PhizzPop fizzed out

time to read 2 min | 253 words

Yesterday I was at the PhizzPop design party in New York. The purpose of the party was to show off the capabilities of the new Expression 2.0 product line. The way chosen to do so was by getting several companies to participate in a content to get the best result. It might have been a good idea, but it back fired tremendously.

One of the reasons that I went to that party was the expectation that I would be impressed by the new capabilities. Instead, what I saw there was... disappointing.

The best candidate application there was adequate. In fact, it was pretty good, but not nearly good enough to take part in a design contest. It is bad when I, a developer with negative UI sense, can spot problematic UI and see how they had to fight with the platform to get it to do things.

And that was the best they had. One of the other application (in a design contest!) had a RadioButton1, RadioButton2 and other things like that showing. They could literally not be bothered to change something as basic as that.

I was very disappointed, and the impression that I got from the entries in the contest is that the platform is a really lousy one. Especially considering the amount of time that was supposedly invested on the entries.

To conclude, I want to quote myself: "I know of people who can do better and faster than that drunk, and while writing the XAML on a stone tablet with a chisel."

Very disappointing.