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.NET 1.x support in radControls for ASP.NET

Sunday, January 07, 2007

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.
posted by: Vassil Terziev

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Comments  17

  • 8 Jan, 01:27 AM

    Could you make a poll?

    I only have a few 1.0 apps which will not have new controls. for the past year all my web apps have been 2.0.

    comment by: Brian
  • 8 Jan, 01:47 AM

    As we have a large and expanding application, we rely heavily on your product development for the 1.1 version of the .NET framework. Our customers eagarly await any new developments we deploy using product enhancements that Telerik implements. While we are moving towards v2.0 we still have quite a bit of legacy code that is written in ASP 3.0 and as such are waiting to update to 2.0 until all of our unmanaged code is updated to v1.1 of the Framework.

    Thanks.

    comment by: Chuck Boyer
  • 8 Jan, 02:11 AM

    You're more than welcome to stop supporting 1.1 from our perspective. The more effort put into supporting and developing .NET 2.0 and 3 controls the better!

    Personal feature request - controls to replace ASP.NET's built in web form controls that have a consistent (skinnable) look and feel to the telerik controls.

    comment by: Tom
  • 8 Jan, 02:36 AM

    From our company's end, we do not use .NET 1.x, so stopping development on that branch of the controls would not affect us. Thank you for soliciting input from your customers before making such a big decision!

    comment by: Robert Swafford
  • 8 Jan, 04:32 AM

    I believe Telerik is one of the best component vendors on the market. I have always felt that the effort Telerik puts forth into the controls, help files, and especially samples is incredible. I can only imagine what Telerik could accomplish if efforts from 1.x development was moved into 2.0. As the .Net 2.0 Framework has been out for over a year now, I would say that it's a good time to begin thinking of cutting previous framework support.

    comment by: Mark Fitzpatrick
  • 8 Jan, 06:37 AM

    I began porting my .NET 1.x apps to .NET 2.x while it was still in beta and I have never looked back. I think it would be wise for Telerik to take this time now to adopt a policy on how it supports different .NET Framework versions in the future.

    As some of the other commenters noted, we've been on .NET 2 for over a year and .NET 3 is not too far off. Telerik will eventually have to address this same issue for developers on .NET 2.x that do not move to .NET 3.x.

    I'd suggest (based on this year's experience) that telerik continue to provide 1-year of full updates (meaning new features/products & fixes) for old Framework versions. After that year, old Framework versions will only recieve necessary bug fixes.

    Looking ahead, that means the .NET 2 version of the controls would get a full year of new products and updates after .NET 3 is released, after which .NET 2 and .NET 1 would only get bug fixes. Telerik may also want to define the full Support Lifecycle for Framework versions (maybe 3 years for old versions?) so they don't have to support older versions indefinitely.

    Just my $.02...well, maybe my $.10. ;-)

    comment by: Todd Anglin
  • 8 Jan, 07:21 AM

    We are currently developing on mono and looking to utilise telerik controls for ASP.NET 1.x on that platform. Support for .NET 2 on mono is not yet available so we have to use the 1.x controls. But I understand that you have to drop active development of 1.x at some point.

    Just thought that I would add this perspective into the mix.

    comment by: Alex Preston
  • 9 Jan, 05:48 AM

    Most of our projects are .Net 1.1. That said, I know we need to migrate to .Net 2.0 soon.

    I wouldn't mind if telerik immediately stopped .Net 1.1 developemnt.

    comment by: Josef Rogovsky
  • 9 Jan, 07:19 AM

    I personally haven't used .NET 1.1 since .NET 2.0 was a release candidate, so I would be all for this approach. Continuing to support the existing controls for .NET 1.1 makes sense, but I would love to see the additional development for new controls focused on .NET 2.0.

    comment by: Andrew
  • 9 Jan, 12:00 PM

    I'm all for 2.0. I've already phased out all 1.x development on my end, and if Telerik didn't support 1.x I'm sure we'd see more updates and features at a faster pace. I'm all for that!

    comment by: Sachman Bhatti
  • 9 Jan, 12:19 PM

    I'm using .NET framework 2.0 exclusively since it was released. I have no need for the .NET 1.1 version of the rad controls.

    comment by: Martin
  • 10 Jan, 05:08 AM

    We've never used 1.x. Went from ASP 3.0 to .NET 2.0. Obviously we're all for dropping continuing enhancement of 1.x versions.

    On a side note, I would like to see the installer do Side-by-side installation of versions of your product. That seems to be the biggest annoyance for us as we've got apps deployed using 3 different versions currently and not enough staff for the update efforts.

    comment by: Lucas Goodwin
  • 10 Jan, 11:12 PM

    I'm still using .NET 1.1 extensively in almost 70%. New web applications is on the .NET 2. But my old stuff still on .NET 1.1 and I can't see any weighty reason to migrate to .NET 2, 3, 4 or whatever else. Maybe some day I'm going to switch to next .NET as may be necessary.

    comment by: Alexander
  • 12 Jan, 12:10 AM

    I think your suggestion is the best possible solution. New development only in 2.0, continued support for 1.x for as long as practical. I think the introduction of new or improved controls sounds great and most people will understand that the complexities ivolved in 2 versions is not practical indefinitely.

    comment by: Russell Mason
  • 20 Jan, 01:42 PM

    I would love to begin development for 2.0, however, the server that we are co-hosting with has yet to implement it. They have a bunch of framework based around 1.1, and after my repeated inquiries for an ETA, they always say "a couple of months". So, for me, 1.1 is mandatory at this time :(

    - Andrew

    comment by: Andrew Shirley
  • 29 Jan, 12:35 AM

    Although we are using .NET 1.1 I would be quite happy for Telerik to move to .NET 2.0 for future versions as long as they carry on producing service packs for the last 1.1. release.

    Our existing code does not change much as far as the telerik controls are concerned and any new major developments would be implemented in ASP.NET 2.0

    comment by: Richard Gordon
  • 12 Feb, 02:52 AM

    Thanks for the great feedback, guys! I would once again like to say that we will continue with fixes for 1.x versions even when we stop adding new features.

    The good news is that for Q1 2007 the radInput update will have a 1.x build as well. We know that many of you are eagerly waiting for the radInput update and we wanted to make sure that all customers, regardless of their platform, will be able to use the new version.

    comment by: Vassil Terziev
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