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Colin Ramsay has a post titled Abandon ALT.NET which I want to respond to. Here is the first interesting quote:
Just as I find it pointless that you’d go to a conference to discuss the stuff that everyone there already knows. DDD, BDD, MVC - these aren’t things that will be unknown to people attending the ALT.NET conference.
ALT.NETter A: so… heard of that new BDD business?
ALT.NETter B: Yep.
ALT.NETter A: Oh, well there’s this great new idea called DDD!
ALT.NETter B: Yeah, right into that too.
ALT.NETter A: Oh.And so on. But wouldn’t that conversation have been a whole lot more interesting if the second developer hadn’t heard of those ideas?
I am eating myself up because I wasn't able to go. Because those are the kind of discussions that I would really like to have. Not to be in a comforting echo chamber where all my ideas are confirmed, but because then I can continue the discussion forward, and say:
ALT.NETer B: So, we are using DDD in this scenario, and we have run into conflicts between...
ALT.NETer A: Hm, I think that I have an idea, do you have a laptop so we can discuss this over code?
When you are on a level plain field, then you can start advancing. That is important, and a reason enough for the conference as it is. But while that compromise a significant percentage of the people that were in the conference, it is by no mean all of them. And that certainly wasn't the main topic of discussion.
And in order to address that imbalance, the ALT.NET mob organise an enormous desert circle-jerk, and I call bullshit. If they really wanted to change things then they should be writing about their techniques in detail, coming up with introductory guides to DDD, TDD, mocking, creating screencasts, or giving talks at mainstream conferences, or producing tools to make the level of entry to these technologies lower than it is.
Um, I thought we were doing that?
From Jeremy Miller's WinForm Design Patterns to your own screen casts to Scott Bellware talking in DevTeach about BDD to building efficient tools. I don't think that this is a fair statement to say, frankly.
Comments
Nitpick:
RamsAy, not RamsEy.
sorry about that, fixed.
"Scott Bellware talking in DevTeach about BDD to building efficient tools. I don't think that this is a fair statement to say, frankly."
The inventor of BDD, Dan North, is a java / ruby developer (Sorry, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong ;)) so discussing BDD is discussing BDD, not discussing .NET related stuff. If Alt.NET is about an extreme large amount of different things, stuff which appears to be started elsewhere for example, then I am confused, because where does it end?
Is Alt.NET suddenly about software engineering principles? So universities who have a pure software engineering curriculum are those also Alt.NET ? ;)
The message is unclear. They should get a website up, define a clear mission statement, write tools, link from their central website to elements the reader can use to practise Alt.NET and build a community. If it's all fragmented everywhere, it's not going to take off in the mainstream. And the irony is: if you want to stay a niche, why create a movement in the first place? :)
@ Frans
A part of it was about principles and values and software engineering techniques were discussed also. It was EVERYTHING. The topics covered every square inch of our industries old, current, and new technologies, methodologies, principles, values, etc.
This was not just a .NET conference. Once again a fixation on the chosen label. It was a "what is EVERYONE in our industry doing?" "What are they doing great?" There was a Java session while Scott Guthrie was showing the MVC stuff. (and maybe more than I know, I went to the .NET stuff) There were a few Ruby sessions also. (Again, I can't attest to details as I was not present)
Who says we wanted to be a niche. Part of this weekend was deciding what we wanted. There was even a session about how to bring "Alt.NET" (place chosen label here) to the masses. I did not attend that one, so I can't attest to it's effective/in-effectiveness.
Frans, do me a favor. Calm down for a few days please. (I'm not saying don't post, just understand you may not get quick responses)
Some of the people who would probably do a better job explaining what "Alt.NET" was and is are still traveling home. They do need rest.
I and I believe most of the attendees DO NOT want this rift and completely AGREE with you.
Please keep this going. We need to make sure we don't alienate ourselves. (definitely not more than some of the people in the blogosphere think the attendees already have)
Frans,
"They should get a website up, define a clear mission statement, write tools, link from their central website to elements the reader can use to practise Alt.NET and build a community."
That is going to happen. One of the frequent topics was how to bring a greater awareness of software engineering into the larger .Net community. There's worlds of good content archived out there on the blogs. We will be using the altnetconf.com url to create that website of resources. Including a link to a certain cranky blogger explaining in great detail why there is no technical advantages anymore for using stored procedures.
"The inventor of BDD, Dan North, is a java / ruby developer"
Yes, and let's think about that one for a second. There's a lot of innovation happening outside of the strictly .Net community, and a lot of it's useful. From Laribee's original post, ALT.NET is about taking plenty of inspiration from Ruby/Java/Python.
"Is Alt.NET suddenly about software engineering principles?"
I wouldn't say "suddenly." I'd that the attendees at the conference were nearly obsessed with solid software engineering principles. Again, to the consternation with the name, you know full well that the .Net community as a whole is lacking in solid software engineering principles. This wasn't just about whatever the most far out techniques from Agile or Ruby. We spent a great deal of time just talking about raising the level of exposure to simple OOP fundamentals and basic configuration management.
It's interesting to see the amount of negativity surrounding this alt.net conference. At this point I'm questioning the motives of those trying to shoot it down?
What I'm seeing personally is the aspect of innovation that is coming out of the alt.net conference. Those sharing experiences of different approaches to solving common software problems by utilizing tools and api's written by fellow .net developers in our community.
Again though, why would anyone be so gung-ho on trying to destroy that innovation? I think it's quite sad honestly.
Out of the mainstream box thinking is important for any developer's career.
One of the things that I noticed talking to people at altnetconf was that there wasn't agreement on much of anything--with three exceptions: 1) that ScottGu rocked as a presenter and presented a what looks like a great mvc framework for asp.net that's heavily influenced by Django and Rails/Merb; 2) the collective "holy shit, I can't believe I'm in the same room with Martin Fowler" and 3) "omg, I've been reading your blog for years...."
Otherwise, there was some pretty big disagreements over things like BDD, particularly regarding actual implementation details. DDD was much less controversial and I'd expect Evan's DD book to see some pretty heavy sales over the next couple days.
I'm still trying to get my head around just what alt.net is and so far it seems way too varied to even describe. For those that weren't there, I can also say that there was nothing even closely resembling a divisive atnosphere or vibe, in fact it was more of a Microsoft love-fest than I expected (not sure what would have happened if ScottGu hadn't demo'd the new mvc framework). To me it ended up being way more of an agile.net conference than alt.net.
Jeremy, thanks for clearing up a bunch of things.
"I'd that the attendees at the conference were nearly obsessed with solid software engineering principles. Again, to the consternation with the name, you know full well that the .Net community as a whole is lacking in solid software engineering principles."
I think in general a lot of software developers lack in solid software engineering principles, it's not something related to .NET, after all, .NET is just a tool: how solid software should be written doesn't change when you swap platform.
But then it gives a problem, how to connect it to the platform readers are using, as a lot of people out there see the platform they're using as the world they live in instead of just a tool to get things done. I think, but that's a guess, that the way that connection is made or has been made for Alt.NET is a bit vague: on one hand it's all about the software engineering and tools are just that, tools, and on the other hand its about the tools (which I find rather irrelevant as tools come and go, but computer science is more lasting than tools).
How you write it in the reply it sounds a lot like the Software Architecture Workshop Jimmy Nilsson and others organize each year (there's also an equivalent in the USA)
Jason: if I'm not mistaken, the Alt.net moniker is already out in the open for several months...
ALT.NET could definitely have been a backslapping fest where we all (I was there) congratulated each other on our vision and technical prowess.
But the truth could not be further from this. Instead the 'continued discussion' scenario that Ayende hoped for actually happened. And it was amazing. There's a huge gap between understanding a concept and being able to apply it in even one scenario. And that's what we were able to discuss here because there was considerable expertize and experience present in every session. I don't want to speak for other people but discussion of that quality made me better...much better.
There's a huge (infinite) amount of work to be done here. And there's definitely an elitist element at the moment - we need to affect the wider community. But it was a great start.
So in short:
More focussed on: Knowledge / wisdom (not the same, but for the sake of the argument) driven thinking
vs.
Tool driven thinking.
?
The former is indeed necessary within .NET (but I also think in other areas). People go to conferences like teched and are taught that all they need is to build a tower from the bricks available from the MS box. The 'why' in the whole exercise is completely gone and, and that's the worst part, not a lot of those people seems to care that much about the missing 'why are we doing all this' part...
@Jason: The Ruby sessions were awesome! Brilliant! So much better than wherever you were! ;)
@Paul: I had experiences 1 and 3, and had experience 2 previously. I'd add a 4th experience of growing mutual respect for those that were there.
@Frans: I do think the "software developers lack in solid software engineering principles" is related to .NET. At one point Scott Hanselman was making a point about DSLs and made the (apparent) joke that .NET folks don't do it because lex and yacc are hard and .NET developers never graduated from college. There was a mixed reaction in the room; some laughed, some were offended, and some nodded in agreement. Like it or not, raising the quality of .NET developers is alot of what ALT.NET is about.
@Frans: Yes, much more focus on wisdom and experience than tools. You just described one of the tenets of the Agile Manifesto:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
http://agilemanifesto.org/
I take offense to that...as an Austinite. Austin is hundreds of miles from the nearest desert. I guess Colin wasn't there. May I politely suggest that it's better not to make a harsh sweeping assessments lacking any firsthand knowledge?
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