What
is the Future of ASP.NET?
Not
good. Period!
Alright,
short term future of ASP.NET is bright. But for the long term, it does not
look bright at all.
Do
you remember Silverlight? A few years ago, Microsoft marketing pushed it so
hard, developers thought Silverlight will be the next Flash. Major Websites such
as Netflix was developed using Silverlight and NBC telecasted live Olympics
using Silverlight.
Hell, I went on and even wrote almost a complete book on
Silverlight. Where is Silverlight today?
Silverlight is dead. Period!
The
Silverlight team will never admit it and has recently announced Silverlight 5
but Silverlight is already dying a slow death. Or should I say, dead already.
Whatever websites were build, they are still running. I still see some clients
asking to build new projects in Silverlight but these are clients that have no
idea where Silverlight is today.
Silverlight
is dead. Period.
And
the killer is HTML 5 and JavaScript. Have you seen Microsoft's Silverlight.net
website? It is dying too.
HTML 5 Killed Silverlight and Flash.
While
Silverlight is out of the way, the next question is what is the future of
ASP.NET?
Alright,
let's think about it. Let's analyze it for a second. Being a mathematics
background, I like to analyze problems based on the facts and algorithms before
stating the outcome.
Let's
ask ourselves this question: Why do we need ASP.NET?
Answer:
Of course to build Web sites. Exactly!
OK,
what has been the hottest web development technology in year 2012? The answer is, HTML 5,
JavaScript and JQuery.
And what do we do with HTML 5 and JavaScript?
The answer is, we build Websites.
So, why would I need ASP.NET if I can build websites using HTML 5,
JavaScript and JQuery.
Hmmm!
Well,
I can counter attack and say, can we build enterprise applications using HTML 5
and JavaScript? The answer was “No” until yesterday. But today, the answer may
be “Yes”.
Recently,
Microsoft announced TypeScript, a new superset or
JavaScript that will let developers build complex and large applications purely
based on JavaScript. Not only that, TypeScript developers can use Visual Studio
2012 as their development tool.
Still
not satisfied? Well, I am not finished yet.
Earlier
this year, Microsoft announced Metro Style apps (now called Windows Store apps or Windows 8 apps) for
Windows Store. Guess what? There was no mention of ASP.NET. However, there was a big announcement of HTML 5 and JavaScript.
There are two ways to build Windows Store apps. First, using XAML and C#
and second using HTML 5 and JavaScript.
Now
let's assume that I am a Windows developer. I am using HTML 5 and JavaScript to build my
Windows Store apps that means I have HTML 5 and JavaScript skillset.
Now,
let's say, I have to build a new Website. I have two choices. First, I can learn ASP.NET
or I can use my existing skills HTML 5 and JavaScript. Who really wants to learn
another scripting language? Not me.
So,
back to our question, what is the future of ASP.NET?
Based
on the above analysis and statements, I see myself not learning and using
ASP.NET.
ASP.NET will be used
by non HTML web developers.
But there
will always be developers who are non-pure web developers and are not
comfortable with scripting and HTML who will be using ASP.NET to develop their
Websites.
Microsoft is now focusing on ASP.NET MVC and the Web API. I can see the Web API being used for a while no matter where ASP.NET is going today. As a matter of fact, we are using Web API for couple of our projects that are nothing but pure iPhone and Android apps.
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