http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660Oh, yes! Please write Rhino CRM! :-) I also second the suggestion above for you to keep us up to date on your CRM adventures. It's great to see someone who has great "coding values" also in the fray. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment12http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment12Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:22:25 GMTI have no interest in doing that, nor any wish to. Grrr... stupid CRM. Must. Not. Write. Code. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment11http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment11Mon, 27 Aug 2007 04:34:36 GMTOh, admit it, Oren. You're going to write Rhino CRM next. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment10http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment10Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:30:41 GMTI am sorry, but I am failed to be impressed with a CRUD platform. The platform may give me a lot OOTB, but having to jump through those hops just to get something trivial working is unacceptable. I can envision building such a system where the thing is actually viable to develop on. I do not enjoy fighting with a platform, or using worst practices just to get something done. Give me a platform that I can develop on in a normal manner, and I would take it in a heartbeat, but a platform where something as _basic_ as source control is a chore is not an acceptable choice by any meaning of the word. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment9http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment9Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:18:58 GMTI understand the problems you have with CRM, but if you look it the value of the application\platform, can you accept these problems? Products like CRM and Sharepoint solves about 85% of a customer needs, with out-of-the-box functionality. Only the last 15% has to be coded and customized, which gives you more time to do the fun things on a project. Therefore I accept these problems, but I like to know if you are willing to make this trade. If not why not? You think the price is to high ;-)? http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment7http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment7Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:07:58 GMTI understand the problems you have with CRM, but if you look it the value of the application\platform, can you accept these problems? Products like CRM and Sharepoint solves about 85% of a customer needs, with out-of-the-box functionality. Only the last 15% has to be coded and customized, which gives you more time to do the fun things on a project. Therefore I accept these problems, but I like to know if you are willing to make this trade. If not why not? You think the price is to high ;-)? http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment8http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment8Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:07:58 GMTHmm. I read some people are talking about Biztalk and Sharepoint development having the same kind of troubles. I don't fully agree here. Biztalk projects consist mostly of maps, pipelines and orchestrations. Those are all developed from within Visual Studio. Maybe the configuration of the outboud-ports is a little difficult, but this is just a small thing. Sharepoint projects can make use of the Visual Studio Extension for Sharepoint Server. But there are some things that are difficult, like the forms and styles. You are able to develop most things as a feature. After all I think Microsoft should put some effort in the development environments for Dynamics CRM but also enhance the Biztalk and Sharepoint development. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment6http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment6Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:25:09 GMTAlthough I have little experience with either, the story is pretty much the same with Reporting Services and to certain extend with Biztalk. As I keep repeating to everybody I work with: "What's wrong with writing code?!" Where does this notion come from that pointing and clicking and dragging and dropping is quicker or easier than writing code, especially considering the quality of IDEs we have these days. Same goes for configuration. I am not a sys admin, but I find it astonishing how hard I find it to set up and configure an IIS instance on a server compared to Apache. The Apache config file is by no means pleasant for the "casual user", but at least you know you'll find everything in one place, you can read what's there and documentation to hand you can work out what it means and what to do. With IIS, by the time you have figured out which applicaition to open, which tree structure to expand, which option to choose, which tab to click on, which box to tick, you're lost! So I'll say it again: "There's nothing wrong with TYPING" http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment5http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment5Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:01:15 GMTAgreed. This is more or less the same in SharePoint too, which I've recently been working with. As I've described to my peers on the project, it's like getting paid to do SQL Server work and planning on performing the deployments without version/change controlled DDL/TSQL scripts. If you have no idea that scripts even exist, or better yet, like a recent client of mine who did not "TRUST" MSSQL scripts (huge WTF), then ok. But if you get paid to do this stuff and are "winging it" by performing deployments via 1000+ mouse clicks and copy/paste operations, you might want to rethink your profession. Lately, with SPS/MOSS and CRM as but two examples, MSFT is enabling extensive customization of those products via more or less rich API's, essentially targeting the developer community, but the "development effort" as a whole is nearly unmanageable, given the lack of ability to put the development effort properly into a change management system. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment4http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment4Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:16:23 GMTI would love to hear more of your experiences and opinions on MS CRM. http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment3http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment3Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:14:33 GMTI've worked on two Dynamics CRM projects (not very large) and hated this most of the time. Everyone wants the ability to automate the customazations import and export, at least the export for Source Controll. I really hated workflows. Every once in a while a specific workflow stopped being editable (at least let the changed be saved). Solution create a new one with exactly the same contents. I really hated the update call-outs. You can specify the columns you want in the update call-out, but all you are getting are really changed columns. And changing data in a callout is also a bit harsh, changing XML :-S. And what about integration? This is only real possible using SQL Server Triggers. The only way to be sure the database action succeeded and the ability to recall it if integration collapsed. I think we will have to wait for Dynamics CRM Titan release (4.0). http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment2http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment2Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:17:28 GMTThe sad part is; most other "business platforms" are not any better (and many worse). You clearly stated out one key problem: Most of these were tools were made to provide the illusion that the platform can be customized by either (a) end users or (b) business/technical analysts that are *not* developers. It's clear that doesn't work; but people all over the world keep insisting on it based on the false impression that this is actually cheaper than having a developer do it right (our own fault, in many cases). http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment1http://ayende.com/2733/developing-on-microsoft-crm#comment1Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:36 GMT