[modi123_1]

Quote

Microsoft today embraced the gamification trend by introducing a new plug-in for its Visual Studio development program that will let software developers unlock achievements, receive badges and work their way up a leaderboard based on the code they write.

There are 32 achievements, including stuff we can all understand like the “Lonely” badge for coding on a Friday or Saturday night or the “Scroll Bar Wizard” badge, for writing a single line of code at least 300 characters long. Then there are achievements that must be funny to developers, such as the “Turtles All The Way Down” badge, for writing a class with ten levels of inheritance, and “Interrupting Cow,” for having 10 breakpoints in a file.

cite

All I can say is - brilliant idea Microsoft! Haha... Though after looking at the achievements I would have to actually stretch some to meet them. *le sigh*



http://channel9.msdn...ts/visualstudio

[eclipsed4utoo]

I already have it installed. I got three that I didn't even try for. I got the two about extensions(having 5 installed and having 10 installed), and the Equal Opportunity one.

[AdamSpeight2008]

To me it more of an Express kind of feature (a toy/game) not some should find in professional software.

What's next, Job Posting that specify certain achievements?

[modi123_1]

Why not? We've kicked the idea of achievements around at work.. or even something like the 'bing rewards' system for our users. Better social tuning!

http://www.bing.com/...bl=BING&crea=ME

[eclipsed4utoo]

Also, if you want to link to your achievements page, the URL is this...

channel9.msdn.com/niners/[UserName]/achievements/visualstudio

AdamSpeight2008, on 19 January 2012 - 11:01 AM, said:

To me it more of an Express kind of feature (a toy/game) not some should find in professional software.

I'm not sure what that means? As in this shouldn't be found in VS2010 Professional? Or this shouldn't be found in production software?

[Kilorn]

This is an awesome idea and I will definitely be installing this when I get home.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Visual Studio is a professional tool $600+ (Express being the cut-down Free version), the gamification make it a bit too seem less professional.

It too much, Well done, have a cookie culture.
It'll become the Coder's Farmville.

[Kilorn]

I disagree. Are you saying that professionals have to be stuffy and are not allowed to have a little fun while they work? Is it really unprofessional to add a little tool that might enhance someone's experience with a piece of software because it adds a fun factor to a "professional" tool?

[Ryano121]

I think its a good idea at home for some random personal project, however at work I can see people writing stupid code just to get an achievement. Seems a little drastic yes, but I know some very very competitive people who would take this a step too far.

[eclipsed4utoo]

And those very competitive people could write that stupid code in their personal projects at home. I agree with Kilorn.

And it is an extension, so you don't have to install it at all.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Seems better suited to the Code Academy audience.

You don't play Super Mario to learn plumbing.

[modi123_1]

Who said the achievements were to learn coding? Certainly nothing so far has presented that.

[eclipsed4utoo]

Wow...a real Negative Nancy.

[tlhIn`toq]

I would have rather seen those 50,000 hours of development man-power put into something productive. For example, it would be nice if Expression Blend had some of the debugging power of Visual Studio (maybe turn on a PowerUser mode if Visual Studio is also installed). Sure would be nice to see Control+m, Control+o work in XAML as well as C#. I'm sure we all have our own lists of things that would help us be more productive which equals more income.

I guess my employer and myself have a different outlook:
You can work on the fun shit when all the *work* is done.

[scalt]

It should be mandatory for all coders for the simple reason that it would help with the public naming and shaming of all those that use 'goto's...