What is .NET?

CyberBry writes "There's a great technical overview of Microsoft .NET over at arstechnica: "In a remarkable feat of journalistic sleight-of-hand, thousands of column inches in many "reputable" on-line publications have talked at length about .NET whilst remaining largely ignorant of its nature, purpose, and implementation. Ask what .NET is, and you'll receive a wide range of answers, few of them accurate, all of them conflicting. Confusion amongst the press is rampant. The more common claims made of .NET are that it's a Java rip-off, or that it's subscription software. The truth is somewhat different.""

Comments

I honestly can't figure out

[prisoner-of-enigma]

...where MS is going with this initiative. They seem to be touting portability, but what kind of portability? Certainly not inter-OS portability, that's for sure. No doubt that their Common Language Runtime is so heavily patented, encrypted, folded, spindled and mutilated that it will be quite difficult for someone to make it run on a non-MS platform. I know that quite a few Linux-heads are working on it. Prediction: if they ever get it right, MS will sue them about four microseconds after they post it on Freshmeat.

That being said, it does seem like MS is trying to wean themselves out of a strictly x86 world, and portable binaries is a good way to do that. What about performance? Java used to be well known for crappy performance because of the abstraction forced on the code. Will .NET have similar limitations, I wonder?

Re:I honestly can't figure out

[Anonymous Coward]

>That being said, it does seem like MS is trying to wean themselves out of a strictly x86 world

Has anyone thought that perhaps Intel (being somewhat friendly with Microsoft) has been pushing this initiative so they can finally put x86 instructions to rest? If Intel has a new processor that doesn't allow x86 instructions (because backward compability would slow it down), all they'd need is Microsoft to force everyone to compile with .NET and write a CLR for it.

Of course, this may not necesarilly be a bad thing. Imagine the speed improvements any processor would have if it didn't require backward compability. The downside is that it'd require a fully-compability CLR.

Sam

Re:I honestly can't figure out

[Steveftoth]

So basically it's like the Kaffe version of Java. Kaffe supports the JDK 1.1 without AWT (soon with some 1.2 support). And guess what, not too many people use it. Maybe a couple, but most people are using a fully functional implementation with Swing/AWT and 1.3 libraries.

I think that the whole C# is a standard argument is BS. Look at JavaScript, it's a standard, has been for a number of years now. Why is it then, that I can write 'standard JavaScript' and IE will interpret it one way, while Mozilla, Netscape and Opera interpret it a slightly different way ( maybe it works, maybe not ). Why are web programmers still writing browser detection code into web pages? I'll tell you why, because it doesn't matter if someone makes a standard if nobody follows it. Not one browser follows the standard perfectly. Mozilla (IMO) comes the closest, but even that is not perfect. You still have to go back ,tweak your pages and balh blah blah. Java may not be perfect, but all the 'SUN certified JVMs' work. If you run your code on the Sun JVM, it will work on the IBM one. If not then you can call up IBM and report a bug. With a 'standard' language/runtime, there is no controlling entity to guarentee compatability.

Re:Language neutrality

[Phil-14]

Everyone talks about .NET's supposed
language neutrality, but based on what I've
read so far, it's only language neutral if
your language is c# or close to it.

However, maybe they should repeat
the claim another million times; it worked
with getting people to think Windows
was secure.

Re:Mod parent up

[clontzman]

Microsoft is trying REAL hard not to make it seem like they are re-inventing Java, whereas in fact they are reinventing Java.

Just coincidental that Windows XP drops default Java support.

First, Java works fine in XP -- you just have to (automatically) download the VM or get it from Sun.

Secondly, the real advantage of .NET is that you can write in whatever language you want to and use components from other languages in your .NET programs. Those are hardly minor advances. Java has had a six-year head start, not to mention a vast amount of hype, and if it's the better technology, it'll hang in there. If developers like the .NET stuff better, they'll use that. In all likelihood, there will be a lot of different competing languages which will be good at different things. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.

Re:.NET good, not evil

[abigor]

Well, you can use any language that happens to look very similar to C#, and which has a CLR compiler. Take a look at some of the languages that have been ported to .NET, and you'll see what I mean. They are modified to look like C# with different syntaxes. Example: Smalltalk# (or whatever it's called). Forget about dynamic typing anymore. Basically, you can use any language so long as it's mauled to look like C# (static typing, etc.) This multiple-language thing is not a big win, really.

.NET according to Steve Ballmer & friends

[Foundryman]

It's interesting that I just got back from Chicago, where MS put on a release party for Visual Studio .NET to approximately 6,000 attendees, and find this article on Slashdot.

I don't think they ever gave a straight-forward definition that clearly stated that .NET is this and this. If they did then I missed it.
The show started out with a welcome message from the Microsoft Technology Evangelist...no, really, that was his title.
Next came Steve Ballmer who came out to work the crowd into a frenzy and tout all the things .NET could do. He introduced and chatted with several MS employees on some of the things .NET could do. I especially liked their comparison to Sun's J2EE Pet Store sample application. They've got this comparison available on the web at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/compare/default.asp
(I hope Sun posts a followup on Microsofts claims in this comparison)
After this they worked the crowd into another frenzy by randomly giving away three of the XBox games. Then they brought out some folks who gave success stories on implementing .NET. After three of these we broke for lunch and I went home, still not being clear on what .NET is, exactly.
All in all it seemed like I heard mention of several different items:

.NET

Visual Studio .NET

.NET Framework

.NET MyServices

.NET Server ...and probably some others I missed. I'm going to visit Microsoft .NET Defined and see if that helps clear anything up...

What .NET is...

[AdamBa]

Throughout its history, Microsoft has defined three platforms for application developers: DOS, Win16, and Win32. You could argue that COM is a separate platform or an extension of Win32, but the basic idea is the same. At every stage of the development of the personal computer, software developers have asked, "How do I write an application?"

And Microsoft has provided the answer: Here is the runtime model, here are the APIs you call, here are some tools you can use, here is how to get help if you have problems.

Now substitute a web of connected personal computers -- the Internet -- for a single one, and developers are still asking, "How do I write an application?" And Microsoft's answer is, .NET.

DOS provided very few services to application writers, but with the Windows APIs, things got more sophisticated: support for graphics, for printing, for various other input and output devices, and eventually for networking. These were filtered through a standard Microsoft-provided operating system to various third-party devices, each with their own device driver, which performed the actual work.

In the .NET world, the "API" will handle Internet-related issues such as password verification, price calculation, payment, and so on. The "operating system" will be a set of always-available Web sites that may then dispatch the actual work to third-party sites -- the "device drivers" in the .NET model.

That is an excerpt from a longer article which I wrote back in November 2000.

- adam

Re:.NET good, not evil

[mikec]

But it's not "any language". It's a collection of languages that are nearly isomorphic with C#. In fact, there are currently many more languages, and more diverse languages, targetted to the JVM than there are to the .NET VM. See, for example, this list, which contains about 160.

Re: FreeBSD

[nettdata]

Microsoft is developing a version of the .NET runtime and classes for FreeBSD. I have talked with the lead engineer of this project over e-mail, and he said that it's due to be out in late Spring. I asked him about the Windows Forms stuff, and he said it will be based on Tk (could someone explain the implications of this?). He also said that there are going to be very few UNIX-specific classes, but they hope people will develop those on their own.

I wonder why Miscrosft is developing a FreeBSD implementation? Could it be because substantial portions of Hotmail still runs on FreeBSD? If I remember correctly, MS has yet to successfully port all of Hotmail over to Windows. That being the case, I'd hazard a guess that it's a REQUIREMENT for them to do the FreeBSD thing.

I could be wrong, though. Anyone?

Re:.NET good, not evil

[jonabbey]

Yes, Roger Sessions' article does make that point, and the guy running that JVM languages page is quite honorable to link to the criticism.

However, saying that the JVM isn't a suitable substrate because a lot of the language tools written on it are experimental is sort of a non sequitor.

Re:Official Media from MS does not equal Legit

[clontzman]

This is Slashdot... who's producing commercial code? ;-)

Seriously, though, your point about legitimacy is well-taken and something was cavalier about originally. IF you're eligible, it's a great deal. If you're not, then it's illegal software.

Re:Mod parent up

[clontzman]

Default Java support is gone, which effectively kills it for recreational computer users (client end support, anyway).

Look, we're splitting hairs here about what "drops default Java support" means. To say that it drops support implies that the OS no longer supports Java. It does as long as you have a VM installed (which, again, happens automatically the first time you hit an applet).

Secondly, it's hard to argue that Java was particularly relevent to "recreational computer users" anyway. Very few desktop apps that "recreational" users depend upon are written in Java and applets are less common than ever, so what's the big? Look at it another way -- you get to choose your VM, and isn't choice a Good Thing?

I'm not sure what's "bull" about the fact that you can use multiple languages in the .NET CLR. You CAN. Yes, they have to be .NET aware, but isn't that kind of obvious? It's still a good idea and, by all accounts, it's implemented well.