Future Versions

johntaylormfc

Apologies if wrong section, but this seemed the best!.

I have been reading the Statement of Direction to see where NAV is going etc. The one bit that got me thinking was for NAV "8" (2013-2014). It states "Role Tailored .NET programming Environment within NAV".

Does anyone know, or have any thoughts on how this will work. Will it look like C/Side but compile as .NET, or will we be programming fully in .NET.

I have being working with NAV since version 1.1, but have only ever worked in C/Side. We have other people to so any .NET programming etc, so I have never needed to learn these.

I am now wondering if I need to look into this more and try and get more involved in .NET. How does everyone envisage the transformation happening. What should C/Side developers be doing to prepare.

Any thoughts anyone.

Thanks

John

epernst

Based upon conversations with some of the Microsoft Navision top developers on the Mibuso Conference in May, then you should absolutely not need to worry. Microsoft would not just like that either cut of 10's of thousands of Nav developers, or all the thousands of different add-ons and highly customized Nav implementations.

johntaylormfc

Thanks,

I appreciate at the very least there will need to be a transition to .NET, given that we are looking at 4 years from now.

Did these developer say what we would be developing in by then, or do they even know yet. Will we still be using "C/Side" code and commands etc.

Already the move move to RTC reports and the Visual Studio part of this has left me felling a bit exposed. May be a good thing in the long run though as i has forced me to look into something new. I find it diffcult to look at these at and pay with new things. It is much easier if you hace somethnig that you need to do specifically.

Thanks again,

John

kine

If the syntax of C/AL will be same or will have some things changed to C# (e.g. using {} instead BEGIN END etc.), that's question. But I think that this is not the biggest issue. If we will use same logic, I think yes... if it will be C# with functions with same names as in C/AL, which are used like now, who knows (it is not problem to create classes with same behavior as C/AL in C#). We know now that it will not be Visual Studio (at least in near future) but own IDE. But if you want and if you can, look at c#, it will help you (designing the reports, making external components, control addins for RTC...).

matttrax

I'm using it as an excuse to learn C# personally. I don't think C/AL will ever go away completely as there will always be legacy customers to support. If you're someone who knows .NET and C/AL I think you'll be in a better place in four years. Much more valuable to your organization.