What are the benefits to a client of upgrading a system from .Net 2 to .Net 3.5 or 4 [closed]

Question

In a recent interview one of the questions I was asked was

‘What is the benefit to our clients if we upgrade to .Net 3.5/4’.

In other words If we upgrade all of our systems, all our clients will need to upgrade their machines, if we can’t give them valid benefits for doing so they aren’t going to be very happy.

As far as I know while .Net 4 has some overhead with the new CLR and can cause issues.Net 3.5 is more about extra features added to the dot net 2 core so shouldn’t affect anything adversely. I could see various benefits from a developers point of view:

• Linq
• List item
• Lambda expressions
• WPF
• WCF
• Anonymous methods & types
• Extension methods

From the company’s point of view, there is the benefit of attracting developers and keeping your current staff because they are working with the latest technologies.

Several days later the only answers I have come up with are:

• Support for Windows XP is being phased out and that any proactive company should already be well on the way to upgrading their systems. As Windows 7 comes with .Net 3.5 upgrading shouldn’t be an issue
• Support for the latest features in Sql Server 2008

So I have decided to ask here. What are the benefits to a client of upgrading a system from .Net 2 to .Net 3.5 or 4

Manila

Answer 1

Since we are talking about client benefits, if the app is in WPF I think the Text improvements in WPF on .NET 4 are probably the most significant direct benefit to a client. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/text/archive/2009/08/24/wpf-4-0-text-stack-improvements.aspx.

Other areas are more likely to produce indirect benefit. Memory mapped files and the task library could lead to improved performance. Along those same lines I think there is an argument to be made that what benefits developers will eventually benefit the client. If a new part of the .NET 4.0 library makes it easier for me to develop a new feature or reduce the amount of code I maintain that will impact the client experience.

There are also some little things you can pick out of http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171868.aspx: compression algorithms have been improved; new built-in WPF controls; new Windows 7 shell support. I've focused on 4.0, but I'm sure you could pick some additional minor items from 3.5 too. In my opinion, if you are going to require an upgrade I would go all the way to 4.0.

Revel

Answer 2

Clients don't care what framework they are using. They care on the stability of their product which your company has provided them. As you said, if the client is forced to move to a higher OS, then new framework has to be provided. Again you can run your app on win 7 in compatibility mode. So it still works.

If your adding new features of the framework lets say TPL from Net 4 then ask users to move to net 4 as well.

Rexferd

TPL is a bad example since you can use it in 3.5 as well – Choate

With a over head of publishing Reactive extensions package :) – Rexferd

No need to publish the complete Rx package. Just use the 3.5 version of System.Threading.dll as a side-by-side assembly – Choate

But i belive the basic 3.5 pacakage wont come with this new updated Threading dll right? I think you have to go for SP1 or this Rx package. correct me if i am wrong. – Rexferd

Yes, you need to get the dll from Rx but I could not find anything saying that you can't just deploy the dll with your application. – Choate

Answer 3

I think that the client doesn't care about the framework. He wants your application so he will upgrade. His only benefit is really simple : if he needs the same framework a second time, he won't have to install it again.

Shoring

Trust me, clients are not ok to touch or update your system often unless they have reported an issue with your application and your spose to fix it. If you just happen to visit them often and say you wish to update or patch a thing, youll be put into questionare alot – Rexferd

Answer 4

First of all, the .NET Framework now a days is part of the OS, or it comes as a recommended Windows Update, so the client having the latest Framework could be an assumption we can make.

As others have said, most of the clients don't care which Framework your application targets, unless the IT department of their company has some strict "installation" guide lines that forbid installing X version because of Y or Z reason.

I don't think the benefit of new features added are valuable to the end-user/customer. The benefit of having latest .NET Framework is not related to your particular software but an overall benefit for the customer since they will be able to install/use newer software developed targeting 3.5, 4.0.

2.0 2.0.50727.42 2005-11-07 Visual Studio 2005
3.0 3.0.4506.30 2006-11-06
3.5 3.5.21022.8 2007-11-19 Visual Studio 2008
4.0 4.0.30319.1 2010-04-12 Visual Studio 2010

Most .NET applications are now being developed using Framework 3.5/4.0 since 2.0 is already 6 years old.

Pseudohermaphrodite

Answer 5

Technology wise? I'm only considering the move to .Net 4 (3.5 and 2 are pretty much a tiny step you can take or leave)

1. The Dynamic Language Run Time (much more choice of language and all the benefits that cool cats have). Don't think that you can't use it if you're in C# - you can.
2. A more optimal CLR (lots of work has been done to make this perform better and scale better.
3. The framework library is more comprehasive (allowing the technologies you've mentioned)
4. Security is made more manageable

Here's the main one : Modern technologies from MS and others like AppFabric, MVC, Entity Framework etc are only really going to be on this platform looking forwards.

Sure stick to old old technologies if you need to, but undervalue the benefits of newer ways of doing things. Personally I think keeping staff motivated and educated is a very laudable aim - but then I'm biased.

Canst

Answer 6

One important thing to note is that you can use newer version of C# with .net 2 since you can use a new version of VS and set the target framework to 2.0. If you use a third party implementation you can even get Linq-To-Objects.

Selfsupport