First it giveth...

Watching the Microsoft SilverLight 4 Overview session from this year's PDC made me realize that Microsoft's vision of progress involves an accelerated traipse leading to technological dead ends and a whole lot of compromise.

How is it that we, as developers, have to come to water at the mouth in anticipation of a rich text editor? Why is that we applaud a proper security model as a feature for version 4 of a framework? Didn't we have these things? Now we get them back again? It seems like Microsoft's approach to progress is to toss out a series of incomplete products, tout them as the next best thing, and then crowd source the QA and design processes.

I would rather see 3 complete products than 12 incomplete products. If Microsoft believed in them and did not kill them off, thereby protecting my investment in their technology, that would help too.

P.S. I work with Microsoft Technology for a living and often find it to be a pleasant experience. This post doesn't represent an anti-Microsoft stance, but rather just the view from one average Joe programmer. Not Mort, but also not a Rockstar. Average.