Why does everything I read in .NET blogs/articles these days seem like the same stuff I've been reading for the past 2 years?  Oh, wait, that's right - because it IS.   With the notable exception of the addition of generics to C# (due about 12-18 months from now) I am seriously nonplussed about just about every single news item, new feature, open-source project etc that I see for .NET now.  It all seems so trite and passé and I think the reason is that I really feel people are far too narrowly focused on just a few of the possibilities.

See, I think that while .NET and C# may make writing business applications more fun, more 'safe' and maybe easier - you're still doing that same basic things: “take data from here, put it over there, aggregate it this way and then display it in this format”.  Web Services are just a new way of doing that same-old same-old.  They aren't going to change business as we know it  - oh sure they might lubricate the wheels a bit.  But it's just a new interface on the same ol' package.  And really, once you've cut your teeth on a few dozen apps - you really aren't challenged in a global sense (not that writing isn't hard - it always will be!  Just that the challenge become a familiar and impotent one).

Now I will admit that wireless open standards do leave a bit of room for innovation and that .NET could be a player in this.  But the problem is that, at least as far as I can see, there are no good reliable ubiquitous ways to develop and distribute applications to all smart devices - in other words, you would have to develop different versions of your app for the various devices and networks and even then you'd have to market and distribute it in various ways.  Plus there's no way to charge for servies unless you are a provider plus a million other little problems that will go away - in 5 years - but until then I think there's no room for a grassroots single-developer app to find it's way onto Palm/Pocket PC/Tablet PC/Smart Phone/Blackberry etc.. there will be no wireless “Napster”-sized (in success) app for at least 3 years.

So what does that leave? Well with all the buzz going on in .NET vs. Java Web Services land there is a thriving but relatively tiny group of people doing work that WILL change the world.  Most of them are actually game developers using some C++ variant to create better, smarter monsters in your fav FPS or strategy games.  Yes, I speak of Artificial Life.  This did get some attention in the .NET world, with the Terrarium server, where people could create autonomous creatures to compete for their artificial lives in a virtual bug farm (animats we call them).   Game developers who won't be touching .NET for a while are probably the only group outside of a handful of MIT-trained data modeling geniuses and academic whiz-kids who are creating practical AI/ALife.  Not long from now, some marketing guru will be playing a FPS against some all-too-real bots and he'll realize: "hey, maybe we could cut costs on low revenue customers by having them deal with a life-like CGIed customer-service agent" and maybe if they work out we can put them in charge of the mail room, too.  Heck there is precursor technology already helping guard your mailbox from spam vis-a-vis Bayesian models for detecting junk email.

Eventually someone will come out with a killer app that is undeniably and uncannily smart or even life-like in it's behavoiur; an app that learns faster than you expect and better than you could hope.  Other apps will come along that learn to take initiative - or recognize you from only your typing and mousing signature and eventually VCs and CTOs will get the message and start investing some serious bucks and time into designing their software to change by itself to better serve you.  Sooner or later we've got to realize that developers can only build the same mousetrap 60 or 70 times with new tools before they, too, start to realize that solving these 'problems' in a new way really isn't rasing the bar that much.

Ack, maybe I've just plateaued and am feeling restless, perhaps that's the cause for my unreasonableness (word?).  But that again I am reminded of that quote I love so much: “Reasonable men change to fit the world.  Unreasonable men change the world to fit them.  That is why all change depends on unreasonable men.”.  Maybe the problem is that I am not being unreasonable enough.