Forget Refactoring. Meet your new friend - Programming Model (aka API) Re-engineering - Microsoft-Style. Microsoft are veterans in re-inventing existing programming models. Here are some examples, and related jabberings:
Flex versus WPF
Despite the pain of adapting to new programming models, libraries need to adapt to change, which means PEOPLE (consumers) also need to change. This brings me on to my next point concerning PEOPLE'S ATTITUDES to programming model re-engineering.
"The difference between greatness and mediocrity in Windows programming can be perceived in many ways. One metric is the speed by which the Windows Programmer can quickly adapt to radically different programming models. The Great One will be able to assimilate new APIs massively quickly and start programming in them straight away, no matter how intractable and problematic the API may initially seem. On sensing a new API approaching, the senses of the Windows programming are immediately sharpened, instinct kicks in and a process of lightning-fast power-learning is initiated. The millions of programs the Great One has written are instantly referenced and put into the context of the new API function calls. Automatic memorisation commences. Like an avid art collector, the SuperPower Windows Programmer desires to acquire API mastery swiftly and add to their ever-expanding skills collection. The SuperPower Windows Programmer may even be willing to embrace functionally-inferior but more modern APIs . Contrast this with the mediocre programmer, their emotional response is a negative one, a slow process of gradual learning and conscious and pained memorisation commences. Thus SuperPower Windows Programmers are quantum leaps ahead of their sub-par rivals. They are like eagles soaring above, surveying everything, their rivals are like meerkats down below, constantly digging up the dust to hide from predators".
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