Combine the built in firewall with Microsoft Security Essentials and keep with Windows updates and you'll generally have a secure system.

I've seen this response many times, yet I have never seen a reasonable explanation for the boycott. Do you hate Silverlight because it's Microsoft or is there something wrong with the technology that has made you stay away?

I have limited exposure to the Bing Video site, but with that limited exposure, I have had nothing but positive experiences. I've experienced no problem streaming HD content, for example. YouTube, on the other hand, struggled badly to stream 720P content through my FiOS connection running at 25 Mb/sec (both up and down).

From an architectural / security standpoint, Silverlight runs in a Sandbox, among other things, which greatly improve security (this most certainly isn't another Active X). Additionally, as a developer, I feel that C# is a better language than AS 3. I don't know any designers that have worked in Expression Blend, so I can't comment on their vantage point. I welcome their comments, however.

Exactly...it's the same thing I've seen over and over, again. I've worked on a number of projects, from commercial contracts, to government and health care projects. By far, the ones that have been the most difficult to work with are the clients that have strict bureaucracies (read government and health care). I'm sure hospitals are very similar, in this sense. It's incredibly difficult to convince streamlining a workflow with people that have become accustomed to a strict bureaucratic process. In many peoples eyes, the process is gospel: ye shall not challenge thy process. As such, when software replaces antiquated systems, they implement the same failed processes that existed before they got there.

In order for a new system to be successful, people need to learn to accept change.

You're a funny troll, and I'm going to feed you. Do you like Cheetos?

Not to say that this is a duplicate story, but am I the only one that remembers this Slashdot post from years ago? It's obviously a new patent, but is it not essentially the same patent?

Just out of curiosity, are there any modern file systems that are better at this? For example, rather than storing the entire content of a message in the database, what if sites like Facebook stored only a pointer to a file in the database and then saved the actual message content on disk? That way, the database can stay lean. Furthermore, it is my understanding (though I have no personal experience) that distributed file systems scale fairly well.

It's not that CAML and XML are beyond our understanding or ability to understand, it's that it adds undo complexity to a problem that can be solved far easier with other platforms.

Years ago (just out of high school), I developed a CMS that provided List-like functionality. The difference is that my design centered around creating database tables for each List. The columns were strongly typed and allowed for real-time calculations. SharePoint, on the other hand, stores all of the lists in a single database table as XML. The SharePoint schema is interesting in that sense, but it's so complicated that even MS failed to implement real-time calculations on data (calculated fields are calculated at the time the record is saved). Additionally, this hinders performance, greatly (list performance degrades substantially after 3-4k records, depending on schema complexity).

With the next release of SharePoint, I understand that each list will be stored in its own table. Under the covers, I'm not sure whether or not the tables will also be strongly typed --we'll have to wait and see. But at this point, SharePoint is so bad that it would require a substantial rewrite before my opinion would change.

I completely understand your point of view. I would never suggest that SharePoint is a blad platform because it makes somebody's life easier. The fact of the matter is, there are tons of search engines out there (many are free). But SharePoint, as a platform, is very difficult to extend (don't believe the marketing hype that would suggest otherwise). If a platform becomes more of a hindrance than a problem solving technology, it's time to look elsewhere. Unfortunately, technology leaders see how easy it is to activate one simple feature (like search) and assume everything else is just as easy. It's a dangerous mindset and leads to unrealistic expectations.

I could care less who made SharePoint. It's a horrible platform and that's the end of the story. On the other hand, I actually love the .NET platform. ASP.NET has been great, for years and I have had the privilege of working on some really great projects that made use of the platform. With the recent release of ASP.NET MVC, I am even more inclined to stick with .NET as my development platform of choice for most organizations.

The reason I dislike SharePoint so much is because it's almost always more cost effective and easier to build something from scratch. Developers and technology leaders should choose a technology platform that is cost-effective and extensible. SharePoint is neither. 100% of the estimates that I (along with many, many other developers) have put together have significantly more development hours associated with them.

Complete nonsense. Sure, SharePoint stores List content inside of a database, but it's stored as XML, making parsing a royal pain, not to mention it makes referential integrity among Lists impossible. Lookup lists have very loosely been implemented. Nobody in their right mind would work with SharePoint directly at the database level. Nor is it supported by MS. This is why a public API has been exposed.

You couldn't have been more accurate. 49 out of every 50 SharePoint "developers" I have talked to or interviewed are far from designers or software engineers. It's as if they were attracted to SharePoint because they were unable to make it in the real software development world. Not that this would necessarily be a problem, but SharePoint is one of the most difficult platforms I have ever had the unfortunate experience to program against. While these "developers" are busy building InfoPath forms and exposing tons of meaningless columns to interface with the workflow engine (they often use WF to overcome the fact that InfoPath is NOT a development platform), it's my job to interface the pile of mess with other COTS products by building convoluted ETL processes. The unfortunate truth of the whole situation is that the senior technical staff (e.g., CTO) fails to see the flaws that SharePoint brings. They focus their energy entirely on common CMS features, such as how easy it is to enable search and create a new page. If you dare suggest an alternative, you'll find yourself amongst the other outcasts --lonely, frustrated and unheard.

SharePoint is, by far, the most hideous platform I know of. It makes me long for the days of hacking HTML to make it render correctly in IE6.

Bad copy and paste of original text. It's in the actual article and it's just the SharePoint Wikipedia article.