to tell you why Linux is - besides being a horrible desktop computing environment - a horrendous disaster for anyone interested in server-based computing. The way I see it, there are two main complaints against Linux as a platform for mission-critical computing: one, that it is completely derivative of aged, "borrowed" technologies; and the other that Linux lacks a centralized nexus of responsibility.

In classifying Linux as derivative, I am thinking about the operating system itself and the large portions of it that have been lifted - according to SCO - directly from previous incarnations of Unix. Besides the legal ramifications, I have to say that I don't want to work on an operating system with roots over 30 years old - from a time when an 8MHz processor was considered speedy, networking was almost non-existent, and any kind of security was thought unnecessary.

People forget that NT stands for "New Technology." It was one of the few operating systems to be written from scratch specifically for the era of modern computing in which we now live. I would far rather use a platform built on such a foundation.

When I talk about the absent nexus of responsibility, I mean that if my Linux server crashes and my business stops, from whom can I demand a speedy solution? With Windows the answer is obvious; with Linux it is some nebulous collection of open source enthusiasts who maintain the operating system on a part-time basis. Perhaps this is why, even with a far smaller share of the computing market than Windows, Linux still manages to generate more security bulletins, month after month.

Out with the Old, in with the New!
This is, of course, our final issue of 2003. For 2004, we are looking at a balance of content between bleeding-edge technologies such as Whidbey, Yukon, and Longhorn, and currently available platforms such as Office 2003, ASP.NET, and WinForms. Is there something special that you would like to see .NETDJ focus on? E-mail me at derek@sys-con.com.

Author Bio
Derek Ferguson is editor-in-chief of .NET Developer's Journal and author of the book Mobile .NET (Apress). He is also chief technology evangelist for Expand Beyond Corporation (www.xb.com), a worldwide leader in mobile software for enterprise management. derek@sys-con.com