The StarterKits - it ain't neccessarily cherry pickin' you know!
I just finished reading Doug Reilly's blog entry which referred to a post on the ASP.net, complaining about the complexity of the Starter Kits...
It's true - and especially so of the CommunityStarter Kit - that parts of those applications are very complex. Perhaps at times, pieces of them seem irrelevant too! However, over the past 3 years, *most* of the cool code that I've written is, conceptually, derived from things that I've picked up by *studying* those applications. In fact, I recently wrote an article that discussed one cool concept that I got from the CommunityStarter Kit:
I think (and I've long contented this) that Microsoft haven't really done that well in selling those applications to people and, as such, most people probably just don't know how they are supposed to get value out of them. A couple of things that Microsoft could do "today" that would make the applications more useable are to:
- "Grade" the applications (for example I think that the CommunityStarter Kit is too dificult for a beginner)
- On the features list for each application, provide a link through to the code sample and the page that demonstrates that feature so that users are led to the cool stuff.
While I have empathy for the person that wrote the post that was the catalyst for Doug's blog entry, I really think that people like that need a firm hand and some good mentoring to ensure that they take the time to studying how the apps tick and use them as a basis for learning as opposed to a place where you can get instant gratification.
I think that, in the future I might create a category named “Starter Kits” and start to discuss and demonstrate more of the features of theses cool apps!