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Devs Worried Microsoft Will Dump .NET
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.
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...
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.
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.
.NET is mainly used for server-side processing.
Wait, what? I make client applications... Windows apps. I don't make websites. I don't make client applications that require constant connection with a server. So your statement completely forgets about me and thousands of developers who need to make real applications that work in the real world, not some dream land in the cloud.
I'm beginning to wonder if Microsoft hasn't forgotten about us too.
Oh... and this: HTML5 may excel with GUI, but it's not better than WPF. WPF is definitely better in terms of combining the power, flexibility, and ease-of-development of UIs. (Before the flaming begins... I never said WPF is better for everyone, it's just better for me and my Windows clients.)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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..."
.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.
This would be funny if millions of people weren't STILL using VB6. :P Hell, I've worked at two Fortune 500 companies in the last year that had business critical applications still in VB6.
Now, that millions of people are still using VB6 is funny, but that's not where you were going with that.