A developers' guide on slowdown

HYDERABAD, INDIA: As per Microsoft’s understanding, the majority of developers can be classified into two segments, one, who are motivated by the technology itself and two, who focus on the impact of the final solution.

Blaine Wastell explained, “The first category of developers is those that seek to grow with a particular technology or development environment. They begin with the basics and end up learning the technology inside out. The good thing is that they cam stretch a technology to its limit and the bad thing is that other technology are alien to them.”

He continued to explain the second category of developers. “They work backwards. The final product is what matters to them. Depending on the business need and understanding of the usage of the solution, they choose the relevant technology, or have a mix and match of technologies to achieve the desired result.”

So, which of these two methods is ideal in the current economic scenario? Don Smith said, “A mix of both. In an ideal scenario, a product, software or application has to be developed by a bunch of people, certain components of the coding need deep knowledge of the relevant platform or knowledge, but for increased usability and adoption of the final solution, you do need developers who can shuttle effectively between platforms.”

On the message which Microsoft desires to pass on to developers, Don said, “It is a ground reality that at the coding level, decision making hardly happens. Decisions are taken by architects who conceptualize the solutions and break them down into relevant codes. This scenario varies of course, if it is a company that has just a handful of developers.”

Taking this argument a step forward, Blaine said, “When we talk to the developers, we urge them to prioritize their coding tasks. To the architects, we ask them to interact more with the people who understand the business need, and take feedback from the community.”

Explaining this in better detail, he said, “In the current economic environment, development cycles are shorter than ever. Software development cannot afford to take long since competition will come out with a better product or worse, technologies will become obsolete. Shorter life cycles can be achieved only if coders do not clutter things up. In other words, they should learn to prioritize their tasks and do the most mission critical ones first.”

He also stressed that architects should take feedback to ensure that the final product is up to the standards of the community that will ultimately consume it.

To arm both developers and architects in performing efficiently, the new upcoming version of Silverlight will feature two capabilities, Validation and Navigation, which can go a long way in ensuring smooth development and dissemination of code. Navigation in particular helps the developer to glide smoothly between pages back and forth, saving time and avoiding rate of errors.