Why are serious .Net line of business app developers not embracing today LightSwitch?
Introduction
I’m asking a question over here and readers who are familiar with other content on my blog know at least my answer:
Serious .Net line of business application professionals should have been using and exploring already “yesterday” LightSwitch.
Oh no, … not for replacing “full park” their current portfolio of line of business apps with fancy LightSwitch apps. I’m simply talking about making themselves familiar with the LightSwitch concepts and making some first steps in introducing LightSwitch in their portfolio of application frameworks.
A first oversimplified answer
Sometimes, complex matters need a first oversimplified answer. Not to serve as final answer, but simply as a trigger to activate a discussion towards a more nuanced answer.
Following screenshot illustrates my oversimplified answer:
A seasoned LightSwitch developer will directly recognize the above screen. So, what’s my point?
When you do a “start new project” in visual studio 2012 and you select the project type “LightSwitch application”, yes indeed, preferably in c#, you will get the above screen as first acquaintance with LightSwitch.
It allows you to make a first (and that’s also the reason why it happens directly after the start new LightSwitch project) important decision: a line of business app needs data and data definitions. How do you want to start: design your data (=create new table) or leverage an existing database (=attach to external data source).
In order to avoid that the LightSwitch product designers would feel offended, I’ll hurry up to tell you that I simply ADORE this screen. But… adoration is a gift and beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
I’ll try to get a bit closer to my point. If the LightSwitch product designers would decide tomorrow to remove this screen, when speaking about LightSwitch adoption by IT pro’s, would this make any difference? Of course not.
A less simplified answer…
My point is that the above screen is such a great illustration of the fact that LightSwitch is a line of business application framework which takes the following concept extremely serious (at least in my interpretation) :
Simple on the outside, but rich on the inside.
This could have been a quote from the Dalai Lama. I’m following (and reading with great attention) the tweets of His Holiness on twitter, where he has more than 6 million followers and he is following himself… nobody. He simply can’t be wrong.
Personally, I like things or objects which are simple on the outside but rich on the inside. I like also people to whom the same notion applies (my loving wife for example). The reason is that in an interaction with something or someone blessed with this property, you are communicating over an “easy going” interface, and once you are in “communication mode”, you start making discoveries, preferably one by one, in a kind of “evolutionary disclosure mode”. You will never feel directly overwhelmed, because they simply come indeed one by one and they are never smashed into your face. But once you did all the discoveries, you might be overwhelmed by all the rich features, but in the end you will be the most overwhelmed by the fact that all this has been presented to you in a manner of .. simple on the outside and rich on the inside. You are getting closer to my point, aren’t you?
The principle of “Simple on the outside, but rich on the inside” has one drawback (and only one) when it comes to visibility from a more marketing oriented perspective: revealing the richness, requires participating into the process of discovery. A simple or even sophisticated “advertisement” will not solve this, unfortunately.
I will not give you here a complete inventory of the LightSwitch richness. I’m not a marketing guy neither, I’m simple…
Now you know the reason why, at least in my view, currently not enough serious .Net line of business app developers are embracing LightSwitch today. Obviously this is not the complete answer, but I believe that the metaphor is … spot on.
[...] what I mean, you should first read my previous article on LightSwitch which is in my view simple on the outside but rich on the inside. A property which I see as a great quality but which sometimes can confuse people and sometimes [...]
Can I dare to suggest: because Microsoft Marketing screwed up with this product.
LightSwitch 2011 was marketed to ‘Citizen Developers’ and, unless you looked at the people behind it and the architecture behind it, ‘Professional Developers’, were, naturally, inclined to dismiss it as a toy. It was released stand-alone out of phase with Visual Studio and lacked Dev. Cred for that reason as well. When it was finally bundled with VS2012 the damage was done IMO.
If Beth Massi wasn’t such an awesome evangelist LightSwitch could have been DOA just like Silverlight 5. Her enthusiasm should make any sceptical developer look again at the capabilities of LightSwitch 2012. If they do, the bulb might light up for them too.
Hi,
Yeah, maybe a false start… Nonetheless, I like every attempt to democratize things.
About the role of microsoft marketing, I don’t know.
Anyhow, let’s look to the future and be happy with what the tool can do already right now.
My main point is that although LS look simple at the outside, professional developers should at least take the time to decently explore the possibilities of LS and see it’s place in the software ecosystem.
Righteousness pervades your intentions Paul, however I don’t believe that ‘democratize’ is the correct characterisation in this context though. Should we ‘democratize’ the practice of brain surgery or rocket science?
Marketing people have it in their own interest to pretend any new product is ‘easy to use’ and ‘delivers robust user friendly professional results by clicking through a wizard’ etc. etc. Rewind 20 years and they were saying the same thing about Access 1.0. Some very useful departmental apps were build but in the hands on enthusiastic amateurs these soon grew into inefficient, unmaintainable sub-optimal, ugly embarrassments when bad architectural, design and technical choices based on superficial knowledge collided. The person who built the apps often quickly moved on to another company and professionals would be called in to try & practice resurrection to keep the app functioning, or it was simply dumped as unusable, depending on it’s importance to the company. These failures reflected badly on the Microsoft brand. That eventually forced Microsoft Marketing’s pseudo-technical presentations to start dissing Access DB and recommending of SQL DBS.
Now I know ‘history never repeats’ and as the song says ‘I tell myself before I go to sleep’ . . . it’s a worry that it will though and maybe nothing was learned from last time. Let’s inject some realism. If a blind man grabs an elephant by the tail he may consider that he is in control of the spindly little joy-stick sized bit in his hand. Little does he know the ride that’s in store for him.
That’s what I’m talking about: the elephant in the room
I agree, if not for Beth Massi Lightswitch would be “just another extension” to VS11.
I am replacing an 17 year old LOB app (VS6, C++, MFC, Word 97 automation, ODBC, Access 97) with Lightswitch 2012. And it feels like 100 times faster. That´s the power of Lightswitch.
You are spot on!
As an senior framework developer working on new framework I started to take LS sirusly when I got to undirstand the architecture. In my humble opinion LS is set of “best practices” solution for developing business applications in the Microsoft tools set domain. In fact i am now extending LS for my needs rather than writing hole new framework from the ground up.
Thank you for grade articles on this subject.
Take away the fact that MS abandoned SilverLight in Windows 8 (Tile View) for a second and consider what it would take to build out a LOB solution with all the goodness that LS provides and you’d be hard pressed to crank out a more stable application than that provided to us by the SL Client. If I were a business that required a bunch of internal custom solutions, I would most definately invest the 1-2 weeks skill up time it takes to come up to speed on LS. Its just that simple.
If I were building a solution that I was to market to other companies than LS is not the tool, but then what does that leave? A load of development costs and risk, at least that is MHO.
The HTML LS Client is still in its infancy but if MS continues to invest more time and energy into this, it may become a serious tool of choice.
There are however a few issues that likely wont be resolved in the SL client such as the monolithic application definition, I much prefer modularity over a single application, however due to the fact MS is not likely to advance the SL client or open up the API its highly likely we will not see the SL client advance to the level of maturity it could have. I believe this is due to internal pressures at MS to build LS into a SharePoint extension for creating widgets. Perhaps a good move for MS but leaves a really bad taste in the mouths of those who have believed that MS was going to continue to invest in the SL client.
At the end of the day what I still do not understand is what is the MS Value Proposition on LS, what I mean is, what do they stand to gain by developing a tool that make developers more agile and reduce the risk for business.
If I were in charge, I’d continue to advance the SL client at least to resolve the core issues than inject a small app license cost to give meaning to the MS Value Proposition. I’d also release the client to the community to ensure that future enhancements are managed by those who have the time and are willing to do so.
Hi John.
I think you’re misunderstanding the topic. You must have an understanding of what it is to implement development strategies for a group of business software developers. Especially if you have limited resources. For me the most valuable thing is the “backend/middle-tier” and and how well the implementation falls to Azure.
[...] Why are serious .Net line of business app developers not embracing today LightSwitch? [...]
[...] Why are serious .Net line of business app developers not embracing today LightSwitch? [...]