(not) Chasing the Shiny new Rock

I sent the following message to my development team today:

All,

Many have asked me over the years why we don’t switch to .NET 2.0.  Well, now 3.0 and 3.5 are out.  Today, a CodingHorror blog post references a quote that sums it up quite nicely:

Users don't care whether you use J2EE, Cobol, or a pair of magic rocks. They want their credit card authorization to process correctly and their inventory reports to print. You help them discover what they really need and jointly imagine a system.

I’d like everyone to read the CodingHorror article though: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000916.html.

Thanks,
Jeff Handley

Chris Spiess is the Program Director for our project, and he asked me what I thought of the article.  I told him I thought Atwood made several good points but that he's often a bit too categorical with his statements.  Chris then asked if I thought our project should stay on .NET 1.1 forever.  Here's how I responded:

No, but I'm glad we didn't go grab the shiny new rock just for the sake of decorating our nest.  We must evolve eventually, but when it's right for the project, not when it's fun for the developers.