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How do you organize .NET?

Shaykat and I have been having a discussion about how we organize information that we present to customers. Specifically, we're trying to figure out how to present “What's new/what's changed” information. There are two options we've been considering.

The first option considers the language attribute to be the high-order bit. It would look something like:

What's new in C#
* C# Language
* C# IDE
* Debugger
* XML
* Data
* ASP.NET
* Windows Forms
* Smart Client
* CLR
* BCL

What's new in VB
* VB Language
* VB IDE
* Debugger
* XML
* Data
* ASP.NET
* Windows Forms
* Smart Client
* CLR
* BCL

The second option is to consider language one of the organizational attributes, but not the only attribute. It would look something like:

What's new in C#
* C# Language
* C# IDE

What's new in VB
* VB Language
* VB IDE

Application Types
* What's new in ASP.NET
* What's new in Windows Forms
* What's new in Smart Client applications

Technologies
* What's new in the CLR
* What's new in the BCL
* What's new in Data
* What's new in XML

Which one of these organizations do you prefer? Please add a comment with “Language” if you prefer the first one, and “Attribute” if you prefer the second one. Or, if you think there's another organization that's better, feel free to explain.

Thanks

Eric

Published Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:42 AM by ericgu

Comments

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:47 AM by Josh Christie

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute gets my vote. It makes the most sense to be language-neutral whenever possible.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:48 AM by Scott Allen

# re: How do you organize .NET?

+1 for Attributes.

Otherwise, I feel obligated to read through "the other language's list" to see if there was something I missed.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:50 AM by vinnie tripodi

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute+=1

what Josh and Scott said
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:54 AM by Craig Gemmill

# re: How do you organize .NET?

I think Microsoft does a good job doing just that on their roadmap, and it might give you some ideas: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/roadmap.aspx#whidbey

It could use a better layout though.. right now, it feels like a whitepaper.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:55 AM by Christian Nagel

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attributes++
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:01 PM by Michael Potter

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute, without reservation.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:14 PM by peter wieland

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:17 PM by Aaron

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Definitely attribute. With .NET, so many things aren't language-specific that it would duplicate a lot of work if you use the first method.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:19 PM by RichB

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute

This is topical for me. Today I was searching mscom for "what's new in vs.net 2003" - because I seem to remember there was a new feature in 2003 which made WinXP manifests/themeing easier. The mscom website is so awkward that I never found the answer.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:34 PM by Chance Gillespie

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute, most definately. I agree with Scott and Josh as well. There should be a seperation of the language(s) and the platform.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:42 PM by TRivers

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:52 PM by Ricky Dhatt

# Attribute

Attribute +1

Agreed with Scott Allen; I switch between VB.NET/C# often, I wouldn't want go back and skim everything for the other lang.

Also Attribute is organized into more managable chunks; rather than two long chunks.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:57 PM by Michael Giagnocavo

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:00 PM by Paul Wilson

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:03 PM by Sherrod

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute (it matches my mental model)
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:16 PM by schweitn@earthlink.net (Nicholas Schweitzer)

# RE: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute. It just makes sense that common things to the CLR should be in a so named item.. not duplicated because it affects by C# and VB.NET for example.

Besides... it should re-enforce the idea that most things .NET are language agnostic.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:37 PM by Evil Bert

# re: How do you organize .NET?

language - because nobody said it yet and because c# sucks?
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:40 PM by Jeff Key

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute. People, especially journalists, often attatch CLR features onto one particular language. This is bad for Microsoft, as the "it's the framework, not the language, stupid" message gets lost.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:10 PM by Mattias Sjögren

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:25 PM by Sean Terry

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 2:30 PM by Mike Gunderloy

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute, absolutely. Language is just a huge pain in the butt for those of us who switch between languages frequently (even if we don't seem to be on the target market for either team).
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:06 PM by Roy Green

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:08 PM by Peter Drier

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attributes.. and as an added bonus, RSS feeds at each level in the tree, recursively collecting everything below them. So you can subscribe to any particular bits you're interested in.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:13 PM by Adrian Florea

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 6:42 PM by Primordial Ooze

# How to organize .NET

Eric Gunnerson asks How do your organize .NET. He offers two suggestions and each suggestion is applicable to different groups. Picking one over the other is probably going to be a problem for someone. I guess I’d suggest the documentation be documented in such a way that each new item is assigned categories or attributes so customers can view the information in a way that’s appripriate for them. In this way, it should be simple to show a look at what’s changed in C# by finding all new items with the C# attribute. The results can then be categorized by...
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:53 PM by Jeffrey Peel

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute makes sense to me.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:59 PM by bliz

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:54 PM by Cory Smith

# re: How do you organize .NET?

As if you need another vote...

Do
attributes += 1
Loop
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 5:00 PM by Mark Pearce

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 6:23 PM by Mary McRae

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Why do I have to pick? I should be able to navigate the information in any number of ways. While one method may seem intuitive to one group, another group will be completely lost trying to find the information they need. We have the technology! Take advantage of XML - create some metadata, and let me view the tree via whichever classification method I prefer at the time - which is always subject to change.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 6:25 PM by secretGeek

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Another way.... (similar to attribute but with one crucial improvement)

What's new in VB.net
* VB.net Language
* VB.net IDE

What's new in C#
* C# Language
* C# IDE


Application Types
* What's new in ASP.NET
* What's new in Windows Forms
* What's new in Smart Client applications

Technologies
* What's new in the CLR
* What's new in the BCL
* What's new in Data
* What's new in XML


cheers
leon
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 7:22 PM by Nick Codignotto

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Mary - I could not agree more.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 7:48 PM by Kent Tegels

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Good grief, I can't believe that Attribute is winning in such a landslide! That said, +1 Attribute.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 8:00 PM by Alisher

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:24 PM by Enjoy Every Sandwich

# Take Outs: The Digital Doggy Bag of Blog Bits for 25 February 2004

In the bag tonight: Less bitch'n and whin'n. Counts:Blogging: 8; Dev: 22; Otherwise: 8; SQL: 5; WILY: 8. Line of the night:
Thursday, February 26, 2004 1:25 AM by Gavin Greig

# re: How do you organize .NET?

I was immediately drawn to the language list, but logically prefer the attributes once I think about it.

However, since you want people to be immediately drawn to the selected solution, I think there's something that's not right about the organisation of the attributes list either, which reduces its accessibility.

For me, I think that it might be a combination of the slightly more complex structure and the order of presentation. With a more structured list of this sort, I expect to find the more generic information first, gradually drawing me down towards the greatest specialisation at the bottom of the list - so I would suggest:

Technologies
Application Types
What's new in C#
What's new in VB

...rather than starting with the language specialisation.
Thursday, February 26, 2004 3:18 AM by Iain

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute - stuff that is not specifically exploring language features should not be in the language's section.
Thursday, February 26, 2004 3:19 AM by Iain

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute - stuff that is not specifically exploring language features should not be in the language's section.
Thursday, February 26, 2004 3:57 AM by torsten.rendelmann@gmx.net (TorstenR)

# RE: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Thursday, February 26, 2004 4:29 AM by Claudio

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute++
Thursday, February 26, 2004 5:40 AM by Miguel Mendoza

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Thursday, February 26, 2004 9:04 AM by Frank Hileman

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute
Thursday, February 26, 2004 2:54 PM by David McNamee

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute. It's all about the CLR and BCL.
Friday, February 27, 2004 4:18 AM by mnrp

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attributes. Watch consistency though. Should be:

What's new in C#
* C# Language
* C# IDE

What's new in VB
* VB Language
* VB IDE

What's new in Application Types
* ASP.NET
* Windows Forms
* Smart Clients
* Mobile [can you add this?]

What's new in Technologies
* CLR
* BCL
* Data
* XML

Wednesday, March 03, 2004 10:06 PM by Keith Hill

# re: How do you organize .NET?

+1 for Attribute. I use C# primarily but it is nice to be able to differentiate new features that are unique to only C# vs those available to other .NET languages.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004 2:25 AM by Dominic Cooney

# re: How do you organize .NET?

Attribute.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009 3:35 PM by Eric Gunnerson s C Compendium How do you organize NET | Green Tea Fat Burner

# Eric Gunnerson s C Compendium How do you organize NET | Green Tea Fat Burner

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Tuesday, June 09, 2009 11:40 PM by Eric Gunnerson s C Compendium How do you organize NET | Quick Diets

# Eric Gunnerson s C Compendium How do you organize NET | Quick Diets

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