December 11, 2005

My Advice To Dare Would Be...

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - XSLT 2.0 and Microsoft

[UPDATE: Dare has taken a moment to clarify his point in making the post in the first place. Please see his comments below.]

My advice to Oleg, if you want to see XSLT 2.0 in the .NET Framework then gather some like minded souls and build it yourself. Efforts like the MVP.XML library for the .NET Framework shows that there are a bunch of talented developers building cool enhancements to the basic XML story Microsoft provides in the .NET Framework.

Hey Dare, we're way ahead of you buddy. But thanks for the advice...

So the rest of you can understand why the effort is being put forth to enourage MS to directly support XSLT 2.0 as opposed to simply accept the fact that there are other alternatives is that a MS supported XSLT 2.0 product ensures that the support exists out of the box, and MS is taken the brunt of the support effort. As much time as we are person ally willing to put into these projects, there's no way on God's Green Earth we can personally attempt to support 10 million+ developers. Direct MS support also showcases the fact that MS is commited to a technology and encourages developers to use it. That's not to say that I personally fear (can't speak for Oleg, but I would tend to think he at least generally agrees) that if MS doesn't provide support that XSLT 2.0 will die a miserable death. It will live on, I can make that a personal guarantee. But that doesn't mean that EVERY effort shouldn't be made to encourage MS to provide direct support. As such, the encouragement will continue.

Oh yeah, the advice to Dare...

Pay attention.

We're not idiots, we know how to play this game. We're not resting on our laurels and sitting around for MS to take action. If you're not going to both recognize and support our efforts, then get out of the way. Don't worry, we can handle it from here.