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Building Intelligent .NET Applications
Bill Ryan writes "Sarah Morgan Rea's "Building Intelligent .NET Applications" is a book for those that get easily bored with mainstream development topics. Essentially, it's an in depth discussion of 3 niche technologies that came directly out of Microsoft Research (Microsoft Speech Server, Microsoft Analysis Services and Agents). The majority of the book is comprised of discussions of the first two technologies with roughly 12 pages being dedicated to Agents. It's finished off future Microsoft technologies "Avalon" (now known as the Microsoft Presentation Framework), Indigo, WinFS and Longhorn. Fortunately, since no one really knows when Microsoft will deliver each of these and what they will ultimately look like, she spends under 10 pages on them." Read the rest of Bill's review.
Building Intelligent .NET Applications
author
Sara Morgan Rea
pages
270
publisher
Addison-Wesley
rating
9
reviewer
Bill Ryan
ISBN
0321246268
summary
One of the things that makes this book great is that each of the areas discussed receive very little discussion elsewhere. If you want to use Microsoft Speech Server, you are essentially confined to using the SDK documentation, the MSDN newsgroups or an occasional blog post out there. Analysis services has a little more documentation but if you were looking to do any serious A.S. development, you're still pretty hard pressed to find comprehensive resources on how to use it.
These two areas comprise roughly 80% of Sarah's book. The discussion on Speech Server comprises a little over 100 pages and does an excellent job showing you how to get Speech Server up and running and how to use it. She starts out slowly and walks you through the Speech SDK, then moves on to creating Grammars, creating Prompts, creating Transcriptions and Extractions, using the Telephony modules and debugging/performance tuning your applications. Another nice touch is that she spends a good bit of time discussing more agnostic elements of speech and telephony development, S.A.L.T. in particular. Within the discussion throughout, there's a good bit of attention paid to configuring Speech Server and the problems people are typically confronted with when they create speech enabled apps. However she does a pretty good job of balancing the introductory material with more advanced topics for although she does spend a lot of time on setup and configuration, she also goes as far as showing you how to use Speech Server from a PDA.
As far as speech (the topic goes), it would be helpful if the reader had some familiarity with the core concepts involved (such as SALT, Grammars etc.) but even if you didn't, this book would still help teach you a lot of what you'd want to know. The intended audience is clearly intermediate to advanced developers but newbies will definitely find quite a bit of valuable information in it.
The next section discusses Artificial intelligence in the context of Analysis services. If you aren't familiar with relational database concepts, then it's probably a little above your head, but most people buying this book aren't running into relational database theory for the first time.
Chapter 5 starts with using Data Mining to create predictions. It starts with getting things set up, moves onto building the data mart, and then finally 'training' the model. This discussion is pure gold in my humble opinion.
The next chapter moves on to applying those predictions. Not really much to say here without getting overly technical but essentially this chapter is a walk through of what you'd do after you had your data mart built and trained, essentially, how you'd maintain it and continue to refresh the information.
This is followed by a chapter titled "An Evolving Database". Again, this is pretty technical in nature so it's hard to describe without bogging you down in jargon. Suffice to say that everything about this section is cool++; .
The book then discusses Agents, which are cool but probably don't have that much applicability in most people's day to day lives. If you want to learn how to use them (as well as the Background Intelligent Transfer Service), then she provides everything you need.
Finally things wind down with a discussion of Microsoft's upcoming technologies, Microsoft Research, Artificial Intelligence in general (as well as many resources on where to learn more), a glossary, bibliography and finally the index. Discussing any one of the areas that she touches upon here (neural networks, Fuzzy logic, natural language processing, machine learning etc.) could comprise an entire book. That's where the beauty of this book comes in - instead of discussing the subjects one at a time, she creates a series of walk through examples where she creates specific scenarios and shows you how to address them using each respective technology.
If you're bored and want to dive into some really cool subject matter, this book is a must have. If you want to learn more about Speech technology in general and Microsoft's implementations of it in particular, this book is a must have. If you're interested in artificial intelligence again, you'll find this book to be superb. If you just want to learn about subject matter that's been discussed over and over again, like creating Winforms or drawing with GDI+, then this book probably isn't up your alley."
You can purchase Building Intelligent .NET Applications from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
One of the things that makes this book great is that each of the areas discussed receive very little discussion elsewhere. If you want to use Microsoft Speech Server, you are essentially confined to using the SDK documentation, the MSDN newsgroups or an occasional blog post out there. Analysis services has a little more documentation but if you were looking to do any serious A.S. development, you're still pretty hard pressed to find comprehensive resources on how to use it.
These two areas comprise roughly 80% of Sarah's book. The discussion on Speech Server comprises a little over 100 pages and does an excellent job showing you how to get Speech Server up and running and how to use it. She starts out slowly and walks you through the Speech SDK, then moves on to creating Grammars, creating Prompts, creating Transcriptions and Extractions, using the Telephony modules and debugging/performance tuning your applications. Another nice touch is that she spends a good bit of time discussing more agnostic elements of speech and telephony development, S.A.L.T. in particular. Within the discussion throughout, there's a good bit of attention paid to configuring Speech Server and the problems people are typically confronted with when they create speech enabled apps. However she does a pretty good job of balancing the introductory material with more advanced topics for although she does spend a lot of time on setup and configuration, she also goes as far as showing you how to use Speech Server from a PDA.
As far as speech (the topic goes), it would be helpful if the reader had some familiarity with the core concepts involved (such as SALT, Grammars etc.) but even if you didn't, this book would still help teach you a lot of what you'd want to know. The intended audience is clearly intermediate to advanced developers but newbies will definitely find quite a bit of valuable information in it.
The next section discusses Artificial intelligence in the context of Analysis services. If you aren't familiar with relational database concepts, then it's probably a little above your head, but most people buying this book aren't running into relational database theory for the first time.
Chapter 5 starts with using Data Mining to create predictions. It starts with getting things set up, moves onto building the data mart, and then finally 'training' the model. This discussion is pure gold in my humble opinion.
The next chapter moves on to applying those predictions. Not really much to say here without getting overly technical but essentially this chapter is a walk through of what you'd do after you had your data mart built and trained, essentially, how you'd maintain it and continue to refresh the information.
This is followed by a chapter titled "An Evolving Database". Again, this is pretty technical in nature so it's hard to describe without bogging you down in jargon. Suffice to say that everything about this section is cool++; .
The book then discusses Agents, which are cool but probably don't have that much applicability in most people's day to day lives. If you want to learn how to use them (as well as the Background Intelligent Transfer Service), then she provides everything you need.
Finally things wind down with a discussion of Microsoft's upcoming technologies, Microsoft Research, Artificial Intelligence in general (as well as many resources on where to learn more), a glossary, bibliography and finally the index. Discussing any one of the areas that she touches upon here (neural networks, Fuzzy logic, natural language processing, machine learning etc.) could comprise an entire book. That's where the beauty of this book comes in - instead of discussing the subjects one at a time, she creates a series of walk through examples where she creates specific scenarios and shows you how to address them using each respective technology.
If you're bored and want to dive into some really cool subject matter, this book is a must have. If you want to learn more about Speech technology in general and Microsoft's implementations of it in particular, this book is a must have. If you're interested in artificial intelligence again, you'll find this book to be superb. If you just want to learn about subject matter that's been discussed over and over again, like creating Winforms or drawing with GDI+, then this book probably isn't up your alley."
You can purchase Building Intelligent .NET Applications from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
You would then apparently be surprised at the ammount of development going on with C#
"Start! Run! Cee-Emm-Dee! Format! Cee-Colon Slash X, Slash, U, Slash Y! Enter!"
And now you get to write a book on rebuilding intelligent .NET applications...
You would then apparently be surprised at the ammount of people misusing the word development.
Then the anti-evolutionaries can be sued for patent infringement.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Step 2 - become a closed minded linux douche
as "is comprised" in the English language.
e.g.
A banana is composed of pieces.
The pieces comprise the banana.
Although there seems to be an exception for every rule in English, this is one rule with no exceptions.
And to everyone else, don't invoke Godwin's Law on your first reply, okay?
OK, so if I start building 'intelligent applications' (Intelligent Desgin, anyone?) using these new discoveries from Microsoft Labs will I be running the risk of a lawsuit?
IANAP, but my good friend is. He's a huge Linux guy, but unfortunately (as a lot of Slashdotters I'm sure) programs for a Windows-only firm. He's since started using .NET, and swears by it now. He says it is incredibly easy to build applications with it. I trust his judgement, because he's an incredibly talented programmer, and also programs in C/C++, Perl and is a huge database guy as well.
.NET for a site that gets 20,000 hits a minute, but you also wouldn't want to use C++ or Perl to integrate Windows-only applications with Active Directory, either.
It all comes down to the best tool for the job. I'm sure you wouldn't want to use
Step 1: Yes, get a brain. Don't use a hammer on a screw.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
"Avalon" (now known as the Microsoft Presentation Framework
A very small nitpick, but for the record, it's Microsoft Presentation Foundation.
Maybe it's just me, but "Avalon" was a much cooler name.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Haha, a very INTELLIGENT joke, if I may say so, Sir.
May I congratulate you for getting the "FRISTY PSOT", as I presume it is called around here?
1. The second most important technology priority (after security) for CIO's is Business Intelligence.
2. Not only that, but the most important business priority for them is business process improvement
If they had a chapter about Mono compatibility, I might consider the book.
Who moved my sig?
C++ is good at what's it's designed to do, lower level programming, we should not compare C++ with higher level languages. Java - 90% hype that died out 5 years ago - inho. Just about every single negative aspect of the .net platform if plegues java - so I don't buy the Java > .NET argument.
Step 3 - Profit?
A day will come when programmers will be exclusively coding tools and OSes. Applications will be "developed" if you will by the user. In other words, Joe Accoutnant, needing an app, will just point and click, or speak, and create the app he needs on the fly. That's what's coming.
I can't count how many times that my coding job was to create an GUI for: adding/inserting, updating, deleting, etc... data. I found it mindless and boring. I just wish the tools for doing this was easier for the CPAs, business guys to do. And no, they ARE NOT too stupid. The tools are inadequate.
Ahhhh. C++ is a high level language last time I checked!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
I've been coding for Win32 for about 10 years now. I still prefer Visual C++ 6 over any of the .NET versions. The .NET Framework seems to be a giant hog that sits on top of the other Win32APIs. If the .NET Framework was integrated into the operating system maybe it would be more seemless and less bloated. Or maybe it would just make the OS bloated...
.NET bloat, but with so many other graphical platforms around these days (OS X, KDE, Gnome, Plain old X) I think people should be spending their time looking for a more long term solution to their GUI development needs.
These days I try to stay away from technologies that lock you into a certain platform. The two major down sides to this are development time and usability.
Maybe this book gives some tips on how to reduce
Hopefully someday there will be a free universal extensible light weight API for developing desktop applications. Until then we'll have to compromise.
Grrrrr... don't bother me, I'm thinking.
No, but you're one! (Minus the oxy- of course).
Somebody should mod the parent up "moronic M$ basher". In fact, Microsoft has had an active speech research team for more than a decade. (Doubt me? Look at the Proceedings of ICASSP if you want evidence.)
The computing world has long standardized on C++/Java. Writing to a dead and platform specific technology is not very smart.
.NET is neither platform-dependent, nor dead, you have a wonderful post. Oh, except for the part about wasting time, being replacing, and Linux migration.
You are just wasting time for yourself, or the people who replace you, when your stuff gets migrated to Linux.
This is probably the most ignorant thing I have heard today. Aside from the fact that
My 10-man company is making millions this very minute with C#.
Go read a book and consider trolling elsewhere. I would mod you down, however it looks like the others have beaten me to it.
So a trollish comment gets a 3 for being Funny?
If this had been a Linux story and I typed in the same thing I'd have gotten whacked big time.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Well aparently this is a good book if you're chosing a programing platform that is application oriented. I'd like to know if there is anything in the book about making intelligent (efficient) .Net applications.
If there is any part in that book on how to make .Net code not consume all the resources in testing server I'll buy one right now.
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" -George W. Bush
"My 10-man company is making millions this very minute with C#."
Hahahahahaah!!!
What's really funy is that I got modd'ed as "Troll" for slamming myself. The only thing that makes sense is that the mod is a psychotherapist. They want to make sure that I have good self esteem.
"Free software news" ? Where the hell does it say that?
By the way, "hacker culture" is no longer "cool". It's a pathetic group of people who can't come to grips with modern technology and simply scream (well post) from their basement about how the world misuses the world "hacker" and doesn't give their command line the respect it deserves.
Absolutely true... I get various contracting request emails every day, and 90% of them want either C# or Java coders. The rest are either C,C++ or specialty jobs.
C# and Java, btw, are two of the nicest languages I've ever used, and I've used a lot.
Jeremy
Microsoft bought up the Lernout & Hauspie company
Are you sure about that??? I was doing some work in voice recognition software at the time and am pretty sure Lernout & Hauspie was bought by ScanSoft (now Nuance I think). Now I guess MS may be licensing some of the Lernout & Hauspie tech from them (I've seen no evidence of this), but I'm pretty sure they didn't buy L&H.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Funny, I thought that was Google's plan; not Microsoft's.
Maybe though, Microsoft should be likened the Empire and Google likened to the Sith? After all, Google builds thier apps for Windows first then ports to other platforms.
By the way, "hacker culture" is no longer "cool". It's a pathetic group of people who can't come to grips with modern technology and simply scream (well post) from their basement about how the world misuses the world "hacker" and doesn't give their command line the respect it deserves.
Better that than a clueless drooler who willingly tithes to a vile corporation who shits on the world, and uses them as a surrogate for their thinking. (I expect the standard reply, Bill Gates is worth $50 gazillion, how much are your worth?...)
an ill wind that blows no good
Another nice touch is that she spends a good bit of time discussing more agnostic elements of speech and telephony development, S.A.L.T. in particular.
Erm... either "agnostic" doesn't mean what you think it means, or, more likely, you don't understand that SALT is about as "agnostic" as .NET or NTFS. SALT is part of the MS "ecosystem."
Go to http://www.w3.org/Voice/ to learn about "agnostic" standards for speech.
Microsoft licenses TTS technology from Lernout & Hauspie. (Now Nuance, like you said.) Microsoft has their own Speech Recognition engine. However, that engine can be replaced by third parties via the SAPI. Microsoft had an 8% share in the company at one point, though I don't know how much of it they currently hold.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You can't even BUY this book from B&N! Why not save yourself some money by buying the book here: Building Intelligent .NET Applications. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!
Instead of fixing their hugely bugging drivers, shit opengl performance, broken & terrible install/uninstall, shit for Linux drivers, ATI spends their time in a circle jerk with .net to come up with the crapola that is CCC. Flash over substance.
Intelligent .NET applications... Is that an overstatement? We have some .NET applications at work and although some work pretty well, they are always fixing them.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Many people use .NET and it's an interesting enough language to warrant a story on using it more efficiently. Slashdot is not designed to be reporting 100% on free stuff and for good reason, if you want an IT news site that doesn't report on ANYTHING that isn't free RMS style your going to have a site that will appeal to a much smaller audience though it could be a good narcotic for zealots. Most people want news on everything IT of interest irrespective of its philosophical status.
Step 2 - become a closed minded linux douche
Step 3 - don't read slashdot.
you're a basement mama boi jacking off to your uber dork status.
slashdot is about "TECHNOLOGY". it doesn't have to be all about opensource.
go jerk off somewhere else.
You should read "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer. As a zealot your merely filling the void in your life with some utopian technology beliefs and admonishing a website for not subscribing 100% to your misguided point of view. Furthermore you have a need for an enemy and therefore Gates & MS become the earthly embodiment of satan in your mind. In the long term you might be better off losing a bit of the anger and doing more productive things because even if Gates is a convicted monopolist he doesn't come across half as hateful or bitter as you. But of course when you have self-proclaimed total morality with a completely pure system it's ok to be what you ostensibly despise when dealing with the "ultimate evil".
... then they fight you...
Wake up: Java is history. Compared to its initial hype and promise, Java has been a dismal failure. The question you should be asking is: "who the hell uses Java these days". Java promised to be an open standard, a platform for high quality cross platform applications. Instead it's become the new Pascal and the new Cobol (only less successful).
And as for porting to Linux, Java is one of the worst choices for that: it's proprietary, closed source, and single-vendor.
Step 2 - become a closed minded linux douche
Remember this: We think the same thing of you.
How about: patriotic non-liberal, non-terrorist loving you.
The industry doesn't give a fuck what a few open source license freaks have to say.
Sorry clown, Java is the top language/platform in new engineering positions right now. And it continues to grow.
There is only one purpose to Microsoft Research: To hire off all the computer scientist before they can invent something that would compete with Microsoft. (Or make them irrelevant.)
Of course, no way would MS want to hire smart guys to invent stuff to improve their own software, why would they want to improve their stuff, or you really want to moronically argue that they never care about improving anything and 2k was no different from nt4, xp no different from 95, whatever?
I use a lot of open-source and free stuff and enjoy it but if you truly believe in your moronic personal conspiracy you have serious problems.
This book has nothing to do with writing desktop applications. It is about writing apps that use artificial intelligence. In particular, it covers how to do so using the .Net framework.
.Net is "bloated", you have apparently never used KDE or Gnome!
What you seem to misunderstand is that there is no such thing as a framework that is both complete and lightweight. Sure, you can use just bare Xlibs and Athena widgets and make a simple, ugly application where you have to write most of the UI code. However, most of us want to write apps, not UI code, meaning that the framework should handle as much of this for us as possible.
Any framework that handles most of the work for you is going to be large. If you think
dom
For the love of god...please stop calling .NET a language.
I was not talking about langauge level, but harware abstraction. If your writing a driver for something logical choice will be C++ ect... if your making a DB front end - well I just don't see C++ being a good fit.
"Sorry clown, Java is the top language/platform in new engineering positions right now. And it continues to grow."
Delusion is not an asset, and stating something as fact doesn't make it so. Arguing the pre-eminence of Java is laughable.
Microsoft research publishes a great deal of research papers every year.
These innovations are free for everybody to read and learn about.
Whether or not microsoft actually gets around to using any of these ideas in their products is beside
the point: research is being done and the results are being published.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
Interesting how the less-intelligent, personal-attack responses are from AC's, while the interesting contributors are not. Or not so new.
.NET based. If you are living elsehwere and have a Java-only view of openings, then great! both are alive in well in the world. Claiming either is a the single choice for all is a sure sign of an incompetent developer. Worse yet, the AC's here trolling are probably not developers at all (sigh of relief actually).
While I'm at now (US northwest), a lot of the programming is
Of course, no way would MS want to hire smart guys to invent stuff to improve their own software
One would think so. But find me projects that actually ended up producing a key component for Windows, Office, or many of their other products? I used to follow Microsoft Research because it sounded like they were working on interesting stuff. Over time, however, it became clear that NONE of the projects were ever seeing the light of day. The most that was happening is that the researchers would do some work, post a web page, then say the project is still in progress when it was actually dead.
Of course, now that Microsoft is facing stiff competition, perhaps they are finally starting to rely on MS Research. But for the ~5 or so years I followed it, it certainly didn't seem that way.
2k was no different from nt4, xp no different from 95
95 and NT were interesting leaps in technology. 95 was interesting because it set the mold for nearly all GUIs that came after it. NT was interesting becasue it finally put Microsoft on solid ground in respect to OS design. 2000, however, was mostly just a matter of embedding Unix technology and technology swiped from Citrix. XP was more of the same of 2000, except that the GUI wasn't as good and the compatibility with 95 had been improved. (Microsoft has a database of special virtualizers that allow programs running on the NT kernel to perform certain operations that aren't valid, but were allowed under 9x. You can download a package for 2000 that does the same thing as XP's built-in code.)
You know what the kicker is? To the best of my knowledge, NONE of the technology used in the different versions of Windows came from Microsoft Research. What kind of research outfit produces short-lived research projects for a decade, and yet doesn't produce a single useful technology that can be adapted for market use?
As for my conspiracy theory, I have my reasons for wondering. Particularly, a few projects that have gone through research that are really matters that would normally be assigned to engineering. Not to mention that several of them have seemed suspiciously close to products already on the market from companies with "partnerships" with Microsoft. Not that it matters much. Most of that stuff is abandoned as well.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Honestly, I have been developing web applications for some time and granted I use C#, but I've never been opposed to someone using Java, or PHP, or Oracle. My personal experience has been that every language has a slight edge in some regard, but they all do the same thing. There is a much greater difference in the talent of programmers than in the language being used. If you pitted Steven Hawking in an Enzo Ferrari vs. Michael Schumaker in a Ford Taurus, who would win the race? I mean honestly. Mark me flamebait or troll I don't care, but all this Windows vs. Linux high school propaganda has got me sick of Slashdot. The original post was a book review on developing .NET. It wasn't a, "Why anything except MS sucks" book review. Can we please stay on topic and get the ever-increasing in size chip off the linux community's shoulder? Thanks.
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
ASP.NET has overtaken JSP and Java Servlets taken together.
Sun had the biggest opportunity on the planet to redefine the future of computing and they completely blew it. They dropped the ball on applets, they dropped the ball on desktop apps, and they are dropping the ball on server-side programming with their bloated APIs and poor language evolution. Amazingly, Sun's engineers manage to do an even worse job than Microsoft's. Best stay away from both of them.
L&H went bankrupt. Directors went to jail.
Scansoft has been made by an American Entrepeneur who bought the US branch (Dragon Speech and err...Scansoft) from the "liquidation" (sorry I can't translate this term correctly). It didn't buy L&H. He took the property on some of their technologies. L&H has a such big debt that there was no point to buy the company in istelf.
The most notorious one was a completly new TTS engine. I think it was called the realspeech TTS or something.
Well I used to work in that industry around 2000. L&H kept buying companies after companies, in fact nothing serious has been really developped internally. Except probably the realspeech engine.
They turnover was fake, they were playing with different branches (mainly in Korea) to generate a fake turnover.
A wall street reporter found the trick and L&H disapeared.
Here in Belgium a lot of people lost all their economies with L&H. The sector was heavily dammaged by the affair (I had to find another work even if the competitor I used to work for, wasn't part of the affair).
Sorry clown, Java is the top language/platform in new engineering positions right now. And it continues to grow.
As someone else pointed out already, ASP.NET has already overtaken Java for web development. For dynamic content, Java has been almost completely replaced by Flash and dynamic HTML. And for desktop applications, Java is non-existent in the real world.
That is really funny! I guess you were trying to be.. Anyways, if your serious, you need to look at the SourceForge stats. Java is gaining big time. Also, JVM's are created by BEA, SUN, IBM, and now Apache. As far as closed source. I have every version of the JVM since 1.0 sitting on my hard drive. That includes the C-source, header files and all of the java code. I also work for a company that employs more than 30,000 people. We are a java shop and there are no plans to change. C# is contained and not allowed and C/C++ is also contained and all new projects done in Java. Personally I develop using Linux and Netbeans and deploy to HP-UX, Solaris, Win XP, 2K and to my Treo600. I have had wonderful success without a rewrite anywhere. Just depends on the tools I guess!
Nobody on the Microsoft side has ever suggested that Linus or ESR or RMS is the devil.
Oh, wait, I did. But it's not like I was serious.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
The people using Delphi out there are simply desperate to find anyone else who knows anything about it to help out.
Can't do it, can you?
.NET.
A recent performance test of some floating point intensive code I did earlier this year showed an over 3x slowdown when run on
(Sorry -- have to post anon -- don't want to get in trouble...)
Remember this: We think the same thing of you.
That he's also a closed minded linux douche?
Is this like the Chewbacca defense?
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
If you are intelligent, you have a diverse skillset and code were the market demand (directly proportionate to money) is. I don't develop in .Net because I think it is the best thing since sliced bread (although it is very solid if you take the time to learn it), but because I make a hell of a lot more than I would if I was a PHP or Delphi developer.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
As just one example of projects coming from research to product: Reliable Multicast Implemented in Windows & Cisco Routers
I'm not sure what you consider to be a "key" component. For example, the shell? Lots of research goes into UI interfaces, but research is generally aimed at specific topics and not a huge set of features and area that a product would cover. So the shell would be what came out of a bunch of research projects.
Leonard
You seem to hate Microsoft - that's fine, we understand. But please stop trying to make vague technical arguments about positions that are obviously religious in nature to you. Instead, keep at the pointless grandstanding blogging. It's the only thing you seem to do well.
Just for fun, post a resume on Dice or Monster as an experienced ASP.Net/C# developer in the NYC area. Your phone will not stop ringing the next day. The demand for coders on the Microsoft stack around here is stunning.
.NET These Days"? Apparently, EVERYONE.
How do I know? I just experienced it these past two weeks. I had THREE great offers, and took one at a "dream" company.
"Who The Hell Use
Pick your code word: utopian, communist, un-American. Proponents of free software are used to it. The cause manages to advance. Your labels don't constitute a debate. You denegrate zealotry and embrace moderation without knowing why. Muzzy thinking is nothing to be proud of.
an ill wind that blows no good
Damn, you just got served!
Oh, I was going to point out that it wasn't a log but was an, ummmm.... well, you know...
Thousands of firms are sticking with ASP because it runs better and faster than ASP.NET. Surprise, surprise! But they won't talk about it because the ASP.NET EULA forbids them from releasing benchmarks.
From where I stand (mostly Oracle/BEA stuff) C# is VisualJava 7 years too late and with a few more incompatabilities than their first java.
I do see VB6 projects going to C#; but that's only because VB6 support got yanked and while some VB6 projects move to Python and others to Java, others go to C# expecting Microsoft not to do the same thing to them again.
I guess there was so much VB6 code out there (didn't Gates say there's more VB than Cobol out there), even that fraction does add up to a fair amount of C#.
Well that makes more sense, but it was not clear the way you originally described it.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
While I'm at now (US northwest),
"While I'm at now"(sic) "Or not so new."(sic)
Where is this intelligence of which you speak?
Claiming either is a the single choice for all is a sure sign of an incompetent developer.
From where I stand, Java and C# seem to be merely clones of one another both well suited to solving the exact same set of problems (well, OK, java's better in embedded devices, and C#'s better for windows desktop apps) - but for the most part they're wholy redundant with each other and could easily be the "single choice" among the two alternatives.
If you're a developer studying both Java and C# you're wasting your time. From the point of view of solving real-world problems, C# is simply a not-very-compatable Java a few years late; or from the other point of view, Java is a mature, stable C# with the support from a lot of vendors in the industry.
There are other useful languages (the K language; various assembly languages; Haskell/ML; C; Ruby/Python/Perl ; Bash/MSH ; heck, even Fortran and Cobol and ADA) to make someone a well rounded programmer - because these languaegs excel in areas where Java/C# don't.
Aside from the fact that .NET is neither platform-dependent
It is. Any thoughts to the contrary is just denial.
Wake up: Java is history. - Indeed it is; history, present and future. Compared to its initial hype and promise, Java has been a dismal failure. - You would need to quantify these constructs, but thats hardly going to happen, now isnt it? The question you should be asking is: "who the hell uses Java these days". - A hell of alot Java promised to be an open standard, a platform for high quality cross platform applications. - And it is. My java apps _are_ portable across systems, even my enterprise application is.. to top that, even my enterprise container, written in java, is portable to any given platform supporting a recent enough jdk. It is like it _should_ be .. zip directory .. move zip .. unzip .. java -jar MyShit.jar.
Dont MAKE me spank your C#.net.win32 microsoft visual c++ runtime exception throwing java-lookalike-wannabe enterpreted excuse for a dev envoriment.
But who the fuck cares about a few core semantics. Right ? For fucks sake i sure dont.. Im a problem solver, ill pick the best tool for the job, but fanboi's .. fanboi's must die.. MOVING on to the _place_ that actually matter ... YOUR ENTERPRISE ENVORIMENT .. the IIS is such a bitch.. granted there are alot of CRAPPY ASS appliaction servers for java outthere too.. But you have a CHOICE to avoid them and go with something like orion or resin and make your life a happy one. But the IIS is such a bitch(repetition is in order here) .. my god, the exceptions it has thrown at me, the 500's and what would look like a general hardware failure (but is not).
The new Pascal ? Are you insane ? The new Cobol ? Are you more insane ? Infact where cobol IS getting phased out, it is my distinct impression that it is being replaced with Java (IBM Anyone ? mpe/hp3000/9000 ?).
Replacing cobol is like recieving a blessing from god himself.
Where is your persistence frameworks?
I understand you're about to get SQLJ support in your dev envoriment ? lol, congrataltions on that. And where is your IntelliJ IDEA / Eclipse competitive ide's ? to quote karatekid 3 ; best way to avoid punch, is not be there.
And I guess your app really is portable .. atleast between windows 2000 and 2003 .. think it'll fuck up on vista ? yea me too...
And as for porting to Linux, Java is one of the worst choices for that: it's proprietary, closed source, and single-vendor.
- I think ill just pull a C#.Win32.PostMessage(you,WM_CLOSE,0,0) on your ass on that one.
and what the fuck happend to my formatting of that text. little patience i have, will robinsion, for such.
Going by that weighting of the positron, i suppose ie is superior to firefox as well. Are you guys listening ? Cause here it comes. Yes.. Java is bloated. API's EVERYWHERE ... its both hell and a blessing ... hell navigating, and a blessing cause you can get very very productive _fast_.
The gold ; BLOAT IS A SIGN OF SUCCESS.
Take it to the bank guys'. Bloat is a consequence of success.
Okay, shoot. Where is the surprise ? As far as I can see, there are tons of Java developments, but ZERO (zilch) C-hash developments.
" "Free software news" ? Where the hell does it say that? "
It doesn't. OTOH, it IS called slashdot, not back-slashdot...
On using ASP.NET:
Boss comes in says, "Build me a simple order entry screen. And use those 'new' asp:datagrid's with anything that looks like a table. If its HTML, don't use it. All input items are in the datagrid format also."
Getting drop down boxes, check box lists, and text boxes to work is an undocumented nightmare. My humble dealings with ASP.NET is that its not ready for prime time.
"Compared to its initial hype and promise, Java has been a dismal failure." - You would need to quantify these constructs, but thats hardly going to happen, now isnt it?
.. fanboi's must die..
That's easy to quantify: Java achieved near 0% of the dynamic web content market, and it achieved near 0% of the desktop application market, both areas where Sun was boasting that they were going to take over leadership from Microsoft (and people like me were supporting and cheering them on). The only area where Java has achieved any significant market share is in dynamic web services, but there Java has already fallen behind ASP.NET. So, in two out of its three target markets, Java has failed completely, and in the third, it's falling behind.
A hell of alot Java promised to be an open standard, a platform for high quality cross platform applications. - And it is. My java apps _are_ portable across systems, even my enterprise application is..
Java is not an open standard. And Java is only "portable" to the degree that it limits the degree to which you can access platform-specific features. That's not a good way of achieving cross-platform capabilities, it's a good way for driving away developers and it's the reason why Java failed in so many areas. Enterprise developers have the least need for high-quality platform integration, which is why Java is still hanging on to life in that area.
Dont MAKE me spank your C#.net.win32 microsoft visual c++ runtime exception throwing [rant continues]
I don't use Microsoft development tools or environments, and I rarely use Windows at all. And I don't recommend any specific alternative to Java (there are plenty, take your pick).
All I'm saying is that people like you are making false statements about Java. Java is a commercial failure compared to its initial hype, it has deep technical flaws, and it is clearly not the future.
Im a problem solver, ill pick the best tool for the job, but fanboi's
You're not a problem solver, you are a Java fanboi. Do us all a favor, take your own advice, and jump of a bridge.
Funny, I thought that was Google's plan; not Microsoft's.
But Google is oh-so-innovative, man, don't you know? It's all about Web 2.0; have you been sleping. Maps, AJAX, API are all so new and exciting, don't you see?
Dice.com returns 10115 results for the search ".NET", 13356 results for "java", and 7145 results for "c++".
.net development going on. I'm surprised so many people think that noone is using it.
So yes, there's a lot of
I thought good coding evolved.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If you're a developer studying both Java and C# you're wasting your time. From the point of view of solving real-world problems, C# is simply a not-very-compatable Java a few years late
C# is more than that: it fixes a number of serious deficiencies in Java, deficiencies that Sun has acknowledged but still hasn't fixed out of concerns over breaking backwards compatibility.
or from the other point of view, Java is a mature, stable C# with the support from a lot of vendors in the industry.
Java has become a niche player; it's primarily being used for server-side development of web-based apps. And even at that, it's not very good. Oh, and it is widely used in education--Java is the new Pascal.
S0Oo...It's Fiction then.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I agree: languages/environments like .NET are the future: they are easier to develop for, prevent silly programming mistakes, and help with security.
.NET; many languages have that property. Microsoft deserves no credit for the technologies in .NET or VisualStudio, since those technologies are 20 years old and weren't invented at Microsoft.
But this is nothing specific about
Still, where does that leave open source and free software? We need to discard the user environment and applications written in C and C++; those languages are obsolete for mainstream software development and they are holding back FOSS (the kernel should eventually be discarded and replaced as well, but we can take a little more time for that).
I don't know what language should replace it. Mono would be the obvious candidate, but the fact that it is based on a Microsoft language makes it unattractive to many people. Java is definitely not the answer--it is riddled with technical problems and it is proprietary. Objective-C inherits too many of C/C++'s flaws to be much of an improvement.
The best thing to do might be to come up with a derivative of C that would feel quite familiar to C/C++ programmers, but add garbage collection and runtime safety. It should also probably be batch compiled, since the bloat associated with the JVM and CLR runtimes is unacceptable to many people.
So Java equals JSP and Swing ? Java is a shitload more than that.
.. that makes next to no sense at all unless you're suggesting the "java operating system" -wich of course you'd be cheering on for world domination as well? ;)
.not dumboi's but really... c'mon.!!.
.net developers on a daily basis, mainly integration between different business constructs, and this is my subjective take on usability roubustness and performance; the java envoriment can be extremely crappy, the .net envoriemnt is crappy and the java envoriment can be pretty good. Let it be said, that it's easier to drown in the massive amounts of bloat and marketing hype in the java section than to get it 'right' the first time around, but you CAN get it right. a respectible rdmbs, subversion, hibernate, resin/orion, IntelliJ IDEA etc. and you're close to an optimal development configuration. .net, not because its superior but because its the monopoly of today and, its my prediction, its the monoploy of tomorrow. I still dont care much for microsoft, but on the other hand if it wasnt microsoft it'd be another large corporation (IBM?) dictating everything and everything .. the future looks alot like that old-old-game.. what was it.. syndicate(s) ?
Let me ask another question, is asp.net superior to jsp ? No ? Then is it "jsp" itself you're putting down or the people marketing it? If windows is the choice for 98% of business servers, does it make sense that there's more asp than jsp pages outthere?
The desktop application market?
Are you seriously stating that you we're cheering on a company that claimed to remove windows programs from the windows operating system and replacing them with JAVA applications ? AWT ? Swing ? allrighty then.
"And Java is only "portable" to the degree that it limits the degree to which you can access platform-specific features."
- omfg
NO its not an open standard, but it IS portable. Besides that there's no point to be made no matter how hard you try double or triple negating shit.
"All I'm saying is that people like you are making false statements about Java. Java is a commercial failure compared to its initial hype, it has deep technical flaws, and it is clearly not the future."
- There you go again.. let me polish your boolean logic for ya'... here you go 'All im saying is that people making false statements about java is making false statements about java'.
Again, double negating your shit may impress and convince your average
Deep technical flaws ? Like what ? (honestly interrested!)
I work with both java and
Of course, this is *just* the spice.. with out the right management your shit no matter how good your tools are.
On another note, i too will migrate my primary core competences to
Im done. I got pulled in to begin with but i have little time for fanboi' wars.. i suspect you do to. We all need to vent from time to time.
Maybe they never claimed that, but it has been a part of the past of Slashdot. Hell, isn't Slashdot one of the premier members of the Open Source Technology Group (Formerly Open Source Developer's Network.) However, OSS can be coded in any language. It's not about what it's written in, it's about the accompanying liscense. And Slashdot is PRIMARILLY News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Just that it used to be "Stuff that would mostly matter to Open Source Nerds." (Not the actual slogan, but their general bent on stories.)
Let me ask another question, is asp.net superior to jsp ? No ? Then is it "jsp" itself you're putting down or the people marketing it?
.. that makes next to no sense
.net developers on a daily basis,
I have no opinion on which of the two systems is better; I just pointed out that Java is falling behind ASP.NET, so it doesn't look like it's the future.
And Java is only "portable" to the degree that it limits the degree to which you can access platform-specific features." - omfg
I'm sorry it makes no sense to you; if you actually were in the business of writing high quality cross platform software, it would.
NO [Java is] not an open standard, but it IS portable.
Good that you acknowledge it. Now, you may believe that a proprietary standard is a good standard, but I disagree.
I work with both java and
Well, with people like you in this industry, it's no wonder that software quality is so awful.
So what is there to gain in .NET that Java doesn't already do?
...?
.NET if Java is a dying, failed technology.
.NET!". Too bad Java has had it all for many years already. It's sad that the previously bad performance of Java was probably the fact they dumped it in the first place, along with the missing 'C'-letter, of course.
I have widely spreaded JRE's on consumer machines in Java
I have guaranteed, very well working cross-platform support in Java,
I have *WAY* more (not to mention more mature) libraries for Java,
I have better, more mature IDE's for Java (and the best one is and always will be free) (not to mention the sheer amount of plugins),
I have better, more mature VM (and many, many ones to choose from),
I have dozens of scripting languages to choose from,
I have ClassLoaders,
I have Java Webstart (it's gonna be really slick in Mustang),
I have VM that does very extensive inlining (.NET JIT does very bad job in inlining)
I have ~7 different tuneable garbage collectors to choose from (Mustang probably introducing few new ones again)
I have SWT (native widgets for slick desktop applications)
I have the source-code of Java (and sooner or later Open Source Java),
I have real documentation for the Java API that nearly never leaves doubt what a thing does
NET/C# offers me (in addition to lose all the above ones)...?
- Excellent Windows support, especially for desktop apps (not that I don't have it in Java, especially when using SWT)
- Syntactic sugar a'la events, properties & delegates?
- Little better generics?
- Unsafe? (ugh)
- Operator overloading (ugh)
As for the "who uses Java these days"..
Well the chaps at Google use Java very extensively these days and keep on supporting it (through JCP).
I wonder why they're not switching to
Oh by the way, few weeks ago Java surpassed C++ at sourceforge in project count.
If it wasn't the letter 'C' and Microsoft - nobody would be using C# these days. It's mainly just these old C/C++ programmers - who probably just wanted to see what the next 'C' brings to the table - that realize: "Hey this is actually nice language!", "I'm so much more productive when using
And by god the ATI catalyst control panel that uses .NET is most horrible piece of software I've ever seen! .NET or the engineers who are to be blamed. Note that I tried it few months ago so I dont know how it's changed. Nor do I really care. I'll never install that piece of shit on my machine again.
To be honest - off the top of my head - it's more ugly than any Java desktop app I've ever seen (even since the 1.1 days). It took like minutes to start-up (even if I only wanted to change resolution. etc!), ate crazy amount of memory and was very choppy overall. It's unbelievable that we see shit like this coming from ATI engineers. I honestly don't know if it's the
If you want a real ATI control panel, don't be afraid to get Omega Drivers and it's tray tools. It makes the ATI stuff look pathetic.
"I have no opinion on which of the two systems is better; I just pointed out that Java is falling behind ASP.NET, so it doesn't look like it's the future."
:) .. gotta do better than that
- No you did not "just point out".
"I'm sorry it makes no sense to you; if you actually were in the business of writing high quality cross platform software, it would."
- Will Robinson, your logic has deep technical flaws, i assume you acknowledge that since you fail to comment on it.
"Good that you acknowledge it. Now, you may believe that a proprietary standard is a good standard, but I disagree."
- Again, i wasnt disagreeing on the open standard part, in fact i have no oppinion whether it would be better than the jcp. But you allready know that, since this is the part you choose to single out of the argument.
"Well, with people like you in this industry, it's no wonder that software quality is so awful."
- Aw.. thats just plain mean!
You've got that right.
.NET"
Contractor Story:
Company A: "Hello Contractor, we don't have alot of money so we would like to do the Open Sorce thing with PHP/MySQL etc."
Developer: "My rates are $XX p/h."
Company A: "Whole $&!%. We can pay you $XX - $Y. Hello? Hello? I think he hung up the phone."
Company B: "Hello Developer, we have plenty of money and we want you to develope a robust system with
Developer: "My rates are $XX + $(CostOfNewLaptop / ContractLength.Months)"
Company B: "We'll see you on Monday."
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
The reason? I was looking for *too little* and not too much. I adjusted my hourly rates upwards and landed an open-ended position. There are two directions to price yourself out of the market. ;-) Of course, this was for the financial industry, and a lot of stock-related companies jump on buzzwords faster than Anna Nicole Smith jumps on a corpse.
I recently gave up contracting, because as a 1099, there was too much work not related to the contract - such as getting reasonable health insurance, setting part of the budget aside for taxes, etc. About four months ago, I took a full time .Net position that paid the same base rate as my contracts. Of course, not having the out of pocket expenses along with a nice benefits package, I actually have more to show for it. ;-)
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
You forgot these pros for .NET .NET 2.0 was a huge step, wonderful tools like linq comming down the pipe
.NET offers
- can write in any of at least 50 languages including VB
- dev environments that accountants can figure out
- value types
- a well organized api
- extensive active progress,
i am not saying it is superior, but you seem to present an extremely shallow view of what
Actually Google prefers Python, I think
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.