I am close to get a job offer that sounds pretty interesting, considering my career development at this point..... The only problem, though, is that the company is kind of resisting getting on the .NET wagon, due to the fact that their software development main focus is stability and reliability -- and they still believe that .NET is too young to trust for systems that require 100% uptime & scalability.

I have been developing in .NET since its inception, however I have never worked in such critical systems. I am interested in the job, however, I do not know if with such level of confidence in older technologies and resistance to younger ones it will make sense to me. I still want to develop mainly in .NET not in older technologies, altough I dont mind working in legacy systems for some time. The problem is that I percieve the resistance to change towards a new framework, given that they are already comfortable with ASP3 and VB6. They still want to move to .NET, just not very fast and I fear I will lose my edge on the technology and start working most of the time in "legacy" ASP3 and VB6 applications.

Basically the person that will be my boss told me that he will be willing to move to .NET for certain new applications (not to migrate) ONLY IF it makes business sense and I can sell to him the idea that .NET is the better option for that program.

Considering the resistance that I feel, but also the fact that they are still interested in moving into .NET, do you guys think I should take that job?

Well, it makes sense in many respects - they've got an established application base, and an established methodology, and they currently don't see a reason to change for the sake of change.

If you're really .NET fixated, don't take it. I once took a ColdFusion job on the interviewer's word that for new projects I could opt for ASP. Never happened. We were running on IIS, so the option was there but politics prevented it. I quit after a couple of months of thrashing about with CF, which I was skilled enough with but disliked. A lot. If you can see this hapening to you when your recommendations to upgrade are resisted (as they will be), then you won't like it there.

However, if you think you're pragmatic enough to deal with it, go for it - you'll learn a lot about their methodology and how they deal with critical systems.

> ONLY IF it makes business sense

that's the only reason you SHOULD make any change in a business environment. Not because it's 'cool' or 'flashy' or well marketed. There is absolutely no reason to make a technology choice which doesn't offer a decent ROI, and simply migrating a working classic ASP application to ASP.NET doesn't make sense unless it pays for itself. Which in general terms it won't.


j