Somasegar's WebLog : .NET Framework 3.0.
This will stir up lots of conversations about how marketing got a hold of something and has re-branded it to something developers have been working with for some time and causing all sorts of confusion. Sure, it’s a real pain in the a@^ to have to change our nomenclature, code, articles, etc., but if MSFT can have a unified brand that encompasses many parts it helps out packaging, updates, marketing, and in the long run developers.
Does this mean that the core CLR, at 2.0 for now, with 3.0 just down the road, will become more stagnant? Most definitely. If you think of what it takes a company that’s built it’s product based upon another framework the impact of change if that base changes? So, as MSFT itself becomes a consumer of the core CLR as that foundation they too suffer from platform change issues. With every change to the core CLR everything else built on that stack will need full testing and packaging to keep up and stay current. Also think of all the additional product teams that will be involved in making a decision on legacy interfaces and generally how the CLR works – the more opinions will surely slow it down.
We saw this with the Java environment too. While the core of Java remained the same, as they added things to the top of the foundation they whole stacked got Major build number updates. Java 2, etc. And have we seen major improvements in Java over the 10+ years of it’s existence? I don’t think so. Microsoft does have the upper hand on the fact that they control the whole stack (for the most part) and can push it forward faster, but, if you look at all the product teams that have been built up around the CLR and all the other teams that have shifted to the CLR the total number closes in on what the Java Vendors probably have (had) at the peak of Java’s growth.
The part I don’t agree with is the name – .NET 3.0. I’d rather see this as an incremental update given the core CLR is still 2.0. So, something like .NET 2.1 or .NET 2.5 would be better. It’s also interesting to see that WinFX was seen as the part of the overall Windows Platform instead of what has been an add-on to the environment with a distinct SDK & Runtime – which .NET today is. During the beta period more & more dev tools have migrated over to the SDK leaving nothing except a WinFX runtime and Visual Studio Extensions that were distinct downloads for the developers. With vista, the Runtime is part of the core OS and with the post mentioned to be placed in the \Frameworks\V3.0.x sub directory.