Telerik blogs
The time has come when we need to make a decision that may affect some of you (most of you) - we need to make a decision whether or not to stop adding new features and products to the .NET 1.x version of rad Controls for ASP.NET. For over a year we have maintained parallel .NET 1.x and .NET 2.0 versions of our controls and this has worked out well for us and for customers.

On the downside, maintaining a release schedule with a set of nearly 20 ASP.NET controls, with .NET 1.x and .NET 2.0 versions, different help files for each .NET framework for every release and C# and VB.NET versions of almost 700 examples has come with its challenges. Add to that support for all releases of ASP.NET AJAX and support for 99.9% of the browsers in use today and you can imagine the level of complexity we have to deal with.

It's not a problem for us to continue to provide support for both versions of the framework, but unfortunately this comes at the price of slower introduction of new things - it takes more time to ensure that everything works as expected across all those different configurations, you have to run twice as many tests, you have to maintain twice as many help files and ensure that everything is up to date.

Based on our data, it seems that the .NET 2.0 adoption has skyrocketed and indicates that it makes sense for us to stop .NET 1.x development - if not immediately, at least very soon. Stats aside, we thought it might be wise to solicit your input before we make such a radical step.

So, what's your take - more new products and features and only .NET 2.0 support OR slower evolution of the toolkit and support for .NET 1.x and .NET 2.0?


EDIT: I'd just like to throw in a note that the "to be or not to be" dilemma relates only to new products and new features. We will continue to provide the usual level of support and service packs for the .NET 1.x versions of the controls even after we stop any new development on the 1.x framework. We do understand that it will take time to port larger projects from 1.x to .NET 2.0 and we will do our best to protect your current investments.

vassil_terziev
About the Author

Vassil Terziev

As Chief Innovation Officer at Progress, Vassil Terziev is responsible for identifying growth strategies and new market opportunities, as well as promoting internal innovation.

Comments

Comments are disabled in preview mode.