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Devs Worried Microsoft Will Dump .NET

Posted by Soulskill on from the long-term-strategy-is-beholden-to-the-dollar dept.

joelholdsworth passes along a story summing up concerns from developers that "Microsoft seems to be set on adopting HTML5 and JavaScript as its main application development tools for Windows 8," and asking, "is this the end of .NET?" The article continues: "To bet the farm on HTML5 and JavaScript being the next big thing is a good bet, but it's not a bet that Microsoft can easily take and make good. Even if the world does turn to JavaScript and platform-independent apps, this still means that Microsoft loses. The problem is that Microsoft needs a technology that gives it an edge, and HTML5/JavaScript is everybody's edge. Microsoft developers feel left in the dark and very angry at the way they are being treated. You only have to browse the Microsoft forums to discover how strong the feeling is: forum post 1, forum post 2 and an open letter." Reader Sla$hPot points out a similar story at OS News.

11 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. Short Answer? by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No.

    If you watch the presentation for what it really is, what they're saying is if you want the 'New Hotness' flashy canvas, yes your apps will have to be HTML/JS. No, they're not going to throw away everything out there, you'll be able to use 'old and busted'.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  2. Misleading, FUD, etc by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The developers worry about Silverlight and WPF, not .Net in general. .Net will still have its place for desktop apps and it will still be used as a server-side web platform. Silverlight and WPF have nothing (well, almost nothing, to the point of being inconsequential) to do with that.

    But this is Slashdot, and that's Soulskill...

  3. Its shit like this slashdot.... by Yold · · Score: 5, Insightful

    JavaScript is a great language, but using it for full-blown enterprise app development would be a major setback. Strongly typed languages are great for the enterprise, because you know (and Intellisense knows too) at compile time what to expect from objects.

    Furthermore, I'd speculate that the performance of the .NET Virtual Machine is miles ahead of any JavaScript VM. I cannot recall hearing about any JavaScript VMs that support multiple threads either.

    Shit like this makes me not even want to come to this site.

    1. Re:Its shit like this slashdot.... by JustSomeProgrammer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      +1 Agree. Javascript and HTML 5 I think is great for client side, but server side? I don't really want to write JavaScript for talking to a database.

    2. Re:Its shit like this slashdot.... by Malc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know why JS gets such a bad wrap. It's got some really cool features, like closures and dynamic functionality like being able to compile and execute any string. With syntax very familiar to Java/C++/C/C#, it's easy to pickup and write object based code.

      For those wanting to break out of the sandbox on Windows, Microsoft has allowed creation of COM objects for a very long time. I guess those are the roots of AJAX too.

  4. Re:Doubtful by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And just imagine, all this effort just to reinvent what C did 40 years ago.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  5. Re:Oh, dear, god.. by afabbro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I surely can't be the only one praying that they do drop .NET?

    Yes, you are. .NET is one of Microsoft's better ideas.

    Or perhaps you're a VB6 man...?

    --
    Advice: on VPS providers
  6. Squeal of the Wounded fanboi by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there nothing so shrill, so piercing? When they finally realize that they directed enthusiasm - even affection - and invested personal identity in a corporation, they are still so enthralled that they feel betrayed instead of enlightened.

    Look. Microsoft, Apple, Google? You are just a bit of tissue and they will wad you up, when finished wiping. Apple wipes their nose, while Microsoft wipes somewhere lower in the anatomical procession... Small comfort to reflect upon, as you trace an arc through the air, upon disposal.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  7. Re:That would be a GOOD thing by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In this particular case, the reason why people are up in arms is because .NET stack is actually significantly better than HTML5/JS stack at pretty much everything except for portability. As a language, C# (as of v4) roundly spanks JavaScript - it has every single feature of the latter except for prototypes (and even that you can emulate), and deals away with most of the flawed design decisions that have to be maintained in JS for the sake of back-compat (like semicolon auto-removal, or dynamic scoping of "this). As a framework, it's so far ahead it's not even something you can compare.

    Of course, no-one said anything about .NET being dropped so far. People are making conjectures based on limited data, someone makes a pessimistic conclusion, and that enters a positive feedback loop where folks sit in the circle on the forums, and are exchanging opinions about how awful things are, with tone set bleaker and bleaker with every new iteration.

  8. .NET != Silverlight by geoffrobinson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .NET isn't quite the same thing as Silverlight. Dropping .NET would be a much bigger deal, and I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  9. Re:Yeah, cos you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, his statement completely forgets about you and thousands of developers who use .NET because they don't know C/C++.

    Right. Because C/C++ is all there is. The only tool for every job. Plus, it's what Real Programmers(TM) use.

    Grow up.