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Discussion on: My response to 'Software Should Be Easier To Build, Not Harder - My Dream For The Future Of Development'

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Kasey Speakman

Just scanning back through posts I missed, and I like your response to the article. I wrote (and am still shackled with) many apps in ASP.NET WebForms. Those kinds of applications were the bread and butter of consultants, because they are really fast to get going. But they are a nightmare to maintain as time goes on. You have to learn a litany of intimate details of these frameworks to go beyond the simple. The framework knowledge dependency (i.e. Page Life Cycle, ViewState, rendering details of controls for styling purposes) becomes ever-increasing technical debt that has to be paid on every new feature. You might buy 3rd party tools in attempt to shield yourself from this. But this ends up being only a stalling tactic, and knowledge dependency simply shifts to those tools. This is why you see dev jobs that have a checklist of specific frameworks/products you must know to even bother to apply. Consultants often do not see this downside, because the app has long been handed off by then. And the really sad bit is that the deep framework knowledge required to keep these apps alive is not portable. It is too localized to be of use anywhere else. I think this is the essence of what the author is really lamenting since these are in decline. But I say good riddance!