More thoughts on Microsoft Lightswitch

A couple weeks ago, Microsoft announced a tool called Lightswitch, and the response in the development community has been almost universally tepid.  One of these responses really caught my eye, though.  It was from Bill Vaughn, who's been the patron saint of Microsoft data access for as long as there's been Microsoft data access.  This guy knows a thing or two about what works, and he was dumping all over Lightswitch.

Construction in Gibraltar.
Image via Wikipedia

I left a comment on his post, and I thought it had been swallowed up by the great spam filter in the sky, but Bill just  resurrected it (thanks, Bill!) and responded.  It looks like the biggest fear with Lightswitch is that this tool is going to be used to create a bunch of garbage apps that "pros" have to come and clean up later.  This sentiment is echoed across many of the lukewarm comments I've seen elsewhere, too.

But even if all these bloggers are right about the quality of Lightswitch applications, I'm still not convinced that there isn't a place in Microsoft's developer tool portfolio for something like this.
Why?
  • We already have developers cranking out lousy prototypes, but with today's tools, they take longer.  In fact, they take long enough that an awful lot of developers look to platforms like Ruby-on-Rails to do prototyping, and that's not helping the MS developer tool position a whole lot.
  • If a tool like this were positioned specifically as a "non-production use" tool, you'd have at least a chance of setting proper expectations about would need to happen in order to scale apps up for production deployment.
  • There are very few shortcomings in Lightswitch that couldn't be substantially addressed via some sort of code generation.  A modern-day "upsizing wizard" could solidify a database schema, generate an Entity Framework model, even generate stored procedures if you want them.  The work I've done recently with the Code-First functionality in Entity Framework's recent CTP convinced me that the concrete constraints we're used to between DB and data access code might go away soon.  I've also seen some really great schema transformation capabilities in Visual Studio's Database Projects.  When this stuff comes together, I can absolutely envision a "pro" developer sitting down with a Lightswitch application and refactoring it into a high-quality application.

All good developers would rather see an application start out with a proper foundation and high-quality architecture.  We hate seeing messy apps, and we hate cleaning up after junior developers, or worse -- amateur developer wannabes.

But there's a business problem that we can't ignore: we're expensive - especially when we sit down to "do something right."  There is a need need for business owners and managers to produce prototype applications at a reasonable cost.  If Microsoft doesn't provide that capability, someone else will.  You may not like that, but it's a fact.

And here' s another fact:  If applications are being prototyped on someone else's application development stack, guess which stack is going to get first crack at upsizing those apps when they need to be scaled?

Lightswitch might not be the prototyping tool we'd all like to see in its current form, but don't let that distract you from the fact that Microsoft needs to be present in this part of the market.  It's important for them, and it's important for you, too.

Enhanced by Zemanta

7 Replies to “More thoughts on Microsoft Lightswitch”

  1. Microsoft is doing ISVs a real favor with this blanket approach, which may even be a strategy for all we know. All of this is another reason that tools such as Delphi and Flex continue to do well, even if they don’t get much press.

  2. The conundrum with these rapid/easy tools is that they dont go all the way and then you have an incomplete half baked mess

    I have come across one tool that really does deliver a fast way to build serious AJAX apps against SQL databases that are secure and include sophisticated reporting. I received this tool at no charge directly from http://www.alphasoftware.com and all I had to do was email marketing@alphasoftware.com and provide a sentence or two on my background.

  3. Why do professional developers automatically assume that part-time developers produce terrible apps? I am getting really sick of listening to this stuff.

    I have seen quite a few ‘professional’ apps which were also terrible.

    Quite often, the part-time developers understand the business much better than full-time developers and can produce better applications, which are more maintainable and at a fraction of the cost.

    Is it not the case that LightSwitch has the professionals scared!

    1. I can’t quite tell if you’re agreeing with me, but just to be clear – I’m not trying to promote the idea of a rift between professional developers and “part-time” developers. Lightswitch, in my opinion, isn’t really targeting the same people who have used Access in the past — it’s one step up the food chain, aiming at rapid application development.

      I think the people who use a tool like Lightswitch *will* be full-time developers, but they’ll be developers who value a tool that creates a lot of value very rapidly. If Microsoft is able to put a tool like this in the hands of these developers, and they can do it in a way that doesn’t create overly-constrained applications, I really think they might have a hit on their hands.

  4. Why do professional developers automatically assume that part-time developers produce terrible apps? I am getting really sick of listening to this stuff.

    I have seen quite a few ‘professional’ apps which were also terrible.

    Quite often, the part-time developers understand the business much better than full-time developers and can produce better applications, which are more maintainable and at a fraction of the cost.

    Is it not the case that LightSwitch has the professionals scared!

    1. I can’t quite tell if you’re agreeing with me, but just to be clear – I’m not trying to promote the idea of a rift between professional developers and “part-time” developers. Lightswitch, in my opinion, isn’t really targeting the same people who have used Access in the past — it’s one step up the food chain, aiming at rapid application development.

      I think the people who use a tool like Lightswitch *will* be full-time developers, but they’ll be developers who value a tool that creates a lot of value very rapidly. If Microsoft is able to put a tool like this in the hands of these developers, and they can do it in a way that doesn’t create overly-constrained applications, I really think they might have a hit on their hands.

  5. Pingback: Ehantelle

Comments are closed.