Recipe for Adoption

BackDraft

Recipefor Adoption

By JonathanGoodyear

Anamazing thing happened when Microsoft made the .NET Framework available forbeta testing. Since that day over a year and a half ago, more than two millionpeople have downloaded the .NET Framework, which makes it the most widelydistributed beta software since Netscape. Not even the venerable Java platformexpanded its reach so rapidly. This January, Microsoft officially released thefirst version of the .NET Framework, including ASP.NET. In February, VisualStudio .NET was released as well. Some of us who had been using it for a whilealready became hooked on it. We wanted to make the switch to nothing but .NETafter 15 minutes. How I wish it were that simple.

Amid theexcitement, I almost forgot that we re at the beginning of a new product s lifecycle again. Regardless of the pre-release hype, adoption of ASP.NET will notbe an overnight process. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. Ittakes many pieces, carefully placed together, for a technology to succeed. Manyof them take time and simply cannot be rushed.

Considerthe architecture end of the spectrum. Even though ASP.NET borrows its name fromASP classic, the two technologies are radically different. Thus, thearchitectural design of the Web sites constructed with ASP.NET likely will notresemble the design of ASP classic Web sites. Whenever someone releases a newtechnology, developers begin the discovery process of learning what they can dowith the technology. It takes months (if not years) before developers come to aconsensus as to what they should do with the technology. Remember when Sessionvariables and mixing ASP and HTML code blocks were considered best practices?It took a long time before Web-farm scalability limitations and the processcontention of context switching caused these two techniques to be banished tothe annals of ASP history. ASP.NET is compiled and performs much faster thanASP classic did, but dozens of architecture questions have yet to be answered.For instance, when should user controls be used? How about Web Services? Issub-classing Page objects to create templates a good idea? Which cachingscheme works the best? Are the ASP.NET security features practical? The listgoes on and on. Rest assured that asp.netPRO magazine will be there tohelp you to answer these questions.

Anotherpiece of the ASP.NET-adoption puzzle is the third-party component market. Onefactor that makes a technology appealing is the level of support it receivesfrom third-party component vendors. After all, third-party components allowprojects to be built in less time, thus shortening the time it takes to get aproject to market. ASP classic had rich third-party component support becauseit was rooted in the COM world. ASP.NET is based on an entirely new platform inthe .NET Framework. Several component vendors, such as Desaware and ComponentOne, have committed to porting their products to the .NET Framework, but almostall of them are still in beta testing. As more and more component vendorsrelease .NET versions of their products, the IT industry will embrace ASP.NETmore and more. One factor that could mitigate the need for extensivethird-party component support is the vast array of new out-of-the-boxfunctionality that comes with the .NET Framework. For instance, you no longerneed a third-party component to upload files to a Web server or to createdynamic Web charts and other graphics. Component vendors will need to re-thinktheir product lines and become more innovative to stay competitive.

Conservativecorporate culture may stifle ASP.NET opportunities in the short run. Somecompanies like to be at the forefront of new technologies, but most prefer totake a wait-and-see stance. Usually, an observation period of six months to oneyear (including the release of at least one service pack) is necessary to get acompany to adopt a new technology (especially from Microsoft, which has had itsshare of stability and security troubles). As companies get larger and larger,leaps of faith become the exception more than the rule. Luckily, Microsoft isengaging in a full-court press to encourage a faster adoption cycle for many ofits key customers. This should speed up the adoption process for the rest ofthe industry.

ASPclassic existed for a long time before its popularity exploded. The primaryvehicle that enabled this rapid growth was when Web-hosting providers beganmaking ASP hosting affordable to the masses. At one point, ASP support was anexpensive option offered by only a few hosting providers. These days, you canhost an ASP Web site at a well-respected hosting provider for less than $20 permonth. Obviously, larger Web sites are operated by companies with their ownhardware and networking infrastructures. But the popularity of the ASPWeb-development platform among smaller Web sites led to the creation of a poolof talent larger companies could leverage. If hosting providers make ASP.NEThosting affordable, then ASP.NET will make great strides toward industry-wideuse and acceptance.

Alongthose same lines, in order for a new technology to succeed, developers need toknow how to use it. That is where books, magazines, Web sites, and conferencescome into play. This is one area in which ASP.NET already has hit criticalmass. Dozens of quality books were in print while ASP.NET was still in beta.Several magazines (including this one) have been launched to cover the .NETFramework and ASP.NET. Likewise, industry stalwarts in the ASP tutorialbusiness, such as ASPFree (http://www.aspfree.com)and 4GuysFromRolla (http://www.4guysfromrolla.com),as well as many new Web sites, have published hundreds of articles on how toaccomplish various tasks using ASP.NET. The major conference circuits haveadded ASP.NET tracks to their agendas, sensing that a lot of developers areinterested in the subject. All of these information sources add up to a greatdeal of developer awareness of ASP.NET s features and capabilities and willmake its adoption easier.

Microsofthas done a stellar job of creating a strong nucleus of support in thedevelopment community around the .NET Framework. This is especially true forASP.NET, which is the centerpiece of Microsoft s software-as-a-serviceinitiative. Only time will tell how quickly the rest of the pieces of thetechnology-adoption puzzle come together. I have seen strong growth in allareas necessary for ASP.NET to succeed. Perhaps the ingredient we most need toadd to the recipe for ASP.NET adoption is patience. Keep your eyes open,though, and stay prepared. ASP.NET is coming soon to a project near you.

Jonathan Goodyear is the president of ASPSoft, http://www.aspsoft.com, an Internetconsulting firm based in Orlando, FL. He s a Microsoft Certified SolutionDeveloper and is the author of Debugging ASP.NET (New Riders Publishing). Jonathan also is acontributing editor for Visual Studio Magazine. Reach him by e-mail at mailto:[email protected] or through his onlinemagazine, angryCoder,at http://www.angrycoder.com.

Tell us what you think! Please send any comments about thisarticle to [email protected].Please include the article title and author.