m^(2) wrote:
How does it relate to portability?
I am merely suggesting that the popularity statistics, on whose relevance we agree, are likely to grow with time (I edited my post to clarify that)
m^(2) wrote:
Why do you consider this source reliable? It doesn't quote own source and is not a known to me (so also "not a reliable for me") analytic. This is actually the only strong point in your post and w/out further explanation it's worthless.
You mean worthless to non believers such as yourself
From the source's comments:
This data is provided by NetApps to Microsoft and is not something we release on a regular basis (same folks who do the browser statistics) and it is not poll or survey based data. However, we thought it was intersting to share a point in time view since we thought transparency and knowledge was a good thing. Any methdology is going to be imperfect, but the market in general is comfortable with the way NetApps measures browser share so we have piggy backed on the same stuff. It is a view of *all* internet connected devices (so it does include things like Macs and iPhones in the denominator, but those #'s don't materially impact the outcomes (maybe we'd be 1-2% higher if we modulo'd that out).
Fundamentally we are interrogating internet traffic around the globe (LOTS OF IT) so it is not biased or skewed to "high IQ users" but is a reasonable view of the broad internet connected PC population.
Hope this helps provide some color.
Thanks,
Brian Goldfarb
Director, Developer Platforms and UX
Microsoft Corporation
Update: Brian is right, these stat are from a third-party, NetApps. WU plays a part though (they have stats, although these aren't theirs) as the rapid increase in the number of installs of the latest version of the .NET Framework reflects both the speed with which WU has been able to update those PCs with .NET 2.0 and above to .NET 3.5 SP1, as well showing the adoption of Vista and Windows 7, which ship with .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 SP1 respectively.
Now you could, as webfork has, claim that they are all biased Microsoft liars and to that I say - to each his own. I consider reputable key figures in Microsoft like Brian Goldfarb and Scott Hanselman (well, well known in the development community) reliable, not to mention they have a lot to lose by lying (or even misinforming).
m^(2) wrote:
And I'm still wary about putting .NET apps here - because I *believe* there are too many cases when their portability is insufficient, yet no indication is clear enough, some people will always miss it's drawback. I believe that the PFC database would be better w/out because even a noob that's tired and in a hurry will always get full quality product, one that always works as expected (except for bugs...but they are devs' stuff). Yet I'm not as much against putting .NET apps here as I was before because I see that it's popularity increased, so problems will be somewhat less common.
That's all good and well, besides the fact that sometimes pure portable applications doing what you want
don't exist. Or maybe the managed alternatives are better. I say the users should have the right to choose based on their perceived trade-off between portability and functionality. You could put a big red warning saying "
not completely portable" or some such, but ignoring .NET applications altogether is burying your hand in the sand.
m^(2) wrote:
BTW, supposing that the 90/65% numbers are right; one uses 10 different machines; availability of .NET on the machines is independent, there's 35% that all have .NET 2 and 1% that all have 3.5.
Your assumption of availability independence is flawed. They all have the serious correlation of
being used by you. This could mean all computers at your workplace, all computers at your home, etc. In such cases .NET applications may be "portable enough".