Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the where-do-we-go-from-here dept.
Ashcrow writes "EWeek has posted an article on Microsoft's .NET initiative. It's been three years since we were first introduced to .NET and virtually none of the promised advantages have come true. Is it time for Microsoft to move on?"
It takes insight to notice these things take time.
by
Sheetrock
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Very few of today's Internet standards were recognized even within three years as standards. Usenet took seven before it became ubiquitous, IRC took at least four (with DCC still not part of the spec), and even the WWW took six. Remember, it was fundamentally a revision of Gopher technologies, which in turn were an iteration of something else (Archie?)
Most of.NET was puffery, to be sure (I read a piece on MSDN more or less admitting this), but that's largely because it was a working title given to a number of next-generation technologies that may or may not pan out, many of which haven't been released. You can't really consider C# or Hailstorm to have been around and competing for three years, can you?
--
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try. -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Woe betides us once more: brace yourselves for another flood of misinformed, biased and downright incorrect assertions from both sides of the fence. Please, no "c# is java", ".net is slower than java" or other such empty statements. If you've worked with.NET for 6 months plus (remoting/asp.net/interop/ado.net), great. We welcome your comments. Perl monkeys need not apply.
Likewise for you "java" programmers out there who in actuality have only ever compiled one applet, and it was a recompilation of a decompiled shareware scroller that you removed the copyright notice from. Well done. On the other hand, if you've solid experience developing beans, rmi and other such projects, we also welcome your comments.
The rest of you shut up and learn.
Rant over.
- Oisin
--
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
all about the Benjamins
by
AssFace
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
say the words "dot net" and you get to add so much to the cost of projects that it immediately makes it worth it to switch over.
that is the only reason I could see why.NET might ever catch on. I'm not saying it is a useless bit of technology, I'm just personally partial to using any number of existing technologies that do the same thing and are cheaper to implement.
my current employer is retarded when it comes to computers and they paid someone to do a very basic web project in "dot net" because there was a general misunderstanding in the difference between the domain and the programming structures.
In the end it cost them a ton and now it is costing them more to maintain. I am trying to get them to port it all over to a much lighter system (php on linux or freebsd), but they are currently not interested.
--
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
.Net a complete success
by
tanguyr
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
.Net was (and still is) a marketing ploy to counter the sudden gains in mindspace being made first by Sun with J2EE and later by "web services" in general. Judging from the fact that most PHBs have heard about it it seems to have worked quite well - the fact that they (or, it seems, almost anybody) have no idea what it does it besides the point. As long as MS is still getting column inches ("comparing.Net to Crack Cocaine" or whatever) then it's working for them just fine, thanks. This isn't anything new - MS practically invented the word "vapourware" back in the 90's. I'm not saying.Net does nothing, i'm saying that the engineers got there after the marketing department and the advertising budget.
/t
-- #!/usr/bin/english
Speaking for myself
by
m00nun1t
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
As a pretty experienced web developer, I've worked at some level (some more than others) with most of the popular platforms: ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, JSP and ASP.NET (very little perl, which I've always regretted if just for completeness).
From that perspective, ASP.NET just totally rocks my world. I can debug more easily. Performance is better. It encourages good architectural practices. And my productivity has gone through the roof - I haven't done any formal tests but based on personal experience I'd say I can develop at *least* 30% faster with ASP.NET compared to any other platform, possibly more. The difference is most pronounced in more complex systems where it really shines. For less than, say, a thousand lines of code it probably doesn't save as much time, but I rarely work on that anyway.
So, maybe.NET has "failed" and maybe not, but for me, ASP.NET has improved my working world radically. Don't knock it till you've tried it.
.Net was never clearly defined
by
cait56
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Three years in and I believe it is fair to say that most
people do not understand exactly what.Net is --
other than a vague "trust me" monolithic solution.
Which I believe is the core of its problem. While there
are some fools who will buy anything that fill in
the name of their favorite supplier offers, more
of the market wants to make decisions for themelves.
From the little I've had time to study.Net, there were
a few aspects of it that were indeed superior to what
had proceeded it on the market. But the information
to make a cohesive strategy was just missing. What
if I liked the characteristics of the run-time engine,
but needed to stick with CORBA interfacing?
The most telling flaw in the strategy, for me, was
that you could find entire racks of books on.Net.
But absolutely none that explained the basic wire
protocols used. They were all "How to Program a.Net application inside one box using language Y".
When I'm designing a system, the language used
on each box is the last detail that I
consider. I want to understand the interactions
of the remote systems, how dependent they
are on each other, how they evolve seperately,
how the failure of one will affect the others, etc.
Re:.Net was never clearly defined
by
cait56
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
On a point-by-point comparison,.Net frequently is superior to Java. It falls short on the fundamental
points you raise: interoperability, and more importantly
seperability. Using Java you know exactly which technologies you are embracing, and which you
are leaving out. Java/XML, Java/RMI, Java/Corba...
It's all your decision.
The other feature that.Net has is superior native execution,
it was designed to be translated to native code. The.net
virtual machine is better defined than the JVM is. But I
agree that on whole, the tradeoff is not worthwhile.
Re:You are kidding, right?
by
Michael+Hunt
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You, Sir, are a troll:)
Albeit, a very good troll in that you ALMOST had me going until I read point 4. Upon rereading your other points:
1) 'Single-source logons' are a function of AD/Kerberos under 2000/2003. In a corporate environment, they give you all the benefits you're claiming that.net does. The '.net passport' stuff hasn't really taken off (is anybody apart from hotmail and msn using it?)
2) How does this have anything to do with.net? Remote access is a function of authentication (AD/KDC as above in a 2000/3 environment) and security (leased line or 'VPN'.).net has nothing to do with the latter part of the equation.
3) Since the various.net RPC mechanisms use a more verbose protocol than traditional MS/DCE RPC calls, I fail to see how this could be the case, unless you're using the 9/10 of your TCO saved in (5) to buy bigger pipes.
4) My windows 2000 servers at work usually only get a reboot when someone installs a hotfix. Since the patch lifecycle is test->uat->production, we have ample warning for this. Uptime, on average, is around 5-6 months. These machines are everything from AD controllers supporting thousands of users, to RDP/MS TS boxes with 50-odd users each.
5) correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't.net more expensive, being subscription based? I realise that this isn't the whole of the TCO equation, but windows servers are windows servers, and no amount of point and click window dressing is going to reduce the amount of manpower required to run systems well.
I'm no Windows apologist (check my posting history,) but surely your argument is bunk:P
.NET = Windows API 2.0
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
.NET has little to do with anything.NET. It's a new Windows API designed to turn Windows into a virtual machine like Java so it can be architecture independent. That's what CLR and C# and all the rest of that stuff is about. It's about MS getting off x86-32 and into a larger world of ia64, amd64, and maybe even ppc64. CLR is the new Windows runtime. Once the move is complete, Windows will be able to run on anything and apps will not have to be recompiled at all. This will make Windows more portable than *nix.
Re:Reality is quite nice though
by
FatRatBastard
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Agreed about technology vs marketing hype, but there's something about.NET that has bothered the hell out of me. They technology (or at least the hype around it) is at odds with the business reality at MS.
MS claim that.NET will be open and cross platform, but the only way this can happen is if cross platform means "across *our* platforms."
Currently MS makes the bulk of their money from the OS and Office. If they truely made.NET cross platform (or let something like Mono take hold) then that starts to eat into both their server and desktop base. I mean, why would anyone pay MS $$$ for each desktop / server if you could choose between *BSD / Linux / VMS / Un*x / et al? For instance, if I had cycles to burn on an IBM mainframe it would make sense to host my.NET services on it, assuming it was truely cross platform.
So basically I fail to see how MS could inplement a businees plant such that.NET would generate more money than the potential loses from the hit they'd take on server / desktop licenses.
Again, MS makes (prints???) money by selling OSs and Office (everything else is just a rounding error). You can be damn sure they're not going to do anything to threaten that cash cow. The interesting thing will be how MS ties.NET to its own OSs. The big draw about web services is that they're supposed to facilitate easier communication / data sharing between disparate systems.
Without a doubt, the latter of the two was far superior in every aspect, INCLUDING EASE OF USE. PHP has got to be the easiest freakin language ever
A lot of things are "easier" than ASP.NET/ADO.NET coded using an OOP language. For simple things you're better off using something like PHP or ASP/VBS. Of course when project complexity reaches a certain point you'll start to find real advantages to going with a modern approach that seperates the presentation layer from the business layer. Of course taking this approach can make writing a simple application seem daunting, but in the long run it pays off.
It has a lot to do with simply knowing what sort of application you're going to be writing and picking the proper tool for the job.
Apache trumps IIS with the ability to do the majority of configuring with one file, instead of having to browse through a maze of tabbed windows with options, checkboxes, pop-up boxes, etc.
Totally. 100% agreed. Much easier to administer Apache via it's text configuration IMO.
It is far from time for them to move on. Longhorn will be entirely.NET based. The latest betas already have explorer.exe running as.NET managed code. The old, crufty Win32 that Slashbots loved to bash is finally being replaced, and all Slashbots can do is find new ways to complain.
This is just Slashdot getting its weekly naysaying in..NET is coming and will be here to stay with Longhorn, and enough people like.NET to have started work on a version for Linux.
If its time from Microsoft to move on from.NET then its time for Sun, IBM, Oracle, etc to move on from J2EE.
That's one company with the one technology, and three companies plus "etc." with the other. Wouldn't it make more sense for Microsoft to drop.NET and join everyone else with J2EE?
Slashdot Mirror
Most of .NET was puffery, to be sure (I read a piece on MSDN more or less admitting this), but that's largely because it was a working title given to a number of next-generation technologies that may or may not pan out, many of which haven't been released. You can't really consider C# or Hailstorm to have been around and competing for three years, can you?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Woe betides us once more: brace yourselves for another flood of misinformed, biased and downright incorrect assertions from both sides of the fence. Please, no "c# is java", ".net is slower than java" or other such empty statements. If you've worked with .NET for 6 months plus (remoting/asp.net/interop/ado.net), great. We welcome your comments. Perl monkeys need not apply.
Likewise for you "java" programmers out there who in actuality have only ever compiled one applet, and it was a recompilation of a decompiled shareware scroller that you removed the copyright notice from. Well done. On the other hand, if you've solid experience developing beans, rmi and other such projects, we also welcome your comments.
The rest of you shut up and learn.
Rant over.
- Oisin
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
say the words "dot net" and you get to add so much to the cost of projects that it immediately makes it worth it to switch over.
.NET might ever catch on.
that is the only reason I could see why
I'm not saying it is a useless bit of technology, I'm just personally partial to using any number of existing technologies that do the same thing and are cheaper to implement.
my current employer is retarded when it comes to computers and they paid someone to do a very basic web project in "dot net" because there was a general misunderstanding in the difference between the domain and the programming structures.
In the end it cost them a ton and now it is costing them more to maintain. I am trying to get them to port it all over to a much lighter system (php on linux or freebsd), but they are currently not interested.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
.Net was (and still is) a marketing ploy to counter the sudden gains in mindspace being made first by Sun with J2EE and later by "web services" in general. Judging from the fact that most PHBs have heard about it it seems to have worked quite well - the fact that they (or, it seems, almost anybody) have no idea what it does it besides the point. As long as MS is still getting column inches ("comparing .Net to Crack Cocaine" or whatever) then it's working for them just fine, thanks. This isn't anything new - MS practically invented the word "vapourware" back in the 90's. I'm not saying .Net does nothing, i'm saying that the engineers got there after the marketing department and the advertising budget.
/t
#!/usr/bin/english
As a pretty experienced web developer, I've worked at some level (some more than others) with most of the popular platforms: ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, JSP and ASP.NET (very little perl, which I've always regretted if just for completeness).
.NET has "failed" and maybe not, but for me, ASP.NET has improved my working world radically. Don't knock it till you've tried it.
From that perspective, ASP.NET just totally rocks my world. I can debug more easily. Performance is better. It encourages good architectural practices. And my productivity has gone through the roof - I haven't done any formal tests but based on personal experience I'd say I can develop at *least* 30% faster with ASP.NET compared to any other platform, possibly more. The difference is most pronounced in more complex systems where it really shines. For less than, say, a thousand lines of code it probably doesn't save as much time, but I rarely work on that anyway.
So, maybe
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Three years in and I believe it is fair to say that most people do not understand exactly what .Net is --
other than a vague "trust me" monolithic solution.
Which I believe is the core of its problem. While there are some fools who will buy anything that fill in the name of their favorite supplier offers, more of the market wants to make decisions for themelves.
From the little I've had time to study .Net, there were
a few aspects of it that were indeed superior to what
had proceeded it on the market. But the information
to make a cohesive strategy was just missing. What
if I liked the characteristics of the run-time engine,
but needed to stick with CORBA interfacing?
The most telling flaw in the strategy, for me, was that you could find entire racks of books on .Net.
But absolutely none that explained the basic wire
protocols used. They were all "How to Program a .Net application inside one box using language Y".
When I'm designing a system, the language used on each box is the last detail that I consider. I want to understand the interactions of the remote systems, how dependent they are on each other, how they evolve seperately, how the failure of one will affect the others, etc.
You, Sir, are a troll :)
.net does. The '.net passport' stuff hasn't really taken off (is anybody apart from hotmail and msn using it?)
.net? Remote access is a function of authentication (AD/KDC as above in a 2000/3 environment) and security (leased line or 'VPN'.) .net has nothing to do with the latter part of the equation.
.net RPC mechanisms use a more verbose protocol than traditional MS/DCE RPC calls, I fail to see how this could be the case, unless you're using the 9/10 of your TCO saved in (5) to buy bigger pipes.
.net more expensive, being subscription based? I realise that this isn't the whole of the TCO equation, but windows servers are windows servers, and no amount of point and click window dressing is going to reduce the amount of manpower required to run systems well.
:P
Albeit, a very good troll in that you ALMOST had me going until I read point 4. Upon rereading your other points:
1) 'Single-source logons' are a function of AD/Kerberos under 2000/2003. In a corporate environment, they give you all the benefits you're claiming that
2) How does this have anything to do with
3) Since the various
4) My windows 2000 servers at work usually only get a reboot when someone installs a hotfix. Since the patch lifecycle is test->uat->production, we have ample warning for this. Uptime, on average, is around 5-6 months. These machines are everything from AD controllers supporting thousands of users, to RDP/MS TS boxes with 50-odd users each.
5) correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't
I'm no Windows apologist (check my posting history,) but surely your argument is bunk
IHBT. IHL. HAND.
You're doing it wrong.
.NET has little to do with anything .NET. It's a new Windows API designed to turn Windows into a virtual machine like Java so it can be architecture independent. That's what CLR and C# and all the rest of that stuff is about. It's about MS getting off x86-32 and into a larger world of ia64, amd64, and maybe even ppc64. CLR is the new Windows runtime. Once the move is complete, Windows will be able to run on anything and apps will not have to be recompiled at all. This will make Windows more portable than *nix.
Agreed about technology vs marketing hype, but there's something about .NET that has bothered the hell out of me. They technology (or at least the hype around it) is at odds with the business reality at MS.
.NET will be open and cross platform, but the only way this can happen is if cross platform means "across *our* platforms."
.NET cross platform (or let something like Mono take hold) then that starts to eat into both their server and desktop base. I mean, why would anyone pay MS $$$ for each desktop / server if you could choose between *BSD / Linux / VMS / Un*x / et al? For instance, if I had cycles to burn on an IBM mainframe it would make sense to host my .NET services on it, assuming it was truely cross platform.
.NET would generate more money than the potential loses from the hit they'd take on server / desktop licenses.
.NET to its own OSs. The big draw about web services is that they're supposed to facilitate easier communication / data sharing between disparate systems.
MS claim that
Currently MS makes the bulk of their money from the OS and Office. If they truely made
So basically I fail to see how MS could inplement a businees plant such that
Again, MS makes (prints???) money by selling OSs and Office (everything else is just a rounding error). You can be damn sure they're not going to do anything to threaten that cash cow. The interesting thing will be how MS ties
Without a doubt, the latter of the two was far superior in every aspect, INCLUDING EASE OF USE. PHP has got to be the easiest freakin language ever
A lot of things are "easier" than ASP.NET/ADO.NET coded using an OOP language. For simple things you're better off using something like PHP or ASP/VBS. Of course when project complexity reaches a certain point you'll start to find real advantages to going with a modern approach that seperates the presentation layer from the business layer. Of course taking this approach can make writing a simple application seem daunting, but in the long run it pays off.
It has a lot to do with simply knowing what sort of application you're going to be writing and picking the proper tool for the job.
Apache trumps IIS with the ability to do the majority of configuring with one file, instead of having to browse through a maze of tabbed windows with options, checkboxes, pop-up boxes, etc.
Totally. 100% agreed. Much easier to administer Apache via it's text configuration IMO.
It is far from time for them to move on. Longhorn will be entirely .NET based. The latest betas already have explorer.exe running as .NET managed code. The old, crufty Win32 that Slashbots loved to bash is finally being replaced, and all Slashbots can do is find new ways to complain.
.NET is coming and will be here to stay with Longhorn, and enough people like .NET to have started work on a version for Linux.
This is just Slashdot getting its weekly naysaying in.
"Sufferin' succotash."
That's one company with the one technology, and three companies plus "etc." with the other. Wouldn't it make more sense for Microsoft to drop
Always keep a sapphire in your mind