>Hi,
>
>Maybe this has been asked before, but I'm just starting to look into .NET and I'm wondering what reactions people have to remarks made by Whil Hentzen (publisher of books on FoxPro etc.) on his website, specifically that books on .NET "have been an unmitigated disaster for everyone who has
>invested in them" and "Microsoft has admitted that their hopes for .NET
>haven't been realized." Admittedly, I find this hard to reconcile with what I see on the web, and obviously people here are working with .NET. But are things looking rosey, as far as you can see, or is there cause for concern? It would be interesting to hear your opinions. Thanks!

Chris,

I 'think' when he said 'unmitigated disaster' he was talking about how much revenue the books created more than the content that they contained. I think the .Net market was flooded with so many titles it was hard for any one title to do very well, sales wise.

I also think, as a few people comented here, not alot of people want to buy books based on Beta versions.

Is everyone spending tons of money to convery what they have to .Net? Well, for Windows aps, I'd say probably not. For mission critical and performance critical ASP apps, I'd say yes. You get so many benefits moving from ASP to ASP.Net.

.Net will survive and my guess is at least 80% of new development will be done in .Net. The other 20% being VB6, VFP, Delphi, and probably a large percentage Java.

As far as books are concerned. I think they will exist for a while. But, with all the Blogs, Web Sites, Forums, and all the stuff commming from the MS Architecture and Practices groups... you can get ALOT of info without spending $50+ on each book. I think if books are to be succesfull they have to be electronic only and drop the price point to $20-$30. My guess is, at that price, and eliminating all the costs of printing and distribution there would actually be more profit in a book.

BOb