I think .NET and C# are moving too fast and focussing on the wrong things. Lets talk about it.

0:00 The debate about .NET and C# moving too fast
1:26 .NET's big problem
2:06 OMG WOW look at these AMAZING new C# features everyone asked for!
3:39 What the .NET team could be doing instead
6:15 Are the .NET LTS timelines longer than, er, .node.js?
8:50 How I'd fix it



#dotnet #csharp #coding

YouTube

The current rapid release cycle of .NET and C# is causing exhaustion among developers, who struggle to keep up with frequent changes. This post discusses issues with the release schedule, lack of built-in administrative tools, and limited long-term support, comparing the framework’s approach to others like Django and Node.js. Emphasizing that extending support periods and addressing these gaps could help in better adoption of .NET and C#.

.NET and C# are in trouble. Here is what I'd do.

Another 10 minute clickbait video. The beauty of .NET is that you don’t need to be on the bleeding edge all the time. Unlike like Node.js, something you write 6 years ago is probably going to build and run just fine today.

Updating to a new .NET version is a task that takes less than a day, usually only a couple of hours max. The APIs are so stable that it’s almost never necessary to change any code and the update usually comes with some nice performance improvements. At least that’s my experience for the past few years.
The new language features, syntax improvements etc. are very nice to have too but really are not a required part of upgrading, just switch when you feel like it.

Anecdotally stating there is an adoption problem is not insightful. If this is a real problem, let’s see some numbers.
I don’t think one major version per year is unreasonable. Especially when they are consistently doing the releases in the fall. I stick to LTS releases - even number releases - and that allows me to not worry about new features until every other year. It’s not that bad.

I definitely think that LTS (Long Term Support) for modern dotnet should be longer than 3 years, which is not particularly long term, especially for the “enterprise”, Microsoft’s primary customers. LTS should be more like 5, maybe 6 or 7 years. Short Term Support should be 3 years. As mentioned in the video, .NET Framework 4.8 was released over 5 years ago and will still be supported for many years to come. Similar support should be provided to dotnet “core” framework code.

It is?
I don’t see any problem simply by ignoring 60% of new stuff