Life for A Microsoft developer 10 years ago was full of challenges, aspirations, and an urge to innovate. Microsoft as a company was on the top as all the tech giants and other companies were solely dependent on Microsoft for their development projects. The combination of ASP.NET on the frontend, .NET in the middle-tier, and SQL Server on the backend was considered the best that could handle most of everything. Microsoft had been literally running the show. But then iPhone happened and the giant and humungous gorilla status created by Microsoft started to unravel. The world experienced a shift to mobile which unfortunately Microsoft missed. Once a hero always a hero! To maintain the image that the giant had in the yesteryears, Microsoft needs to prove its calibre to why we should still stick with it? This article presents ten reasons in support of sticking with the Microsoft software stack.
- .NET is One of the Most Popular
What was introduced over a decade ago is still considered one of the best. .NET Framework is not only feature-rich and but also battle-tested. .NET was a commonplace for combining native development and managed code but today most of development errands are supported by this consistent and well documented framework.
The massive knowledge-base available in MSDN or StackOverflow blogs and forums proves only one thing that nobody ever got stuck for long on a framework bug in this framework as each time there was a someone who had already experienced, investigated, and published an answer.
- ASP.NET has Grown
If you take a quick sneak peek at the traditional elements of Microsoft stack 10 years ago, you would be interested to see that ASP.NET survived the test of time and experienced a fundamental shift. From Web Forms to ASP.NET as a platform, today ASP.NET has become a MVC-based framework. It features strong infrastructure for bundling, authentication, and routing. ASP.NET integrates perfectly with several non-Microsoft technologies incusing Bootstrap and AngularJS. ASP.NET sites have great look and feel in various phones and desktops. Framework is an open-source and with GitHub, you can resolve all your issues if you ever get stuck.
- Simplicity of Web API and Power of WCF
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) was launched in 2006. With endpoints, bindings, and behaviours, WCF was a little overwhelming. With Web API, Microsoft tried to bring an easy-to-use framework. With few lines of configuration, the Web API makes industry-standard solutions. In case the developer’s use case dos not fits the standard, they can use WCF to have complete control over the API. WCF lets the developers to organize their data, intercept, log, route message, and queuing. Web API and WCF ensure a complete coverage of a wide range of service scenarios.
- SQL Server is as Robust as Ever
There is no hiding that companies view data as the principle of their business. Data analytics is changing the face of the world today. Keeping data as the integral core, developers have been employing SQL Server for database management. It outshines at data keeping with a range of features that are ideal for transactions, backups, referential integrity, mirroring, and replication. SQL Server integrates with Microsoft stack in the most impeccable manner. From rapid development to computing power to in-memory tables, SQL Server offers cool features that help build real-time solutions.
- Easy to Test
Microsoft stack, fortunately is not an untouchable black box that has failed tests or no tests. The Microsoft stack is designed keeping testability in mind. From dependency injection in ASP.NET MVC to templates for testing SQL databases, testing is absolutely an inseparable part of the software development process. The Microsoft stack comes well-resourced for testability.
- Intricate Support System
When it comes to support has a strong community full of forums and blogs. The online ecosystem for Microsoft has a wide adoption by developers that started with an aim of providing developers with lots and lots of support. With blogs about technology posted by the employees of Microsoft certainly helped the industry catch up. The quality and number of instructional videos, blogs, guides, and articles are impressive and increasing. The support ecosystems including StackOverflow, comes with content quality and are most helpful.
- Microsoft Hooks to its Products
Microsoft Silverlight was one of the favourite for developing front-end application. With the world going mobile and the trend in full swing, JavaScript frameworks are dominating the front-end area. Microsoft still hooks to Silverlight and going with the Microsoft stack would ensure that both time and money gets correctly invested into technology and even after a fall out they will support the industry.
- Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a one-stop solution for hosting IDEs. From writing iOS or Android apps with Xamarin to database development using Data Tools of SQL Server, Visual Studio delivers consistent user interface. Similarly, Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform that covers a variety of services like database hosting and mobile services.
- Microsoft Stack – The Best
With so many choices for writing quality software, choosing the right one today can be an exhilarating task. With forces like Google, Amazon, and Apple, Microsoft continues to innovate and not get complacent. Microsoft has adapted to the current technological trends and has been breaking new frontiers.
- Big Player
Finally, Microsoft is a huge giant that was started by Bill Gates. This establishment offers excitement of working with modern frameworks and languages to its employees and ensures stability. With decades of experience in the development, this software player has become a brand that everyone knows and uses.
The above 10 reasons are sufficient to prove why Microsoft Stack was and will be one of the best in development industry. If you have some more points to prove the same please feel free to add in the comments box below.
