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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.""
Pronunciation: 'net
Function: noun
Usage: often capital
Etymology: Middle English nett, from Old English; akin to Old High German nezzi net
Date: before 12th century
1 a : an open-meshed fabric twisted, knotted, or woven together at regular intervals b : something made of net: as (1) : a device for catching fish, birds, or insects (2) : a fabric barricade which divides a court in half (as in tennis or volleyball) and over which a ball or shuttlecock must be hit to be in play (3) : the fabric that encloses the sides and back of the goal in various games (as soccer or hockey)
2 : an entrapping device or situation
3 : something resembling a net in reticulation (as of lines, fibers, or figures)
4 a : a group of communications stations operating under unified control b : NETWORK 4
5 : INTERNET
Oh.. DOT net... how silly of me
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
I haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but they actually released the dev stuff for .NET. Article here
The main bone of contention that people have with .NET is the whole Hailstorm/Passport crap that MS is trying to push on us.
.NET itself is a very cool idea wherein any language can be used to write components that can be used by any other language. It's a means of allowing greater interaction between programs.
Hailstorm/Passport is an ill-devised way of online information management. With the amount of paranoia about this kind of stuff, the idea will be either flounder for a while or will be pushed as hard as possible. I think the former, but that's just me.
...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.
.NET have similar limitations, I wonder?
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
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I think this quality of .NET will make it popular among web developers. There is much money to be saved and labour productivity to be gained by not having to rewrite/port code from one language to another.
Bwahahahahaha...
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
At first sight I thought .NET were some little idea developped by MS, but it's seems quite big and complicated now ...
...
I wonder if they're only trying to get a bigger part of the NET and its users under control, or if they're planning something bigger
Life sucks.
I found the article well written and better than most news publications. The arstechnica guys are deligent about their research and try to be as object as they can. I personally found their review more object the than the recent batch of reviews. I look forward to the next installment covering the software of .NET, ie the servers and services portion.
.NET is mlife.
--G
Wow. 2 Slashdottings for us Arsians in such a sort span of time... I hope some of your guys get subscriptions to that site to help us with the bandwidth bill.. =D
.NET was something about subscription services and some set of servers... Now it all makes sense...
Back on topic, I can attest that this is a great article. Before, all I knew of
Great read!
Tim Dorr
Owner/Manger
A Small Orange
.NET is Microsoft's Web Services answer plain and simple, the problem is not too many people understand what Web Services entails.
.NET vs J2EE comparison is the fact that .NET was designed with web services in mind while J2EE has been playing catch up with it various Web Services extensions. I disagree with this view though. I look at it more as J2EE is more mature and has been around longer so that is why web services were not designed into from the begining. Second, I think it shows the power of J2EE that it can be extended in such a manner that works well with the existing platform. J2EE also has a much larger support for other types of protocols with existing enterprise systems. This allows systems to ease into the J2EE platform whereas with .NET you have to make the big leap and move everything into the .NET frame work leaving legacy systems.
One of black marks that J2EE gets in the
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the .NET is. You have to see it for yourself.
I was just wondering if anyone has yet used .NET for full integration of all services(as .NET was intended to do) and what are/were the results?
Any dismal failures?
There are some good .NET development books coming out now. Even O'Reilly has had one out for a while (which I have), so the publishing companies seem to be eager to sell .NET.
.NET framwork development tools, and it seemed much faster (probably because my hand-written code was much smaller).
.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.
Right now I am downloading the seven CD Visual Studio.NET Enterprise final version (yep, already warezed), a $2500 program. It even has a version of Visio bundled for doing application modeling, and that somehow automatically starts producing code, from what I understand. This is going to be interesting to try.
I have had the VS.NET Beta 2 for a few months, and it's generally easy to use, but very slow. I mean, a general "Hello World" application takes several seconds to compile, and also at least 3 seconds to execute! I have done the same thing using the raw
Microsoft is developing a version of the
When your friends ask, just tell them "It's a language-neutral Java knock-off..."
Why do people try to make it more complicated? Ok,
Others like to confuse the application that can be written by
The Platform != It's Applications
It's Simple: It's a Java rip off!
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Up until now, I really havn't given much of a damn about .NET because there have been so many conflicting definitions as to itz nature, purpose, present, or even itz future. It has been the equivalent of the computer world looking up in the sky at the clouds and calling each of the different shapes ".NET"... I'm surprised it took this long for everyone to step back and say "what the heck is this thing anyway"
It's a desert topping AND a floor wax. Or more likely it's whatever Microsoft needs it to be to spread FUD.
Gee thanks...this review has been there for over two weeks...and now someone creates a ./ item for it...is this a covert attempt to simply crash ARS because of some animosity on your part?
Thanks *sshole...now I can't browse my favorite technical site...
=8-(
Bwahahhahaha! This is a joke, right? Take a look at the article and you'll see why zones.com and the passport fiasco has very little to do with what .net is.
Another fairly good summary of .NET is Here.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
The article makes it sound like .NET is basically like Java. Java targets the Virtual Machine instead of a type of CPU or architecture, the article says that your compiler will make programs for the .NET runtime engine (virtual machine) .. I though .NET was was kinda like Gnome or KDE without the Window managers, just a framework and some libraries for writing programs. Isn't it supposed to be an API accessable from several programming languages? Maybe I'm the one that's confused!!
I've converted the Article into a Word Document that can be found here.
Wonderful article.
This article, rejected by Slashdot for this one I might suppose, has some thoughts regarding what other companies and groups think about .NET (Not exactly favourable) and mentions how other companies will be rolling out there own networks.
.Net servers.
I'm not sure how I feel about this statement.
Microsoft is developing its own Java-like language, called C#, and it has developed a tool that lets those familiar with Java use their knowledge to create Java-like programs for
The reality is, .NET is a platform to
produce NET enabled applications.
So is Java.
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.
So, all developers get another language to learn, harder than Java, and the public gets more fragmentation of the NET than before.
Whereas the technical details between the implementations may differ, both exist for only one reason - to provide net enabled applications.
If you look at the MS documentation, they pretty readily mention the language agnostic aspects of .NET, but I've *never* seen them mention the OS independant thing... Since they're essentially using bytecode, everyone assumes that .NET is platform agnostic, as well. But... so was Microsoft's implementation of Java. Which was not 100% cross-platform compliant. Now that the spec is in the hands of an organization that can't legally enforce 100% compliance, my question is, how does this help me as a developer? There's just as much opportunity for divergence as if I were using language-centric approach.
that's zone.com like I said in my post. Maybe you should have read my post. I felt like making a joke but couldn't think of anything funny about .net, because it might actually succeed in the enterprise, but only if they're all lunatics.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
IMHO, that is probably pretty darn accurate. Nobody knows exactly how just yet. Yeah, it sounds like I am paranoid, I have good reason to be.
Microsoft^H^H^H^Hpoly
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Programming Windoze for a living, I couldn't care less about language interoperability and all that hype. :)
It's neat. But that's it.
In my experience, language skills comes a distant second to knowing your OS.
What I really hope for are quirk-free class libraries, and bugfree APIs. I'd have to find a new job then, of course...
No sig to see here. Move along.
To be clear; MS did ship something called COM+ in Windows 2000, but it wasnt the COM+ project, it was just a bunch of bug fixes, the COM+ team did not make the ship date, but they had to ship something with the name for marketing reasons.
A detailed technical explanation of .NET, for those that were interested but were still to lazy to look at MSDN for themselves.
.NET is increasing and it will no doubt become the "standard" for Windows development. But, regardless of the promises and conceptual or theoretical "superiority" of .NET, I can't help but think that this is yet another layer of complication. Yet another standard is broken by Microsoft (C++ class inheritance for one). I predict that .NET will be the ire of developers of the future. It will make us long for the "simpler/better" days of MFC and COM.
;)
That said, the hype of
I think that I'll take a step back. From now on, all my development work will be done in QBASIC.
It is four bytes long. .COM and .ORG.
It is three US-ASCII letters preceded by a period.
It can also be written as 0x2E4E4554.
Or, 0x4BD5C5E3 in EBCDIC.
It has a total ASCII value of 277 (712 in EBCDIC).
Its checksum is 303cb0ef9edb9082d61bbbe5825d972a.
Goes great with
Alone, it gets blocked by the caps lameness filter.
Liberty in your lifetime
Stability before performance, every time.
Or he'd rather be writing, "The JIT produces fast code, but sometimes crashes."? Or, ".NET is vaporware, still three to five years on the horizon."?
The reviewer should recognize and applaud the focus of the developers. Because you know they were sitting around saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if we did this fancy optimization...". Instead, they put first things first.
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil," D.E. Knuth. Learn it. Live it.
This is a hard one! The good news is that the SAT has no guessing penalty.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Anyone who wants to develop for .NET needs to shell out at least $1,079 for Visual Studio. That's $1,079 more than it takes to develop in Java, and $1,079 too much.
How can Microsoft afford to shut out all the developers that don't have big corporations backing them? Why not at least give away the compiler and class library?
What is .NET?
.NET
.NET is your life made truly mobile. It brings you new, more wonderful ways of communicating with the people you care about most. It's wireless reinvented.
MS seems so fickle. It's like they keep developing tons of different "cool" things, and never make any of them very good, and keep making the same critical mistakes. ActiveX, COM, DAO, ADO,
ActiveX would dominate the Internet right now, if only it were an open standard. COM is neat and all, but only if you never want to run on anything but Windows.
By wasting their time constantly trying to force everyone else out of the market with closed standards, they gave up the chance to have their standards dominate the world.
This is why I think Mono is dangerous. Suppose we have support on Linux/BSD/Whatever for .NET, it really gives .NET a chance to get a foothold as an "open" standard, allowing MS the chance to later on embrace and extend their own standards
I wouldn't be very surprised if MS was really behind Mono in some way, maybe they finally did learn from their mistakes. I don't make deals with the devil, and neither should anyone else that values their freedom.
In theory, .NET is great. Microsoft is supposedly doing this to make development much easier. In theory, that is.
.NET is Microsoft .NET, not OUR .NET. As long as someone (be it Microsoft or otherwise) tries to push a "proprietary standard" (two contradicting terms, I am sure), such a "standard" can only divide the development community.
Personally, I think the idea of having a common environment is great--one source, one binary. Now, obviously this will never replace the old source + native binary combo altogether, but it will surely gain support in areas where speed and memory aren't critical (and with the relatively low cost of modern computers, it's going to become more and more common).
The problem, though, is that if we move to a common platform, it has to be a standardized and accepted platfrom.
Ambition is as much a vice as it is a virtue.
I've been a Visual Studio developer for a number of years, and I've done some testing with the Visual Studio .Net beta. The biggest problem I see with the new version is that they have changed a lot of things within the environment and within the languages, especially VB.
Not only has Microsoft changed the languages (VB) they have also changed how things connect together to build applications. You can't just drop a data aware control on a web form and set it's DataSource property to the data control on the same form. You can do it, but it won't work. Also, what's the deal with the help now being displayed in the same area of the IDE as the source code. I much prefer the older the help system were you could switch easily between the two screens.
Personally, I don't think Microsoft gave much thought to the current Microsoft developers, and they have changed how things work. This really pisses me off because one of the reason I liked Microsoft's development tools what the consistency between older products and the newer products.
I'm glad that I'm pretty much focused on Java development these days. I've always thought Microsoft had some very good development tools, but IMHO this version is very weak.
By now I commence to understand what .NET is all about : the CLR, the framework, the services, the language-independence.
.NET offer me that C++ libraries & frameworks such as MFC, Powerplant, cocoa and others don't (I know cocoa is mac only, but .NET was not intended to be cross platform, so that's not an argument)
.NET framework is basically MFC rewritten in C# with some additional stuff that they could have pumped into MFC or a lib.
Cool. Nice. Stuff to keep geeks busy is always good.
Where's the advantage for me : Joe Avrg. Programmer ? I mean : what does
Apart from the easy way to integrate authentication, I see little advantage for average programmers. Maybe behemoths like MS or Adobe can turn this tech into an advantage, but for stuff like hailstorm or passport, they could as well have written a library or simpler interface.
- The ability to call VB code from inside C# code ? Comeon... 99% of average programmers don't need that.
- garbage collection ? I have that with java
- frameworks ? huh ?
- CLR ? Still a mistery to me why that would be an advantage...
If anyone can shed some light on all this, I'd me darn thankful !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm amazed that more folks are screaming here.
...
MS's implementation of the CLI isn't alone. Aside from some MS-led effort to provide a version for FreeBSD,
WTH is this? MS is developing a version of CLI for FreeBSD? I can't believe they are using FreeBSD to circumvent Linux. What's worse is that I can't believe the FreeBSD people are going along with this. I guess someone forgot to mention that Free doesn't really go well with Monopoly...
How come more people aren't bitching about this? They use Apple to circumvent Sun and now are blatantly using FreeBSD to circumvent Linux and yet no one seems to care. I don't get it.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
I think you have a good cause to be paranoid. MS is trying to push out and control a new metalanguage. This process of elites defining new metalanguages has gone on throughout history. Almost all dictatorships pull this type of metalanguage crap.
Stepping up to the plate and defining a new language or changing the definition of terms is one of the oldest methods to oppress the people. When you work yourself in the position that you can redefine terms, the rest of the world becomes helpless. You gain absolute power. All you have to do is make a subtle shift in the definition, and it will throw your competition off their feet.
Look at how many times Microsoft has pulled off a redefinition of OLE. Each time they changed the definition weakened anyone using the the product.
Microsoft is not the only one guilty of trying to monopolize a market by defining a metatheory. Rational is basically a company that does nothing but play in the meta language games. Sun plays the same game with Java, etc..
Generally things go wrong with the elite redefine terms. Look at Enron. The elite new-economy accountants found clever ways to redefine liabilities. Poof, one day, all the idiots who invested in the company found their investments gone.
Other pathetic examples of meta theories happen all the time in politics--like Clinton's trying to redefine what "sex" with an intern means. Sorry about the rant. I just get sick of people who play definition games.
to say .NET is a Java rip off. Since C++, a lot of progress has been made in the theory and practice of computer science. Java took advantange of some of that(not all), and .NET just adopts some of the similar principals.
Java itself is by far not the cutting edge when it comes to programming language, and it's not like most of it hasn't been implemented in one language or another.
I'm excited about
And really, Microsoft.com is the only one that could manage to make this a reality. As much as I hate the company, I can't help but feel grateful that I'll finally be able to write apps in a nice high-level type safe garbage collected language and have that be the most well-supported method. (And if others start using high-level languages, maybe my computer will not crash so much, or have so many buffer overflow sercurity holes.)
(As an aside... I fucking hate when people (like the author of this otherwise good article) use the word 'whilst'. Just say 'while'. It's not like we live in Medieval Britain.)
Which goes to show that "language-neutrality" is a myth. The CLR can't even support VB without changing it into a C#-work-alike.
No one can be told what .NET is...
:-)
You have to see it destroy your privacy and then crash for yourself.
OK, so that is blatant trolling. Oh, but it was fun.
certron
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Ok, it's conspiracy theory time ;)
.NET) doesn't work too well with processors that rely upon the compiler to do most of the ordering of instructions. IA-64 happens to be an architecture of this type, by design in fact.
.NET strategy wouldn't play as nicely, and would possibly slow acceptance of the new architecture?
According to the article, JIT compiling (such as that used extensively by
Is it possible that MS saw the inroads the Non-MS OS's were making into IA-64 land and were gladdened at the coincidence (afterthought or no) that their new
Just a thought...
-johnthorensen
An interesting read was linked off of that Gnome guys discussion about .NET that was all rage for a bit.
.NET.
.NET or his training course?
Interestingly, I didn't know he (Bertrand Meyer) has created a training course on
Who knows which came first, his interest in
When viewing the front page of Slashdot just now, I saw a banner ad advertising Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. "This is a box. Now feel free to think outside of it."
I thought I'd never see the day. Microsoft has bought a banner ad on Slashdot!
For more information, click here.
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. .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: .NET. After three of these we broke for lunch and I went home, still not being clear on what .NET is, exactly.
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
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
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...
...and it has all the advantages of which you speak.
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
then go here. You can't beat Borland.
Then again, .NET and web services are destined to become the next great niche, but that's another story.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Could be they're being untruthful. Wouldn't be the first time. Although...
Maybe it is portable. Maybe it *IS* real easy to port. Maybe they already have it running on FreeBSD, linux, Solaris, and Plan9.
Doesn't mean they're release it for any platform other than windows...
I put my karma behind what I say, unlike you.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
There are quite a few posters and and pdf's that show a graphical representation of the core java class library. I've looked for something on the .NET side of things but have been unable to find anything. Anyone know of such a beast?
When I can copy Word from my Windows machine to my Linux machine and it runs, then I'll be fully convinced of the viability of the cross-platform CLR.
Also, it's decrying, not decreying. Oh, and there's no irony involved, Alanis.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
The author is confused about JIT compilers and virtual machines. A virtual machine is just a piece of software that executes programs in some machine-code-like language. It does not necessarily interpret the instructions. Indeed, almost all virtual machines compile to the local machine's instruction set at some point.
A JIT compiler is a technique used in virtual machine design to speed execution. Technically, a JIT compiler ought to compile code as it reaches it on the execution path for the first time, but thanks to some sly work by Symantec, its become acceptable to call something a JIT compiler even if it actually compiles all the code at load time regardless of whether it is executed or not. Hence the complaints about Java's startup time. Microsoft's efforts in this direction seem faintly bizarre to me. All previous evidence is that keeping compiled code around between runs is not worth it. However, I suppose since they only really support one platform, it won't really cause any problems.
C# is very much not "C++ for rapid application development". It's a completely different language, much more closely related to Java. While C# and Java share C++'s syntax, their underlying semantics are more closely related to Beta or Smalltalk.
As I would expect from someone who obviously doesn't know much about VM or language design, the author also makes far too much of the CL?'s cross-language abilities. While it has good support for implementing functional languages, as far as the much more important OO features are concerned, it is only going to work well for statically typed, single inheritance, single dispatch languages that don't need to do any code generation. Its is my contention that any OO language that can be implemented on the CLR can be implemented equally well on teh JVM.
You can write in "whatever language you want" as long as the language has been designed (or re-designed) to work with the CLR. You don't use VB with the CLR, you use VB.NET. You don't use C++, you use a bastard hybrid Managed-C++. You don't use Smalltalk or Scheme or Perl, you use something that's kind of like Smalltalk or Scheme or Perl. Not that big an advance, if you ask me.
.NET does to the internet what the WIN16/32 API did to the PC. Eventually establish a monolithic layer between you (your app) and your information (your hardware).
.NET was born.
.NET falls back to a windows-centric position that is now ready to go on Macs, 64 bit processors, and even XBoxes without modification.
Microsoft was trying to do this with COM, but was having trouble getting an interoperable binary standard going on anything other than an intel platform. Java showed them the solution to that problem, and thus
.NET's strength is that it will (supposedly) allow for the Java power of write once, run anywhere to developers, while still maintaining Microsoft's control as the middle layer (you go through us to get to your computer/information).
Everything else (web services, server apps, hailstorm, etc) are the initial attempts to capitalize on that power. (Rented apps, centralized data stores for everybody so they can see their MS Money statements from any computer in the world! type stuff) But it remains to be seen if that will be viable.
Either way, it's a win-win for Microsoft. If these services are accpeted, Microsoft gains the ability to not only control your hardware, but how you access your information as well. If full blown internet services don't take,
But other than THAT, developers are still locked to a whereever Microsoft goeth, I goeth... proposition.
- All in all I like it.
.Net stuff together with MS's patent on a "secure" computer that only runs DRM enforcing applications is all starting to come together. Perhaps they really are developing a .NET processor and a hardware public key hash checker making running non .NET stuff next to impossible. People will buy it because of the speed increase in applications.
- Will future processors be able to run the IL in some sort of protected mode?
- What scares me is all the public/private key signing. While this is good for preventing viruses, it makes hacking software (almost?) impossible. I am thinking of hacking a DVD player to play all DVDs from all regions (of course in DMCA free zones LOL), or just in general being able to make versions of a program work with an alternative library.
The more I think about it, this
The progress apparent in Java had mostly already been made by 1980, around the same time C++ was being created. The problems with C++ are a result of either ignorance or a deliberate decision to ignore those advances.
You can get an obfuscators for the intermediate language at www.wiseowl.com
Visual Studio - Enterprise Architect. Sounds like I need my PE.
erm..anyhow..
The past two days at work, I have been using that version of VS which comes with this month's MSDN subscription.
Most of the time I have been trying to figure out what happened to their data access...It used to be quite simple to hook up some data to a grid or control, but - jeez - I still haven't figured out how to do it simply, and I have built my own data provider controls before so I figure it shouldn't be this difficult.
As one poster mentioned, the compilation and execution of just a simple 'ello World program, with one form and button each took a couple seconds.
I tried out the WebForms for their new ASP.NET, no doubt this stems from experience in the last ASP, but it didn't seem intuitive to me. In fact, I could probably port existing ASP to PHP in a quicker fashion... On a side note, however, I attended a conference where they claimed to be running this on Apache instead of IIS.
I am not too impressed right now with this product... IMHO the best part about the product is the new VISIO. You can do database modeling/reverse engineering and it will generate the scripts, etc like ERWIN or Embarcadero.
I doubt we use this product for awhile at work, if ever.
help fill in hidden movie endings @ End of the Credits
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?
$0.02 (CDN)
.net is microsoft trying to gain control of the current java market in order to insure the continuation of their monopoly as people begin to develop more web based applications.
microsoft's entire reason for trying to dominate the browser market was to make sure they had a market share when web based programs became more dominate.
Now that they have a web browser market share, they see java as their uncontrolled downfall. solution: develop a replacement.
Pseudocode is code to demonstrate a concept, not designed to be run. Like certain M$ software.
I can sort of see what you're getting at, but I think you're taking a clever idea too far. As far as I can tell, redefining terms gives you no power whatsoever, let alone absolute power. Unless you subscribe to some extreme version of the sapir-whorf hypothesis (I don't). Please clarify your argument, because it doesn't make much sense to me right now.
I was surprised how often the main article preached .NETs language neutrality. .NET is certainly not language neutral. Heck, Microsoft had to neuter their own primary development languages in order to get them into it.
.NET. I mean, you can't be making the wrong decision if it supports all languages equally, right?
I can understand why they would restrict their framework to a single inheritance, single dispatch in order to be easily used from more languages, but they forbid both multiple inheritance and multiple dispatch in the virtual machine.
I suspect we are seeing the "language-neutral" lie pushed so heavily right now in order to convince people to choose
I'm sure a lot of us slashdotters have queried what this dot-net thing was. Anyone with a Hotmail account was aquainted with the chintzy logo in the upper-right corner. eBay is starting to suggest a 'Passport login', which so far has been the most that em-cash has seemed to provide. I've been to trade shows, Microsoft (free hardware swag for false info? that's a steal!)and non-Microsoft pitches and antipitches, and no one has provided an answer.
;)
:)
At least, a good one.
This overview is great from a technical angle (the one me and most slashdotters usually have interest in) and decent from a more mundane perspective (the one you pose as in an em-cash or other sales-derived presentation
It's hazardous to your health as a hacker. It looks like a great way to encapsulate any data in a format which is sufficiently protected under the DMCA. (Yet another reason for that law- and the 99 senators who ayed the vote- to be burned at the stake.)
It's also bad for anyone on a non-MS platform; two of the languages are extremely MS-centric, Visual Basic and C-hash (something that should only be done right before you smoke it).
It's bad - all right, worse - for Java fiends. Bad enough Microsoft feels Java is the worst thing to happen to it since the Wicked Witch of the West was introduced to the business end of a water gone, now they're pulling out all the stops with the theoretically embraced and extended J-hash.
Right now, I just wish there was a way to stop those pricks at Microsoft.. besides a HERF bomb in Redmond, WA
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
.NET Studio demo is on the CD of this month's MSDN magazine. Full version is also available for anyone with an MSDN subscription, which any software development company or division worth its salt already has. (yes, a real MSDN subscription is well more than $1,079, but well worth it for companies creating MS software)
Toodles
Toodles D. Clown
It's just branded as ".NET". If you want to log into a passport site, your browser must accept regular third-party cookies. If you want to use passport as your site's authentication mechanism, you must install Microsoft's own server-side software. Interestingly, they're making this available for many platforms (including Linux), because they know that most Web sites don't use MS servers. But it's different for each: it's a regular executable, no cross-platform compatibility.
Just because you have media from Microsoft does not make it a legitimate copy. I think you will also find that the student edition is not for the production of commericial code.
Buying the media cheaper is exactly the same as downloading it from a warez site, you just spent more money that someone who downloaded.
Go out and get sailing!
So... am I missing something, or is the whole idea of .NET to take away native software? Replace everything we currently run with a virtual machine? Yeah, write-once-run-anywhere _seems_ nice but am I the only person left on the planet who still wants software that's optimized and tuned to run on my hardware... not a generic VM?
I dunno. This just seems crazy to me. There has got to be a better way to do cross-platform software than what basically amounts to emulation. And in this case it makes even less sense... MS is naturally targeting this mostly at Windows, which is still pretty much a single-platform deal. So where's the benefit in using slow(er) bytecode as opposed to petal-to-the-metal, optimized native code? Argh...
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
Microsoft came out with .Net is because Sun invented java and java became popular for building a variety of small and large scale platform independent systems and was particularly good at internet related services. Microsoft needed a response.
.Net catches on in a cross-platform way, then Microsoft will be free to cut off the air supply of any non-windows ports when it feels like by changing the way the latest Microsoft implementations work - same as its always done.
.Net - just like they did with Windows 98 ME,2000,XP etc etc.
.Net, but the basic ideas come from Java - anyone remember a few years back when Billg had to dampen down enthusiasm for Java within Microsoft 'cos they wanted to use it throughout their core infrastructure because it was cool - well that enthusiasm has simply transformed into the .Net platform and architecture.
If
Look at examples of Microsoft's previous half hearted attempts at making its technology cross-platform - http://www.activex.org. Sure its different this time, Microsoft is betting the farm on
Sure there are a few nice features in
Its the same old story - technology invented elsewhere gets re-badged by Microsoft and sold as Microsoft innovation.
To (mis)quote a popular sci-fi series -
"It Java Jim, but not as we know it".
J.
JIT compilation raises some issues. One is that it demands resources -- memory and processor particularly. To solve this, MS have two JIT compilers: a normal one, that optimizes compiled code fairly well, but can be processor and/or memory intensive; and an "EconoJIT". EconoJIT might not optimize the code as well, but it'll require less memory and processor time to run.
I can believe that a JIT which does less optimisation will use less memory, but I don't believe it will run your code faster!
Tom
I have discovered a wonderful
... i'm wondering why it has to .SHOUT .AOL .STYLE
This whole "any language that you want" is vastly overrated. Especially since it is not even true....
Still, while .NET is largely a Java clone, and while it really isn't any more or less language neutral than the Java JVM, it is a big step forward for Microsoft and can only serve to improve the quality of Windows software.
There are plenty of C# intros out on the web (I especially liked the Ask Dr. GUI.NET series at MS, but they are being rewritten to reflect the release version of VS.NET), but O'Reilly recently
posted one that gives instructions on using the compiler/debugger that you can download from MS.
With those tools, one can begin to learn to program with C# without needing to fork over the big green for the new visual studio.
Just thought someone might be interested.
REQUIREMENT for them to do the FreeBSD thing
FWIW: Just because they code it doesn't mean they will release it.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
It's called ECMAScript, ECMA specification #262. Made by TC-39 as a vendor-neutral amalgamation of JScript and JavaScript. TC-39 is the group now working on C# and the CLI.
I think its Microsoft trying to be cool..... because that java thing went well... didn't it...
.NET it would allow people to develop one source, and simply release 2x binaries (or even just plain old bytecodeness). Then in the updated version of .NET v1.5 or 2006 or some TLA that breaks this compatability. Surely the halloween document must be part of the .NET initiative.
I dont. I think that this is an attempt by Microsoft to have an ECMA approved language that gets adopted by a wide range of programmers and projects for its semi decent merits. Why would they want to do this? Can anyone else remember the Helloween document? Was not is gist stating that Microsoft needed to muddy the protocols.
If for example Mono actually reach the v1.0 API spec of the
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
FYI: I'm paying $160 CAN$ (~$100 US) for my academic-priced Professional version copy. Maybe unfair to regular developers, but at least MS realises two things:
.... they'll be out very soon from third parties - like Borland, as was said in the VS.NET conference today.
... and I'm interested in seeing if that's actually possible.
1) Students are important seeds to sow.
2) Students barely have enough money to afford the student version.
As a result, I'll be programming in VB.NET and C#.NET this weekend.
On a side note, what MS is really selling is the IDE, and all of the nice integration with other tools. If you want a cheaper compiler and runtime, wait a bit
... or wait for Mono. I'm very excited about porting my Windows apps to Linux
----- rL
I read the article and a fair number of posts. What I took from the article none of the posts I read addressed. The .NET initiative is an attempt to implement improvement in areas of platform independence, abstraction, documentation and security. simple, n'est pas?
.NET. Can OS/FSF developers take the bait and not get hooked? Yes easily. But can they go toe to toe with MS in using the technology to win end users? End users don't care about OS wars or development platform niceties. End users want intuitive GUIs, stability, security, service. As long as the current desktop configuration remains the same old same old and the Standards provide a common ground from which to develop apps then OS/FSF will continue to close the gap until price alone becomes the prime criterion for the choice of end users. The question then arises will MS keep the initiative in the desktop GUI or can the OS/FSF communities look to steal the initiative?
The monopolistic market grab is a different strategy implementing C# as a tactic. My reading of it goes something like... establish the C# standard to gardener a wide developer audience then pull them in with the tools for developing
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Sweet jumping savior, how the hell did we get here?
I managed to get two pages into ArsTechnica's explaination of what .NET is, what it isn't, and why it will be used before my brain rebelled: "Great fuck, if people would simply stop schlepping shit around in proprietary binary formats, data could be imported or exported in any damn application that wanted to write the translation".
This would be different if .NET was talking about eliminating the concept of an application (document-centric computing). Hell no, it's a bunch of pointy-head nerds and pointy-haired MBAs adding another goddamn layer of nerd-cruft to everything under creation.
".NET has three packets of information: the IL, the Metadata, and the fuck-this-where-can-i-find-nudie-pics"... please, for the love of Mike (God wouldn't have anything to do with this, it's purely From the Other Side), let's not stop everything and reinvent the wheel. We had the chance to carefully think things through and do it right, back in 1990. We missed the opportunity, we're now stuck with what we've got. Hasn't anybody learned anything from Be? You can't go home again.
If .NET makes any fucking difference before it gets replaced with the Next Big Thing, I'll eat my damned crusty underwear. So far, I could grep for .NET and replace it with "Java", and timewarp my pasty white ass to 1997 when it was going to Save Us from platform-specific languages and Microsoft at the same time. I cut my balls off and drank the poison koolaid, but the fucking UFO hasn't poked it's nose out from behind Hale-Bopp yet, the shy fucking bastard.
Spare me the fucking story. You wanna know what the next great savior is gonna be? Sumbitch, he's already here, and Tim-Berners Lee is his prophet. It's the Church of the Holy Hypertext, and it's vessel is Mozilla. The Web lit up the world because it's simple, it's easy to learn, and it's powerful... and, sin of all sins, it's accessible. Nerds and secretaries are building web pages, because it's easy to do. You think Sally Secretary is gonna benefit from .NET's programming language independance? It's wonky new IDE?
Pfft. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will not make programming less hard. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will not change the way we access information. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will only slow down the spread of knowledge, because everybody's chasing down the next security bug in .fuckingNET instead of sharing what they know.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Well, java is around, but it doesn't have all the advantages of .NET. Mostly, it is missing the biggest OS vendor pushing its OS and development tools to the platform. Nobody else can do this but MSFT.
Also, Java is in a few ways not as good as the CLR. For instance, I can't efficiently target the JVM with other high level languages that I care about, like SML.
Why can't Sun see the writing on the wall and adapt, coopting some of the innovations Microsoft has surprised us with.
Take the JVM specification and broaden it. Add features that would more fully support the retargetting of other languages to the JVM. Provide better native libraries for GUI interfaces so we can produce GUI apps that don't require GHz machines to run well. And for christ sake, be prepared to sacrifice some of your freakin object oriented purity for performance every once in awhile.
The CLR is really just a more pragmatic JVM. It suggests best practices, and highly encourages them, but allows for backward compatibility and 'unsafe' operations if you think you know what you are doing, or have no other choice. It has more flexibility that the JVM and the java spec allow. This was always the crux of the disagreement MS and Sun had re: Java. MS wanted to allow the developers to chose, Sun thought they knew best.
-josh
And where are you getting this data?
I, in fact, also work at M$. Certainly, there are some people who are Ra-Ra, Microsoft Rules in all ways, etc. Perhaps more than another company, perhaps not (certainly I imagine many of the folks over at RedHat or at Sun proclaiming the absolute dominance of their products as well.)
However, a whole lot of folks at the company, I would claim to the majority (of devs anyway), are a little more agnostic as to these issues. Many of use for our own devices whatever technology makes the most sense (I use some Linux and some WinXP, some web sites I've written in PHP/MySql, some ASP.NET/SQL Server, depending on which technically made the most sense for the given purpose). Many of run Linux at home for some boxes, WinXip in others. Of course, at work for work projects you usually use the M$ solution (imagine telling people at RedHat that they had to use Outlook/Exchange in place of Linux servers- I'm not arguing that this would be a better solution, I'm just saying it would be out of the question).
Feel free to disagree with the company. I disagree with a big part of the way that the company does business. We talk, at work, about how certain MS business practices and technologies suck. I work there because I think some of the technology they do there is pretty cool. But certainly don't make generalizations about the employees, for which you obviously have little experience.
<rant>
There are so few people left who legimitately and objectively assess technology. The bias is ridiculous, reminiscent of the old Mac/PC flame wars. When you stretch that political bias from companies to generalizations about individuals (making them the "Other", a little psychological trick that allows us to feel ok about judging people), you've truly crossed the line.
</rant>
It's amazing to hear the lengths to which some Slashdotters will go.
Start with the mandatory MS bash, "Java ripoff", for example. Then start daydreaming about how nice it would be if the non-MS technology could someday become as good as the MS version.
What nonsense. If it's from Microsoft it's a ripoff of its predecessors. Otherwise, it's an advancement beyond its predecessors. Sure, that's "simple", in more ways than one.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Either someone is really pressing on them releasing a multi-platform .Net, or it's a Darwin thing. Or both.
.Net tools for Macs. It is part of their market, after all.
I wouldn't be surprised to see them selling the full
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
"I want to believe!"
.NET. It hasn't been proven yet, and there will always be those programmers who will swallow anything Microsoft puts out, with dubious cries of "Oh well, they're the biggest." What ever happened to judging things on their technical merits?
You admit that you have been fucked over by Microsoft, yet you are "grateful" that you can continue to get fucked over. OK...
Further down thread:
[Java] is missing the biggest OS vendor pushing its OS and development tools to the platform
Why is it important to go with the biggest OS vendor? The right tool/platform for the job, that's what I say. Personally, I'm very skeptical about
"It's Dot Com!"
Godwin's Law, you putz. Go finger yourself.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
.Net is not a standard, and it will never be a standard unless Microsoft gives up all control and turns it over to an industry consortium in which they are only one of many voices at the table. Does anybody really in their right mind see this happening?! Not a chance. So .Net will not be an industry standard. It will be a Microsoft proprietary wannabe-standard. When I say proprietary, I don't necessarily mean it will be un-documented. I mean that the only 'useful' and popular implementation will be available from M$ and it will NOT be free nor open software. All other implementations will fall short in the same way that OpenOffice is unable to emulate all the quirks in the Office file formats. That or certain features will be patented in the US or will require Microsoft's online services such as Hailstorm or .ASP or whatever to function.
.Net word processor when there's a better/faster/free one written in C/C++. No, I say we let the FUD in the popular media fly when it comes to .Net. Because when you really get down to it, it really is just another scheme to stranglehold the software industry.
So step back and ask, from a pure technical perspective, does it really accomplish anything with it's supposed CLI 'language/platform neutrality' that we can't already do today with Java--a well tested, well documented solution? Or here's another thought: do we really need platform independence in an Open Source world where software can be quickly ported and recompiled? Users are not going to pay for a
So there you have my opinion. Mod away! (-;
...not that it's inaccurate technically when it describes the particular technology, but that it tries to claim that what it describes is really ".NET". In fact ".NET" is whatever Microsoft calls ".NET", and at this point in includes CLR, framework, and existing implementation that is infested with Microsoft "technologies" tie-ins (COM, VB, C#) at the extent that, among the other properties, the whole thing absolutely certainly is unportable.
Another problem is, ".NET", and in fact, .NET framework, is being compared to Java, as if Java is the only thing that opposes it. My opinion is that Java sucks in its own right, and the only alternative that I accept is the lack of "framework" until the time when people will learn how to use existing tools, and develop models that actually produce a framework that benefits developer, and not just locks him into something that framework's authors think, will benefit them, or pamper their idiosyncrasies. My opinion on "frameworks" that exist today is here, and it fully applies to this article. There are millions of possible ways to build a very complex sand castle in software -- Java, COM, SOAP, .NET are only few of them, and without any doubt people will invent more. The problem is, no one needs sand castles, people need something they can live in, and kids on the beach need to grow up before they will be able to build houses. And some mentally deficient and whiny kids, such as Microsoft, are better kept away not only from building houses but sand castles as well.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
1) Will .Net appeal more to gearheads who want n degrees of flexibility with their development systems? One of the *strengths* of Java (and C it's been said) is that the language is very simple and very restricted.
.Net need to be as complex as it is, or does Microsoft make it more complex (with proprietary architecture and design) to make achieve greater buy-in with developers. It's potentially very lucrative to become a .Net programmer in the next few years. But when you've done so, you'll be a specialist in just a huge bunch of Microsoft technologies. You'll never want to leave, like an Oracle administrator who never goes on to do anything else.
Does
Or, do they make it that complex so that gearheads who like complexity will be attracted to it?
2) If the CLR can host many languages, will its restrictions affect how those languages can be used? Will they become just variations on a common theme? And will that be worse, in the long run, for the proliferation of languages with their own specialties, their own dialects, their own culture?
3) I don't know any Java programmers in the corporate world who will even look at this. I do suspect that a number of VB/(Visual) C++ programmers will love it, because they've been contrained in the last few years on web development using their current MS toolset. So, across the corporate/enterprise arena, we'll see more competition for large web development projects, possibly away from the J2EE fad we saw in the last few years. But maybe that will push more of the common development/architecture technologies for those applications become standardized and commoditized. And that could be good, given how expensive tools and components for the J2EE world are (and how those are a fraction of earlier enterprise technology costs).
P *ya*ya
"I honestly would vote libertarian if their candidates weren't usually total cooks."--slashdot poster
Here is one response I was able to find outlining the problems with MS's comparison...
.NET performance on a set of intel boxes (not sure of the specs) where the Oracle numbers came from a set of Sun boxes (also don't know those specs).
.NET LOC count.
The biggest problem is that they didn't re-run the comparison on the same hardware - MS measured
The other major problem is one I was able to guess right away when a recent MS rep came to talk at our company and told us about the comparison. Basically, the PetStore demo is an educational tool to help teach you how to deploy J2EE code and use various technologies - in no way is it built for speed. Meanwhile MS decided to move all access to data into stored procedures and even skip implementing some of the PetStore features not built around reading data quickly, like administration features (see article).
On top of that, when I asked the rep if the LOC count including the JSP pages, he said yes -so they were including HTML in LOC, which I'm not sure is true of the
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft is trying REAL hard not to make it seem like they are re-inventing Java
.NET Framework is Java knockoff. I have never heard or seen it printed that Microsoft denies the similarities. I've gone to a few MS sponsored events where the presenters (MS employees) reference the Java similarities, and mention that there is even a Java .Net compiler (J#).
.NET Framework. Not some evil empire borg. Real programmers like you and me. Smart guys. They obviously saw a lot of good in Java, and wanted to pursue development in that direction, so they offer a competing product with their own personal touch.
Please provide material to back up that statement. Any links to MS Press Releases, product copy, or training materials?
I keep reading all of these supposedly derogatory remarks that C# or the
Programmers built the
Isn't imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? AMD does the same thing with x86 processors, no?
This is marketing b.s.
.NET, SunOne is just another attempt by sun to stuff the other java players (like IBM), and as usual it is late.
java+apache is the java alternative to
I have already read at least five different people claim that C# is nothing but a java language rip off.
Fine, do this in C#:
public delegate float mathmatical_operation(float anum);
public event mathmatical_operation onFinish;
void domath()
{
float result;
if (onFinish!=null) result = onFinish(anumber);
return result;
}
BTW, that there works transparently over the internet as well. (This is really a series of callbacks and is symantically easy enough to make even the hell that is Windows messaging easy to deal with.
KDE Myth: Gnome is loosing, its dead, just use KDE.
What, exactly, would Gnome be "letting loose or releasing?" I'm afraid this statement makes no sense. Perhaps you meant to dispel the myth that Gnome is failing to win (whatever that means). If so, the word you were looking for was losing.
If you're going to go to all the trouble of throwing out flamebait, at least check your spelling/grammar. You have been participant #34 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.
Proudly correcting Slashdot's most irritating linguistic error since 2002.
notably including garbage collection.
.NET programs, using 1.1, 1.2., 1.3, and 1.4 of the same library... where the only difference is some function that none of the apps use anyway...
So... Microsoft is making a secure, clean, program with version control. Is that possible?
Since when has Microsoft done proper garbage collection?
Checking and enforcing security restrictions on the running code.
Microsoft + Security?
Loading and executing programs, with version control and other such features.
I keep getting visions of using four
"It is said that a million moneys banging away at a million keyboards for a million years would eventually reproduce the
...Of course the article is quite explicit about shared/compatible language typing.
What I find interesting is the support for Haskell (a functional language), which is nothing like C#.
Ahh, my favourite rhetorical recipe, the tautological soffle.
So let me get this straight. .NET is better then Java because MS makes it.
In fact MS products are better then anything else because MS makes them. If anybody else makes any other product it will automatically be inferior because "biggest OS vendor" is not pushing them.
I always thought VB programmers were idiots now I know.
War is necrophilia.
If this poster had read the original article more closely, he would have noticed a link to this page, which is the work of someone who actually took the time to closely analyze everything on the list at the site that the poster provided a link to.
A closer inspection of this list at tu-berlin.de reveals that the vast majority of the items listed are not actually claiming to be compilers that produce Java byte-code. They are merely tools or compilers or interpreters written in Java. Of the few which claim to produce Java byte-code, even fewer are actually available for use (some were abandoned before completion) or have any additional information available about them.
A handful of items in the list translate source code from language subsets into Java source code first, which you can then run JAVAC on to build actual byte-code. (For example, Canterbury claims to have such a thing for Pascal, Oberon-2, and Modula-2. There is also one for translating C code to Java code, and Fortran code to Java code. Perhaps the most promising and truly byte-code producing tools on the entire page are the assemblers at the bottom.
It is worth pointing out that this still doesn't make the JVM a language-neutral platform. (Again, see the discussion at http://www.objectwatch.com/issue_33.htm.) While there are ways of producing Java byte-code from other languages, you've still got to write all of your code in whatever single language you choose. For example, there's no good way on the JVM to implement a class in Modula-2 code and derive from it in Pascal code, or throw an exception in C code and catch it in Fortran code. i.e. You've still got to have language affinity on the JVM. Not so on the CLR.
D
Moderators, please mod the parent up. Sure it's an extreme opinion. This too is good if it is acknoledged as such. Seldom have I seen a post that manages to be so funny, insightfull, full of bile and honest all at the same time.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
"NET is a "software platform". It's a language-neutral environment for writing programs that can easily and securely interoperate. Rather than targetting a particular hardware/OS combination, programs will instead target ".NET", and will run wherever .NET is implemented."
.net run on all os's where .net is
So will programs incorperating directx which are written for
implimented or will they just run on microsoft os's ?
_________________________________________________
Sad, but true. C# and VB.NET are so close to isomorphic that choosing between them is mostly a matter of whether you prefer symbolic or "natural language" syntax. Notice the number of long-standing VB developers who are trying to work out the relationship between the tool they've been using until version 6, and the new .NET version.
In fact, from the article itself:
I think the key thing is that .NET really only supports one paradigm properly: single-inheritance OO. C# fits that description, VB.NET has been moulded to match it, managed C++ is forced into it. You get the idea. I know it's theoretically possible to use other programming paradigms from this foundation, but surely the question is how well they are supported and how efficiently they can be done, not what could be done with infinite time and resources available. (Insert obligatory reference to the thread about functional languages on .NET the other day here.)
Consider an obvious example: if .NET is reasonably language-neutral, where is the support for generics? C++ has had templates for years, and they are one of its most powerful features. Java has a proposal that doesn't go as far as C++ templates, but does add parameterised type support to a fair degree. (Anyone know if that made it into 1.4 in the end, BTW?) In ML, functions are implicitly generic unless you specify otherwise. If .NET doesn't support such a fundamental feature, then it's immediately dropped an important aspect for all these languages.
Of course, how important the omissions are depends on your programming style. If you don't use generics, then this particular example is no loss to you. But it should be noted that the current trends in programming-language research are considerably ahead of single-inheritance "pure" OO designs. If .NET can't cope with multiple paradigms and newly developed idioms, it's not going to be leading edge for very long. The power of generic programming, functional programming and other completely separate idioms is being exploited in research already, and has been for some time. I don't think it will be long before they start hitting the maintsream, and then the limitations of .NET's architecture may be its undoing.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Well, except for templates, multiple inheritance, free functions, most of the standard library (which is templatized), and various other less significant but still important limitations.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
One thing I'd not picked up until now is the use of public-key crypto to protect the APIs of software components (assemblies as they've called them). If I read it correctly, a piece of software will only link to components whose public keys it carries, so rather than just verifying interface compatability the CLR will verify that you're actually linking to the piece of code you developed against. This is probably considered a good thing.
.NET and release it. Does that mean that in order for Mono to run Word they'd need to re-implement all the .NET framework APIs and disable the cryptographic check to fool the code into working?
This presumably also prevents people from writing compatible reimplementations of an assembly without a client program's co-operation. That's quite a major shift from previous systems (for example, you can replace and Java class by just overwriting the class file with a compatible replacement, and I believe the same's true with COM). Pretty useful if you want to prevent people from competing with you by producing compatible products.
So, let's say that Microsoft rewrite Word using
-Mark.
No...
.NET more than the JVM is that I don't actually have to program in Java or C#, which I think are pretty mediocre languages.)
.NET will actually be widespread because MS makes it. That is a point in its favor. Java is fine, but it doesn't have the level of acceptance that it'd need before I would use it as my platform for a big project. (One other reason I like
I think it's pretty sloppy to characterize me as a MS-lover and VB programmer because I think one of their technologies is good. In fact, the only MS product I prefer over the competitors' is Windows XP.. I think I prefer Apache over IIS, LaTeX over Word, gcc over VC++, etc. (And I haven't programmed in QB for 10 years...)
... that, after that many tries to explain what .NET is about, it doesn't seem clear to almost anyone.
.NET, so that they offer it... pretty clever roadmap!
Might be that, in the end, what they really want is the crowds to shout what THEY want from
(Just kidding, guys)
Don't Panic...
".NET is also the collective name given to various bits of software built upon the .NET platform. These will be both products (Visual Studio.NET and Windows.NET Server, for instance) and services (like Passport, HailStorm, and so on)."
is misleading. Visual Studio and Server are not built on .NET, one is a dev environment and one is an operating system. Hailstorm is a ".NET application" and that type of application is the reason for .NET.
I could be wrong of course. Maybe .NET will turn out to be just a new runtime model...which seems a big waste of an opportunity. The only real advance I can see is that it gives Microsoft a chance to redo all their libraries so they do security checks...which is very topical, but doesn't seem worthy of all the hype about .NET
- adam
Maybe I am missing something....
Was not "C" designed to be platform indepent!!!!!
Talk about inventing the wheel!!!!!
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Or at least confusing. A JIT compiler is simply a technique for implementing a VM. Technically, a VM is a defined bytecode and data model, *not* a piece of software. To say that VMs always interpret is a terrible misrepresentation. Several languages - those that invented "JIT" technology, such as Smalltalk and Lisp - have referred to systems involving bytecode to machine language conversion as VMs since the very beginning. I don't see any reason to change that terminology now. Several MS representatives have referred to the CLR as a VM. Now stop confusing the issue.
You're wrong on the other point too. The CLR specifically supports the type system described by the CTS. IL's instructions operate specifically on those types. You can, of course, implement any set of language semantics you like, but it won't necessarily be either efficient or worthwhile. Why else do you think Meyer has cut Multiple Inheritance and covariance entirely out of Eiffel# ? The same goes for C++: only "managed C++" (C# that looks like C++) actually compiles to the CLR as a target, and guess what ? Managed C++ does not support multiple inheritance.
You really should learn what you're talking about before "explaining" it.
And I thought it was a simple statement of fact. Technology X existed at time Y. Language Z was invented at time Y+1. Language Z did not include technology X. Ergo, either the inventors of Z were ignorant of X, or chose not to use it. Its not exactly difficult. Take a day off and work it through for yourself.
What are you going to program in .NET? VB.NET? Eiffel#? I think that's all that's available now. Give me a break. You are fucking idiot if you choose your languages and technologies based on "biggest vendor" and "level of acceptance". Java has probably the biggest pool of developers in the world you fuckhead. I know of very few corporations that don't have at least one or two serious java apps. "level of acceptance" my ass. You are an ignorant, stupid, childish little boy.
War is necrophilia.
Yikes..
I plan on using SML.NET. Plenty of SML implementations exist, but none let me write win32 apps without lots of pain.
I certainly don't choose my languages based on the size of vendors and level of acceptance. In fact, I hate when other people do that too, since I am somewhat of a language lover. I'll reiterate: the main thing that
As for your assertion that I am ignorant.. well, maybe I am naive about the real world, but I do know a lot about programming languages. I'm currently working on my PhD in them, actually. I'm sure you are sad that
If you are a phd candidate then please tell me your university. If they are willing to hand out PhDs to nincompoops like you I want to sign up too.
.NET implementation. "
.net implementation. Maybe some day there will be one but I'd venture to say it will be exactly like the the version of IE for solaris and the version COM for solaris, just about useless and outdated by several years.
.NET and C# will likely (well, who knows?) "
"I certainly don't choose my languages based on the size of vendors and level of acceptance"
I guess your last two posts mentioning the size of vendor and the level of acceptance were just lies then right?
"That will let me program for Windows (or linux, or whatever) in whatever language I choose, providing it has a
Right now there is no linux
"I'm sure you are sad that
.NET and C# will be used by the same people who use VB now. They will be used to build windows apps. Java will still be used to build apps that need to work on multiple operating systems. Nothing will change.
BTW. Yes you are still stupid idiot.
War is necrophilia.
The university is Carnegie Mellon University.
> I guess your last two posts mentioning the size of
> vendor and the level of acceptance were just lies
> then right?
No, I'm saying that a high level of acceptance and backing by a large vendor are good qualities, but that they hardly drive my language choice. This is clearly evidenced by my choice favorite language, SML, which is neither widely accepted or backed by a large vendor. Maybe I was unclear. What I am excited about is the likely popularity of the platform (essentially the CLR) so that I can target it with more interesting programming languages.
> Maybe some day there will be one but I'd venture
> to say it will be exactly like the the version
> of IE for solaris and the version COM for
> solaris, just about useless and outdated by
> several years.
Since
Malcontent, you're not making a very good argument. In particular, the attacks against my person rather than my ideas are childish and irrelevant. Others reading your post must think you have some kind of vendetta against me. What is up with that?
Normally I like the ArsTechnica stuff, and this one was good in that it separated out managed code and managed data (mosts people shmoosh them together), but this one had tons of annoying technical innaccuracies. They bugged me so much I posted a rebuttal here.
What I have against is that you you are moron. A nonsensical moron at that. First you say you choose .net because it's backed by the biggest vendor then you say that does not matter. you say silly stupid things like "Since .NET is actually documented, I think there will be plenty of people wanting to maintain a port to linux" which makes no sense at all. There is no port of .NET for linux. They may be one for freebsd but that's a big question mark. There is mono but it's two years behind .NET. The important parts of .NET is not only copywrighted by MS they are also patented. Those parts will never be duplicated.
Think before you speak or at least do some research for christ sake.
War is necrophilia.
I think I made it clear that I value widespread acceptance in a platform, but that it is not my only consideration. It's not even my primary consideration, though I don't know any mature platforms that can even hold up to
If you can't understand my posts, I guess it's not worth talking to you. Later.
PS. You mean "copyrighted", not "copywrighted"!