JavaScript Strategies at Microsoft with Scott Hanselman | Hacker News Reader

JavaScript Strategies at Microsoft with Scott Hanselman

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38 pointsGargol12 comments

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FYI, the current policy on IE seems to be that they end major upgrades when a version of Windows enters Extended Support (April 2009 in the case of XP) and they support all versions of IE ever released for a version of Windows with security updates until that version of Windows exits Extended Support (the infamous April 2014 date in case of XP). I personally reported a security bug in IE6/7 myself which got fixed recently for example.

/rant

Contrary to what Scott's saying here, I think the ASP.Net team have gone far too far down the rabbit hole.

I was doing an interview a few weeks back and part of the interview was a technical test to code up a little website. I'd never actually created a new project using VS 2012, just an accident of history. Part of it was an admin interface to show the files in the project.

So a few minutes later, fire up the new admin page and boom, a colossal amount of random js files, css files, etc. that had been 'helpfully' added to the project. Both of us were perplexed at what the sheer quantity of crap that had been added.

It's just got a little silly now. When MVC came out it was great because it didn't include much baggage, the only slight annoyance was the MS-WEMUSTDOEVREYTHINGSUPERFORMALLY-SPEAK written AccountController.

Now it's just, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, remove reference, remove reference, remove reference. No I don't want to use 'unobtrusive' javascript, a term invented to fix a problem only you caused because you really can't write javascript. In fact I don't want you to create anything at all javascript related thanks. And I pretty much ignore most of your HTML binders because you're not very good at HTML either.

And if I want to use jQuery UI, which will usually only be for the datepicker, I really don't need all those other jQuery UI files do I? They even know they've included too much as they try and hide it all in folders.

And who's bright idea was it to include Modernizr? It's not going to be needed unless you're in the tiny amount of MS web developers who actually code for public websites using HTML5, compared to the massive amount of developers coding internal websites on a full MS stack where some people are stuck on IE8 as they're still on XP.

The people who need it are going to know about it, so why add it in the first place?

Or start with an empty project and then have to cut and paste a bunch of stuff you actually need.

And every version they seem to change their mind where the damn error catchers are going to be. And still not work properly, rely on redirections, etc. Gah.

There's a happy medium which they seem to be having an extremely hard time getting to. Or I have OCD about pointless code files that I'm not using. Probably the latter and I'm a small minority of getting frustrated with it.

/rant

I guess at least it's not as bad as before NuGet where they'd include a version of jQuery which was immediately out of date.

There's an empty MVC project template, maybe you missed that?

It's really empty, especially after update 2 if I remember correctly.

Very empty indeed. You can create your own templates too!

Have you done it? Because I have and it's a right palava and then if, like me, you actually have 4 or 5 different machines good luck on keeping them in sync.

And with the release cycle on VS & MVC being as it is you have to redo them every year.

And I start maybe 4 projects a year... Really, really not worth it. Ofc, excluding the 150 console apps I make a year.

They only thing I do actually do is switch the console apps from client profile back to the full framework, that was another strange decision given how most people use console apps to test snippets of code due to the lack of a REPL.

In practical terms you learn to stop mucking around and just live with the defaults if you use a lot of different machines.

Creating your templates isn't that hard. There's an export template item under the File Menu. We're also making it so next year or so you'll be able to import custom templates with NuGet.

That said, I'm sorry you had a bad experience. For most, you'll want to File | New Empty, then:

install-package jquery install-package modernier install-package angularjs

I disagree with your frustration about deleting references. You hit delete a few times or uninstall packages and the move on.

BTW: ScriptCS is a nice REPL to check out: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProjectlessScriptedCWithScript...

There is a empty MVC and Webforms project. Your wall of text of rant is basically due to your own ignorance. The option for empty project is there. I can't figure how anyone can miss it.

But the empty one has nothing in it. I want the happy middle, not EVERYTHING or NOTHING.

So not my ignorance as you delightfully say to a person with probably vastly more experience than you, but my frustration. I would actually like to see the way they think you should do things with each new version.

There is one called "basic" that is your happy middle: http://i.imgur.com/gIllZf5.png

Well, now I feel silly.

You can create your own customized project template. Even the Express version of Visual Studio lets you create project/item templates.

Or I have OCD about pointless code files that I'm not using. Probably the latter and I'm a small minority of getting frustrated with it.

I think so. If you think you get a lot of cruft with this... try buying an Android phone from virtually any mobile operator in the US.

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