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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.

2 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. Spoken like a true web developer by StikyPad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The problem is that Microsoft needs a technology that gives it an edge, and HTML5/JavaScript is everybody's edge."

    Pardon the French, but are you fucking kidding me? HTML5/JS isn't anybody's edge. HTML/JS is in no way appropriate for writing an actual application. It may work, barely, in some circumstances, but it's the worst tool for almost any job except where it's required (in the browser).

    Fortunately, as stated elsewhere, the concern is with the abandonment of Silverlight (which isn't really that great a loss, except for the people MS tricked into investing time and money in), not .NET as a whole.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  2. Re:On dot-net (not debt) by Mongoose+Disciple · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could I ask for your perspective on why this is the case?

    I'm not the person you're replying to, but I'll give you mine:

    It's basically Java done one better. Basically it's the version of Java you'd come up with if you'd spent 5 years in the trenches as a Java developer and had a good set of ideas as how you could do a better job if you had it to write over again from scratch, keeping everything that's good about Java (except for the cross-platform action, which in my experience for any practical application was more of an in-theory benefit than actual benefit) and fixing a lot of things that weren't quite right.

    (Granted, Java is since then improving, as well.)

    I'm sure a lot of people don't think much of Java, either. It's not the right tool for every task, and neither is .NET -- but for several niches (e.g. writing custom applications for a business's internal use) it's a pretty awesome one.