The future for Nav Developers

rickyl76

With the recent changes that are coming fast for the product what do people see as the future for many Nav developers? At a guess a large percentage of developers must fall in the 40's to 55 age group so do you think most will embrace the future of the product or look to get another 3-5 years out of how things currently are and then move to something else?. I imagine many will have built up vast experience of business processes so could feel they can utilise these skills elsewhere and, if that was the case, could that lead to their skills and experience being lost to the Nav market?

Slawek_Guzek

I'm one of those in 40's to 55 age group, in the upper half of it. Personally, I don't like the direction where the Microsoft went with NAV, hence I'll be probably looking to move to something else. Fortunately NAV is just a part of my skillset, a large one, but still just a part. Having said that I will still continue improving my NAV, or more BC knowledge. learning new things in BC, including new development techniques, until go elsewhere

The thing what changed with the death of NAV and the introduction of BC is that, career-wise, I was pretty much dedicated to NAV, and now I am considering other options and will jump if something interesting and rewarding shows up.

AK

As someone in that age group I've had a bit of a deja-vu: It was similar when Navision changed from DOS to Windows. So many changes, so many new things to learn. We expected development to take a lot longer and therfore being more expensive and the usability to drop due to the "complicated" handling. But today we know it was a huge success.

And regarding the changes of BC I'm wondering if we are at a similar point and paint the future a little to dark. However, I will keep my eyes open for other opportunities. In the past I always wanted NAV to be at least a part of my job, but not anymore. If something comes up that means leaving NAV behind, I'll do it. It was nice as long as it lasted.

Inga_Simplanova

Seems from the Year 2020 – VS Code and AL will be the only way to modify the application. As information from Microsoft is changing too fast during the past period, they might give some more information during the Directions EMEA this week

malintus

I don't understand what you affraid for. If you know C/AL so why you won't get knowladge of AL lang. In my opinion all of NAV developers have much better start in BC then some1 who doesn't know C/AL.

Juhl

The code is pretty much the same. You just have to write by code what you did by GUI!
But the code is the same.

malintus

@BlackTiger Are You sure about that? I didn't had an opportunity to programming in AL i just saw script in youtube tutorials. AL seems similar to C/AL. If what you say is true that sux.

rickyl76

> @malintus said:
> I don't understand what you affraid for. If you know C/AL so why you won't get knowladge of AL lang. In my opinion all of NAV developers have much better start in BC then some1 who doesn't know C/AL.

I personally have no fear of AL and the changes but it’s not necessarily the fear but the reality. No one wants to spend an age doing something they know could have been done quicker before. And also will the work be there? I spoke to a customer yesterday who approached me on the subject and said Nav wouldn’t have even made it to the first round of products they were considering, if it couldn’t be customised to meet the specific needs of the market they operate in