As developers and companies that have built their systems using Microsoft technologies. We are raising the bar of enterprise software development by using only frameworks, technologies, and operating systems built by Microsoft. Through our experience, we have come to value:
Waiting to adopt a development paradigms until Microsoft evangelizes it, over evangelism of said paradigm in other development communities
Favoring Microsoft built SDLC tools, over those built by other companies/individuals
Open source frameworks developed by Microsoft, over open source frameworks developed elsewhere
Open source frameworks built independently by current or former Microsoft employees, over open source frameworks developed by individuals from other companies
Taking a conservative view towards non-Microsoft open source as high risk, over a more progressive view of open source
Frameworks officially supported by Microsoft (approved for technical support via the MSDN Licence’s technical support incidents), over frameworks supported by other communities/individuals
Tools that fully and seamlessly integrate with Visual Studio, over tools that are IDE independent
Languages developed by Microsoft, over languages developed elsewhere
Languages that fully and seamlessly integrate with Visual Studio, over languages that require another IDE
A uniform development environment using Microsoft prescribed languages, operating systems and frameworks, over an environment where multiple languages, operating systems and frameworks are used
Experience with frameworks built by Microsoft, over experience with other frameworks
Microsoft certifications, over public code
Adoption of frameworks released by Microsoft, over evaluating alternatives that provide equivalent functionality
Training approved by Microsoft (those supported by Microsoft’s Software Assurance Program), over training provided by independent vendors
Adoption of frameworks that have “out of the box” Visual Studio project templates/plug-ins, over project templates/plug-ins that have to be independently downloaded
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more
Microsoft in this context means:
Not even three years ago (2010), I would have signed this manifesto. Reflect on this and ask yourself if you (or the company you work for) would sign this, and whether you’d consider it as career limiting…I think it is…
This is not meant to paint Microsoft in dark colors. This is about how you the developer evaluates and adopts new frameworks, languages and paradigms. (thank you Marcus for your comments)