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From: Evan Harris
Learning another language tends to move you away from thinking in
syntax and towards thinking about structure and the problem at hand.
I had that kind of experienced - not by learning a new language, but by downloading a "setup" program from MSDN for an ASP.Net Stock Trader application, which was patterned after an application created by IBM, and used as a Websphere benchmark. Microsoft is using their application in a marketing campaign against IBM, among other things.
That led to subsequent downloads of MS SQL Server Express & related tooling, .Net 3.0 runtimes and service packs, and some sort of Visual Studio Express tooling for working with .Net applications. It took all day to download and run through the installation routines.
Notwithstanding having setup programs, I was NOT able to get the application working, nor see the source code - not even close. There were just too many prerequisites and too much configuration for one without Microsoft certifications under his belt. To say this stuff is complex would be a gross understatement.
One note about MS SQL Server. It was interesting that the product offerred multiple authentication mechanisms. You can configure user profiles within the product itself, or authenticate against Windows user profiles. And it appeared that you might be able to authenticate against a Microsoft domain controller in conjunction with Active Directory. Such is the case with distributed systems & distributed architecture. You spend more time learning and thinking about "structure" than the business "problem" at hand.
It made me appreciate the integration of the IBM i native environment - connect to the database with an "F" spec. And whenever I use SQL, authentication is just the user profile my job is running under - the one I signed on with.
It also seems that .Net ultimately forces developers to think about "structure" in application development too, partly because the framework is vast, and based on OO design, with extensive use of inheritance. It seems that one can make a career out of becoming acquainted with the architecture.
Nathan.
midrange.com
