Hey Infragistics......RAD might not be a bad idea.

In the wee hours of this morning, I find myself testing out Infragistics' NetAdvantage for ASP.Net.

The examples they show in their Samples Browser look fantastic. The whole design of the Infragistics website gives one (that's be me) the impression that this wonderful suite of tools is a RAD development toolbox for the web. Drag and drop your way to internet success (or so I thought).

Maybe it was when they stated "Using NetAdvantage for ASP.NET you can deliver AJAX-enabled Web applications quickly and easily, providing the functionality and speed comparable to a desktop application." that I got to thinking that I could easily develop great looking applications (you know, like the UIs they show in their Samples Browser).

But, as with most things that touch on programming (since the advent of .Net anyway) Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.Net would also be a great disappointment.

Why? Simply because it does not deliver on the RAD promises ("...you can deliver AJAX-enabled Web applications quickly and easily...") with interfaces that even remotely resemble anything in their Samples Browser.

There's a hell of a lot more to do here than just drag and drop some controls on a web page. And I am just talking about getting the controls to look as professional as the samples in the Samples Browser. I'm not talking about writing any code that actually makes the components functional.

I'm just trying to get the controls to look as good as they do on the Infragistics Samples Browser pages. Looks are a big deal in everything...people, cars, homes, and software even. People have more confidence in (and want to be associated with) things that look good. So, that is where I started testing the NetAdvantage for ASP.Net components - strictly testing the UI capabilities of the components.

While I downloaded the trial version, I had assumed (wrong as I know assuming can be) that the controls would have simple styles that you could set to get the same look and feel as in the samples on the site and maybe even templates that allowed you to take the samples shown and adjust them for your needs. At the very least I expected a plethora of sample code that showed exactly how to achieve the same stunning UI in my own applications.

Boy was I about to be disappointed.

Now, why wouldn't a company with a record of winning multiple awards for their products actually show you how to accomplish the same things in your apps as what they show you in their Samples Browser? Better yet, why wouldn't they include the samples as templates for your applications? After all, the better you look - the better they look, right?

Well, getting the UI tools in Infragistics NetAdvantage for ASP.Net to look as professional as the samples on the Infragistics website is not RAD in the least. You know...there used to be suites of tools that were truly RAD. You may have heard of an old language called Visual Basic 6. Well, it had those. In fact, Infragistics wrote some of the best RAD tools for VB6. So what happened?

Where did RAD go? Not only did creating applications get more complex and less secure (from a coder trying to protect his/her intellectual property standpoint) with the advent of .Net, the applications and toolsets being created have completely lost sight of what made toolsets and applications raging successes in the first place.

No more do you see wizards that walk new users (and even very tired old users) through a few simple steps to set application preferences. No...It seems that you should "just know" how things work - as if the information wafted through the ether and settled in your brain the moment you bought your new software.

Why have the very intelligent people that give us such powerful software become so utterly clueless when it comes to UI development of software and tools and how to teach someone totally new to their product or application how to get productive quickly?

Didn't anybody pay attention to why Windows was/is such a hit? There are 2 main reasons. The one I will hit on here is simplicity. Bill Gates used Windows to dumb down the PC, and created the best known, best selling software of all time.

All great selling software programs have had one thing in common. They all made a task easier for the end user. The only application that could dethrone one of these great-selling, simple apps was an application that simplified the process even more.

Simple software = lots of users = big $$$. The concept is neither novel nor that difficult to grasp.

So, why don't we get it? Why does it take hours and hours of playing and testing and tweaking to emulate the samples shown in the Infragistics Samples Browser? Why should a customer have to guess at how to achieve the same look and feel at all? It'd be a damned shame if the point of those beautiful samples was simply to sell NetAdvantage....once.

In case the guys at Infragistics didn't know it already, the main selling point of their software is the perception that you can create great-looking, simple internet applications in less time. Second to that is the back-end functionality that includes cross-browser compatibility.

Maybe I'm getting old. But, it seems to me that people are getting dumber. They don't pay attention to the lessons that we have been taught in just the past 20 years - nevermind the past 100 years or 1,000 years.

Simple sells. Simple sells over and over. Simple makes kings of paupers. Simple is what people want more of....especially programmers.

So, just why don't people get it?