Too much cheese

Its deja vu-tastic round here at the moment, best cut back on the late night gorgonzola!

When C# was released it aimed right between VB and C++. VB was seen as lacking in a few areas, and C++was seen as too hard/dangerous/inefficient. C# slotted nicely in the middle.

Many VB devs made the move to C# and enjoyed the extra power and easy access the the .net framework.

Most C++ devs stayed away though, claiming it wasnt powerful enough. And lo over time all those things that made C++ hard have been added into C# so it now as complex as C++ ever was.

Imagine where we would be if, instead of creating a brand new language they had invested all the time money and effort into STL and Boost, C++ would be IT. whatever the question.

But at least they addressed the power issue in C#, and in 4.0 they have improved the Office interoperability.

And so to user interface.

‘No one modifies their Office interface so we have taken away the facility to do it’, oh hang on – that was Office 2007, in 2010 its back in – but very clumsy (could change).

Now, to me this adding back in is a big thing, because it shows a couple of vital things:

1. Their user experience ‘data’ was misleading, and this is an acknowledgement of that (they wouldn’t add (back) a feature that ‘only 2% use’ would they?
2. Microsoft can and do listen to their the community, and will make things right, even if ‘evidence’ does not back it up.

I think point 2 there is brilliant news. I just hope they can fully discredit the CIP ‘data’ and undo all the mistakes over reliance on it has led them to make.

But mainly I am pleased and re-assured they are listening – 2010 is shaping up to be an Excellers Excel.

cheers

Simon