Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Developers Respond To .NET Criticism
bonch writes "Richard Grimes of Dr. Dobbs Journal wrote an article entitled Mr. Grimes' Farewell, in which he discusses what he feels are inherent flaws in .NET, and how he is abandoning his .NET column. Grimes argues that .NET is merely thin wrappers to Win32 calls (Avalon uses message functions that date back to 16-bit Windows), that Microsoft has abandoned confidence in both .NET and sales of Longhorn, and that the framework itself is too large and poorly implemented, most of it ported from past APIs like WFC and VB. Dan Fernandez, Microsoft's Visual C# Project Manager, has responded in his blog. Richard Grimes appears in the comments to defend his criticism, referencing first-hand disassembly of .NET APIs using ildasm. Scott Swigart has also responded to the criticism of Visual Basic .NET. Apparently, Mr. Grimes struck some nerves."
Point. Woosh - that's the sound of you missing it completely.
The problem being described is that by being "merely thin wrappers to Win32 calls" it is simply papering over the enormous cracks and legacy rubbish that is the current Win32 architecture when there was an opportunity here to break free of that all and start with a new, clean, functional and efficient environment for the 21st century.
I don't deny that Microsoft have done a good job in the packaging, but as the old saying goes, however hard you try, you can't polish a turd.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Props are due.
.NET was only supposed to fool the Windows Java developers to give up on Java.
Hardly anyone ever mentions that little tidbit anymore as it was assumed (correctly) from the beginning that
Everyone else saw through the thin veil.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
The one thing Microsoft has been consistently bad at is developing nice clean APIs. They often provided very good tools to help you cope with the sheer ugliness of their APIs but MS never managed to create an API that felt natural to use.
I had high hopes with
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
1. I write a .Net application. .Net compatibility. (it's a thin wrapper after all)
.Net library.. but the whole system is still a solid improvement over MFC et al. IMHO
2. Microsoft rewrites Windows, ejects the old API but keeps
I don't have to rewrite my application (not even recompile it), while MS can fix their low-level API.
3. PROFIT!!!
I do agree there are a bunch of flaws in the
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
everyone will read it and post it on Slashdot. This guy is using kernels of truth to act as if those kernels of truth are indisputable evidence of his incorrect conclusions. e.g. "The sky is blue. Blue is the color of water. Therefor if I fly I will drown."
Being anti-Microsoft doesn't automatically make something true.
Yes.. But having dissassembly output does...
If you can read this, thank an english teacher.
From DF Blog:
.NET framework from Windows Update and the Microsoft Download center to date. For a simple guy like me, that translates to about 5.5 million downloads a month. Another interesting datapoint is that in 2004, we expect to have about 54 million new PCs shipping with the .NET framework installed/preloaded. We also have over 2.5M developers targeting managed code.
.Net installed because they did a windows update and it was one of the available options? My mom has .Net installed, but I guarantee she is not using it for anything other than keeping her hard drive full.
Soma: We have seen over 70 million downloads of the
It's a small point, but how many users have
Dave