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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."
How ironic would it be if Microsoft eventually abandoned .Net and Mono was the only remaining development environment that supported C#?
I'm a big tall mofo.
How would you feel if someone criticized stuff YOU made in a public forum? This blogging stuff has gone TOO FAR and doesn't respect peoples' feelings.
I hear that now they have this spyware that downloads and installs .Net framework on users' PCs. Now we need a worm that does the same and the thing will soon be widely deployed!
".NET is merely thin wrappers to Win32 calls"
.NET developer and in general, I think it's great - it's a very fast platform to devlop for - and your developments run very fast.
.NET development, and I'm sure .NET 2.0 and future versions will fix many issues that exist with the current version.
Of course it is. That's called functional programming! What did he want them to do? Write the whole thing again from scratch in ASM?
Somewhere further down this page someone's going to write "In other news, Win32 is a thin wrapper for Assembly Language".
I'm a
Sure it has some problems with the fact that some parts are just wrappers. For example the SMTP functionality is really bad and always gives you exactly the same error message no matter what actually went wrong. But we're still very early in
Microsoft has abandoned confidence in both .NET and sales of Longhorn
Great! Does this mean they'll be shipping their own Linux+OpenOffice Distro?
First platform independent framework/runtime, implemented for only one OS.
839*929
Calling it C# certainly has made web-searching difficult. Google only turned up 7 million three hundred thousand entries.
The VB devs here prefer, and every VB install is actually VB6. We buy .NET but none of the Devs want it for anything but the license to use VB6.
VB6 is much smaller and has a higher compatability across all the company platforms, plus the windows CE devices we have here in he wearhouse and field techs carry run an older CE version that seems to like the CD kit+VB6 better. (no upgrading them is not an option at $2150.00 each)
Or so they say, I rarely touch the stuff. I find that python does the job faster and better, but try and convince a VB jockey that it really is just as easy without an IDE.
Python + wxPython = killer cross platform Rapid development language.... as soon as you get past the quirks.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There are thousands if not millions of people who have built thier understanding of computer systems around Microsoft's operating systems, software products and programming environments. Let that idea settle in deeply for those who see a much larger picture and take it for granted.
This is not only their identity as programmers, but their foundation for career building and therefore their house and car payments, their breakfast and dinner and their hopes for retirement. It's a huge deal to criticise Microsoft for these people. Is it any wonder why it becomes a holy war for so many people? It's no mystery to me at all -- I even have a brother who has fallen into that trap and in order to keep peace in the family, I pretty much keep my "opinions" to myself much of the time.
So while I am glad to see greater use and corporate acceptance of Linux or other alternative operating systems, I kind worry a little for those who aren't allowing themselves to see things beginning to crumble for Microsoft and that if they aren't careful will fall along with them.
recently migrated to .NET. The server admin seems happy but the user experience sucks big time. I never thought I would say something nice about Cold Fusion but the forum certainly was more user friendly running under that.
realkiwi
If you stick your head in the sand and only hear good things, this leads to *big* problems later. You can look at some history at IBM and see that the cheerleader mentality cost them a lot. It didn't matter what the truth was, it didn't matter what reality was, it didn't matter if the product worked, it was your job to promote it like it was the best thing since sliced bread, and do it with a smile on your face. You could see a lot of that with PS/2s
Everyone that builds something, designs somethings, etc, should be able to have some basic defense of his actions, designs, procedures. If all you can say is "that's hurtfull", you are in big trouble.
eric
Ah boy, I wouldn't want to hire you. Microsoft sits on a treasure chest, namely 10 years of bugfixed, known-to-be-working code. It contains every little obscure bugged that grandma Uxbuklu in outer Mongolia have ever encountered. And you want them to throw that away? That sounds great! If you're a Linux developer that is.
I would recommend you read what Joel has to say, since he say it so much better than I have time to do.
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.
I am a .Mac developer and I can assure you that iDisk is more than a thin wrapper for WebDAV calls! Homepage is the best web development platform I've ever had the pleasure of using.
but as the old saying goes, however hard you try, you can't polish a turd
Actually, the saying goes:
"You can polish a turd all you want, but it's still a turd."
You also just proved that his bloatware alert was correct.
.NET download? Maybe one's better than the other - the GCC distro's grown over the years, but there's nothing wrong with that, is there?
And your average Linux distro is bigger than the XP CD. Guess why? It includes different stuff.
Are the utils and class libs exactly equivalent? Does the default Java install include all the EJB stuff to match the ASP.NET in the
No! He did not. Read carefully. 23+ MB is not MANY times larger than 15 MB. He is not denying it is larger. MANY implies that it is atleast twice as large. .NET gives you better libraries out of the box than Java. Any decent managed code distribution is large including open source solutions. ActivePython for example is 18 MB.
This is an old tactic of Microsoft. Thow out backwards compatibility and force an upgrade. I think most M$ users are used to this by now. If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest you have to rewrite to take advantage of the cool new features. This has been going on since the beginning.
It will continue as long as developers are still willing to take the dirty sanchez that Microsoft has to offer. Microsoft is in it for the MONEY only. Advancement of computer science is not a concern.
My opinion is that Avalon, or more specifically, XAML, will mark the death of ASP. The reason is that Avalon is a client-side technology, but the browser is an important part of the distribution model. XAML is so rich that a browser-contained XAML application will look no different to a process-based Avalon application, and coupled with Web Services or Indigo (as the mechanism to access remote code), an XAML application will make an ASP.NET application look paltry and antiquated.
Microsoft's track record with browser-based applications is one security disaster after another. Their existing browser-centric security model is fragile that I can't see a way to fix it without changing the API and breaking every application that uses it.
If Microsoft's web applications come to depend on that model, they'll never be able to extricate themselves from that mess.
This is an old tactic of Microsoft. Thow out backwards compatibility and force an upgrade.
Uh, no. The framework works on Win98+ (see the download page).
Half the complaints here are picking up on the "layer on top of Win32" comment which is exactly the backward compatibility point.
This myth, .net is merely thin wrappers to Win32 has been very thoroughly debunked by the inimitable Ian Griffiths in his OnDotNet column on Longhorn.
Being anti-Microsoft doesn't automatically make something true.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
How is 23.7 many times 15?
Isn't the guy also complaining that alot of it is just wrappers? If they weren't, wouldn't it be much bigger?
Can't have it both ways.
The C99 specification has been out for over 5 years. There is really no excuse for using older versions these days.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Are you sure? Why most DOS apps still runs in Windows XP? You can use your Word 6.0 in your Windows XP with no problems. I think it makes sense to rewrite parts of your application to take advantage of new features. How can you develop software using an API that doesn't exists? Try to develop a Linux app
From RG's article I take the decision to make Avalon available to other versions of Windows as a lack of confidence in the sales of Longhorn.
So if MS made Avalon not available for other versions of windows we'd moan about requiring to upgade to longhorn and MS wanting to make more sales on the expense of the consumer. When they announce it will be available for older versions of Windows we moan about their lack of confidence in longhorn sales... sheesh......
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
Apparently, you also forget the pain of pre-.NET development. I haven't forgotten the insane amount of work it was to build a Web site with tables that let you sort and page data. I haven't forgotten how much work it was to write client-side and server side code to validate form fields.
Wtf? Apparently he has forgoten to use PHP for web development.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
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."
Microsoft has abandoned confidence in both .NET and sales of Longhorn
.NET preview right. In the linked article, he states:
.NET when it was in technical preview at the beginning of 2000; at that time it was called COM+2"
That will come as a big surprise to Microsoft.
Hell, Grimes doesn't even get the original name of the
"I started using
In fact, it was being called COM3, and it was renamed NGWS because Windows NT wouldn't let you work with a directory called COM3 (IIRC, you could create the directory, but trying to use it resuled in some kind of conflict in which NT thought you were referring to a serial port).
Fernandez himself says everything else you need to know about Grimes' DDJ bitchfest.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I feel dirty reading so many MS Developer comments... bleh
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I buried one of your turd sandwiches in my garden and all of the plants died. So did the pests living on them. And my neighbours' plants. Can I install a Turd Sandwich Service Pack or something?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
All "one language, any platform" - even Java bytecode, via JRuby and JPython. So in a different way, "any language, any platform". Same story with Mono. Remind me again: why does .NET exist?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Goodbye, quirks.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I think it's valid in the C99 specs, which is the current standard for the C language.
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From some AC responding to Dan Fernandez's blog and referring to Richard Grimes:
At the bottom you'll find that he listed his email, but rather then use a contact me form, or listing it directly, he ENCODED HIS EMAIL address in Rot 13 encryption!! Do you really want to take advice on "usability" from someone who thinks it's a good idea to encrypt their email address?
I'm not sure I really need to comment further on this.
When moderating, assume I have not yet had my coffee.
This is a little off-topic but it's something I'm very curious about.
Mr Grimes says:
I think that case insensitivity is juvenile
and so I can, perhaps, ask about capitalization conventions.
Why is it that people write (and case-sensitivity therefore forces me to write)
thisLittleThing();
instead of
ThisLittleThing();
or even
this_little_thing();
?
To me, this_little_thing() is much easier to read, and at least ThisLittleThing is tolerable. But I am forced to say thisLittleThing() instead. It seems just plain counterintuitive to use capital letters within the name of something, but to not capitalize the first letter of it.
I really wish most langages WERE case-insensitive, because then I could type ThisLittleThing() and nobody would care except me (who would find it much easier to read my own code). The only thing case sensitivity lets you do is make ThisLittleThing mean something else from THisLittleThing and I don't see how that benefits anyone.
I think the best case convention is in the Apple file system, where I could say THISLITTLETHING and it meant the same as ThisLittleThing, but if I saved a file as ThisLittleThing it would appear in that same case.
So could some kind soul explain the benefits of case-sensitivity, and why we should write thisLittleThing() instead of ThisLittleThing?
I know it's a little thing but since I value more or less correct English, writing like that bugs the heck out of me.
Many thanks.
D
While we're bitching about APIs, would someone point me to a good API similar to .NET? I've used Java a bit and didn't find it nearly as intuitive as .NET. The inexpressiveness of the language ends up making life tedious (such as no support for delegates). Naming inconsistencies abound, such as .size() being used on some containers instead of .getSize(). Python, for all intents and purposes, can do a whole freakin lot but the API is one of the messiest I have ever seen.
I am old enough to remember the original VB columnist at some high-profile magazine (was it Dr Dobb's itself?) throwing the towel on the column because he couldn't stand the bloating of the language by MS... and the C++ Advisor-or-something-the-like columnist (was it Unix Magazine or what?) quitting the column because C++, being designed by committee, required a language lawyer and was only getting worse.
No news here. If you don't care for elegance, you go awok with evolution. ISO SQL, Perl, there are many many examples.
Now if only people would rethink and take the pain of learning a real, elegant language... a functional (Lisp, Scheme, Haskell, ML) or pure OO (Smalltalk, Squeak) or truly relational (Tutorial D, D4) one.
Instead of just trying to keep extending known languages into unknown fields. C is just structure, platform-independent Assembly; how come people want to create custom applications in it or its Java, C++, C#, ObjectiveC? This comes only as an indictment of the alternatives, or worse still of programmers and their managers.
And BASIC, it was only a stepping stone in learning COBOL. How come it is used to deploy anything more than a prototype? Don't get me started with excuses.
It is high time managers and programmers get real and start using languages designed to do what they want. COBOL, Pascal, Smalltalk, Lisp... each in their niche, they are better than C or BASIC and their overextended derivatives.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
This notion that platform independence is a value we should all aspire to is an idea pushed by Sun. The idea was kind of attractive 10 years ago when there was no usable X11 toolkit other than Motif (and that was barely usable), Macintosh was in shambles, and it looked like the only way to get any GUI software for UNIX/Linux was to piggy-back onto Windows.
That's not the situation today anymore. Whether you like them or not, UNIX and Linux have two powerful and complete desktop environments and half a dozen excellent toolkits. There is no need anymore to piggy-back on Windows. When people develop for Linux, they should do the best job they can for the Linux environment, not worry about whether it can be ported to other, proprietary platforms. Windows has enough software as it is, and if we ham-string Linux software development with worrying about cross-platform issues, we will always be behind
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
The software industry has many different jobs. Most of them are the same whether you run open source software or Microsoft software (support, documentation, etc.). In fact, software development itself is usually paid, and paid about equally, whether it is open source or proprietary.
The big difference between Microsoft and open source is the extra profits. Microsoft is making huge profits on their software. But if companies don't have to pay for those profits anymore, that means more money, not less money, for hiring people.
Altogether, open source makes the economy more efficient, and that's a good thing. And by reducing the amount of money companies pay above the true cost of producing software when they buy Microsoft software, the job situation is actually helped.
Of course, all the Microsoft experts will have to learn something new. Well, that's unfortunate, but that's what you need in a market economy: flexibility.
"I've also tlkd to plenty of shareware developers and they certainly aren't using java. May use C/C++, Visual Basic, or Delphi." -- Fernandez.
*sigh*
of COURSE *shareware* developers are going to stick with windows. its the platform that created shareware, and has all the built-in tools (specifically, the registry) and the legacy of libraries out there to support the enforcement of shareware licenses by use-counts, disabled features, etc...
that and once you've had to pay for your development environment, of course you're going to want to get some money back for your products.
on the other hand, OpenSource client software exists in C, C++, Python, Java, Perl, and others, but until Mono gains a foothold (unlikely because skeptical developers fear when M$ pulls out the patent trump card they're holding), there will be very little C# open source out there. Free IDE support is out there because it, too, is open-source in many cases (eclipse being the major one).
professional developers use the right tool for the right job (theoretically). as such, we have pieces in vb (with vb.net add-ons leadng to an eventual full refactoring to vb.net) and java JFC, as necessary.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
RG: Microsoft treats .NET as a useful library to extend its products, and to date, it has not shown any more conviction to the framework. There have been a few .NET products written entirely in .NET; one such product is Microsoft CRM....They do not want the expense of rewriting their existing code for .NET, and there is no compulsion to provide all new code in .NET; instead, .NET will be hosted as and when it's needed, particularly to allow extensibility through user-supplied code.
My Response: We should dissect exactly what Richard says here. He says that Microsoft is using .NET to extend existing products and that Microsoft doesn't want the expense of rewriting applications from scratch in .NET. This makes perfect sense to me, why would we re-write perfectly good code? .NET code can interoperate with existing code, and you bet we're going to take advantage of the interoperability layer to add new features that exploit the best managed code has to offer. As I pointed out previously, Microsoft is using .NET in all sorts of software from operating systems, to developer tools, to Office.
If Microsoft doesn't use .NET in the core code of its flagship products (and not merely as an interop gateway), Grimes asks, why should anyone else? Well, Fernandez points out that Microsoft does use it in a number of places, including some new high-level portions of Windows. But it is telling that we don't hear about an effort to rewrite MS Office or SQL Server using .NET. Some of us are old enough to remember Bill Gates evangelizing for OS/2, telling everyone that that represented the new direction of the computing industry... until he changed his mind. A more recent example was MFC, a truly ugly framework which was (and is) widely used but has been shunned by Microsoft's own developers.
Grimes is saying that .NET has been oversold. It excels as a framework for server-side enterprise applications on Windows, and also sounds like a good solution for browsers and other client-side platforms running untrusted application code - but only on Windows. For other situations .NET offers some benefits such as better error detection and easier installation than DCOM apps, but they are often outweighed by disadvantages including less control over performance, the additional size of the .NET framework, and the diminished control over one's source code IP.
I'm glad I stuck with Java. I'm fairly happy there, although I would give my right arm for a deconstructor. The J2EE suite is coming a long nicely and there are now free application servers these days to run on any platform/OS that runs the JRE. Anyone from the M$ camp ready to defect to the Java side?
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
Interesting how Microsoft gets all heated up about developing technologies, like .NET, only when threatened by others, like Java, that they can't control. When the threat is no longer hot, because it's beaten like Netscape, or can't be beaten, like Java, Microsoft's intensity in delivering the new tech also subsides. The actual needs of users, trumpeted in the vaporware announcements as imperative, never actually enter into the considerations.
--
make install -not war
Better than another?
C# Ecma, and Java is JCP. One is a community based process and the other a standard effectivley controlled by a single company who manages to get ECMA to rubberstamp the whole thing - so if I were you I'd probably keep the whole "ECMA standard" thing at a low profile so people don't look too close at what is going on there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And I think you're an idiot for saying that. Now we've both had our equal say.
The argument that "VarX and "VARX" should refer to different variables makes no sense to me. I've used Unix since 1977, and to this day don't feel it improved anything be being so case sensitive. When a simple typo can create a programming bug, that's making software errors way too easy. To this day, modern databases know not to do case sensitive searches without special instruction. Perhaps they know something that programming languages don't.
I have yet to see one good argument for how case sensitivity improves the ability to write better code. I know many why it doesn't. And most early programming languages survived just fine without it, especially since keypunches didn't include it unless you multi-punched each column by hand. VB 6 and .NET get it right. It corrects your casing to match the initial declaration of the variable. That is not juvenile!
Leave the case sensitivity for the data, and keep it out of my programming languages. This is the one worst thing that Java didn't fix when they had the chance!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The article specifically talks about the potential for XAML to replace ASP.net, since why would you have an ASP.net that can only sing and dance when you can have a XAML app that can cook, too?
The poster you responded to was rightfully pointing out that Microsoft has a poor record at implementing secure browser-based full app solutions, in particular wondering about XAML security holes of the future.
In short: We are discussing the FA, not just a small slice of what YOU want to talk about.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anybody with any amount of age will tell you the same. My uncle programmed Fortran in the 70s. My dad and I programmed BASIC in the 80s. My cousin programmed COBOL through both of those decades AND the 90s.
You can't sit still and expect to be marketable. Sure, your current job has you doing one thing or another, but look at ASP programmers... there's still jobs there, but to Microsoft, the platform is poof! It comes turned off by default! ASP.NET will be replaced just the same.
Same thing happened to a variety of languages in the *nix world. The college crowds come in with the en vogue languages to solve some of the same problems you've already been solving.
You have your platforms (languages, data formats, OSes, environments, etc) you do your work in, and to survive and thrive, you better have your platforms you hobby around in. (and hopefully if you follow things right, your hobby platforms translate to your next job platform.)
You have to be multi-lingual... or multi-platformed... think biodiversity.
Religion over ANY one platform can't cloud your judgement.
Being overzealoutous may give you big ups in the short term. You put all your eggs in. You could become the Guru. You could charge big bucks. You could write a book. You could speak at conferences and people might actually read your posts and care what you think. You may find yourself being bigger than it. But sooner or later, you may find yourself as dead wrong as you could possibly be. For a non-computer, non-troll example I present to you: Michael Jackson.
I guess this is why people in general can't sit still. Of course, maybe in the course of writing the last paragraph, I found myself going, "Man, it'd be nice to be a guru, and write a book, and be notable instead of just John Q. Bendable-Always-Employed-Programmer." Well and then there's being notable in your field, who care about the details, or notable to your customers, who care that you got it done awesomely regardless of their offbeat details.
So maybe there's a magical middle in there. A chewy center?
m.
While I can sympathise with Richard Grimes and certaqinly agree with him that .Net is more of a marketing exercise than technological breakthrough (even C# is Microsoft's response to Sun's lawsuit over MS' mangling of Java), I don't think Microsoft can now afford to give it up.
.Net applications on the client side of things reminds me very much of Java's client side predicament, they are in the now unenviable position of having spent so many years (6+) in development and (5+) in marketing and obviously having spent astronomical sums on both that they can not afford to switch to something else.
.Net will be ubiquitous on the various Windows platforms and will be the end user development plaform of choice, much as VB is today, but that it will be the same total sludge of low level hacks that give MFC and VB their well deserved reputation for irritation.
.Net, will ever really kill off server side Java, not unless Sun makes some really stupid moves, although that, I suppose, is well within the realm of possibility.
While they may very well be desperate since almost none of the initial investments have paid out, i.e. the lack of notable
They seem more likely, as is shown by their decisions to port Avalon and Indigo to XP, to try and hack it to work on all platforms so that at least the development effort will not have been wasted. The end effect will probably be that
I also serioiusly doubt that
I aslo agree totally, that MS is very quick to jump and get all defensive whenever somebody of note crticises them or their products. Admitting failure or misdeeds is not one of MS' strengths.
Hmmm.. I feel much more 'comfortable' looking at C and Java vs. C#/VB. And while C# is closer to Java, it still has that MS look that I've come to recognize via torturous years, long ago, with VB.
.com boom and bust. He's had some great partys, but also had his ups and downs with the neighborhood meetings. However, in the end, he's got a pretty good amount of support from the community and you can tell he's in it for the long haul.
No, C# is not, IMO, nicer looking than Java.
That said, C can be quite fugly too, but there's just something about it; maybe it's because it's sorta the serrogate programming mother of languages I have become fond of.
Sorta like that not so pretty, overweight, mother that lives down the street and, while a little abrasive sometimes, can usually get anything done that you want her to.
C# is that sketchy lawyer chick that just moved into the brownstone across the street that Mr. Smith used to live in (Mr. Smith was the nicest old guy you ever knew). On the contrary, Ms. C#, even tho she sometimes gives cookies to the neighbors and plays a nice game, has the look in the corner of her eye that just says someting is wrong or fake. Like there's something there you just can't trust.
Meanwhile, Mr. Java a few doors down from Ms. C#, was one of those younger guys that just moved in prior to the
I trust the JCP much more than ECMA. They're two fundamentally different organizations of which, one has a voting body made up of many organizations - including open source projects - and the other has no voting process at all. Getting the ECMA standard slapped on your product says nothing to the owned ideas, methodologies and implementations behind it. The Mono guys like to use this all the time, but just because it's a standard does not mean it's patent free and free of legal entanglements and/or threats.
Uhm, perhaps years ago, when they were dicking with losers like VBScript, ASP, and ActiveX. But those are all old technologies, ones MS is no longer pushing.
Correct, they are now pushing new looser technologies like XAML. Thus the posters point since from the users point of view XAML looks very much like those other technologies - they go a website and encunter something unexpectedly powerful. With great power comes great responsibility, and that is what Microsoft has seemed to lack over time.
Even if they use XAML as a replacement for ASP.NET, it will completely render to industry standards on the front end, just like ASP.NET.
Render to what now? Do you know what XAML is? What standard would that render to? It's going to be a lot of XML (like XUL in fact) that describes a GUI app that renders on the screen using native controls, kind of like a really verbose scriptable AWT. Not like we've been down that road already...
But anway, XAML runs on the front end. It's totally a front-end technology, just like ActiveX in the way that the client is running code to make it happen. And while it might be more secure it's only as secure as whatever client is rendering the XAML code, and that calls into question again how secure is that code really in terms of what XMAL can call.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's just like .DLL Hell, but now its the developers fault, not the OS.
I'm curious as to why you think win32 apps will still run on Longhorn? There were/are many win32 apps that failed to run on XP. Microsoft blamed the programmers. But if the compatability layer is actually compatable, then shouldn't they have worked?
Maybe Microsoft can grab a copy of Wine and use it for their compatability layer.
I was wondering, apart from his comments themselves on the state and future of .Net, what the real consequence of some of Richard Grimes' stature is when he decides to publicly drop his .Net column.
.Net. And that is why, I think, why Microsoft's bloggers are doing overtime on the defensive damage containment sector.
.Net due to his frustration with the framework is what got the bloggers up in arms. Fear, simple fear, I think.
.Net and move to some other framework or platform, or if it is just one frustrated man who will have no influence on future events.
.Net could very really cripple Microsoft's uptake in the enterprise, and the loss of enterprise development interest would leave Microsoft with an Desktop OS, a Server OS and an Office package.
It occurred to me that this is the first public person who is both a respected author in the Microsoft developer world and, possibly more importantly, a columnist at DrDobb's, who is publicly washing his hands with
Dr Dobbs is possibly the most respected software development journal in the English speaking world. Certainly it has dropped somewhat over the years with the advent of the internet and the ease of accessibility to good quality development articles that the internet brings, but it is still probably the most important journal, especially relating to Microsoft products. The fact that a noted author in this journal has decided to wash his hands of
is it really that important? I don't know. I have no idea if this is the beginning trickle of a torrent of developers who will decide to drop
While I would suspect the latter, I think that Microsoft's bloggers reactions means that Microsoft fears the former. And they right to be. A general dissatisfaction with
Think about that.