Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is an Open Source .NET Up To the Job?
Rob Y. writes:
The discussion on Slashdot about Microsoft's move to open source .NET core has centered on:
1. whether this means Microsoft is no longer the enemy of the open source movement
2. if not, then does it mean Microsoft has so lost in the web server arena that it's resorting to desperate moves.
3. or nah — it's standard Microsoft operating procedure. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
What I'd like to ask is whether anybody that's not currently a .NET fan actually wants to use it? Open source or not. What is the competition? Java? PHP? Ruby? Node.js? All of the above? Anything but Microsoft? Because as an OSS advocate, I see only one serious reason to even consider using it — standardization. Any of those competing platforms could be as good or better, but the problem is: how to get a job in this industry when there are so many massively complex platforms out there. I'm still coding in C, and at 62, will probably live out my working days doing that. But I can still remember when learning a new programming language was no big deal. Even C required learning a fairly large library to make it useful, but it's nothing compared to what's out there today. And worse, jobs (and technologies) don't last like they used to. Odds are, in a few years, you'll be starting over in yet another job where they use something else.
Employers love standardization. Choosing a standard means you can't be blamed for your choice. Choosing a standard means you can recruit young, cheap developers and actually get some output from them before they move on. Or you can outsource with some hope of success (because that's what outsourcing firms do — recruit young, cheap devs and rotate them around). To me, those are red flags — not pluses at all. But they're undeniable pluses to greedy employers. Of course, there's much more to being an effective developer than knowing the platform so you can be easily slotted in to a project. But try telling that to the private equity guys running too much of the show these days.
So, assuming Microsoft is sincere about this open source move,
1. Is .NET up to the job?
2. Is there an open source choice today that's popular enough to be considered the standard that employers would like?
3. If the answer to 1 is yes and 2 is no, make the argument for avoiding .NET.
1. whether this means Microsoft is no longer the enemy of the open source movement
2. if not, then does it mean Microsoft has so lost in the web server arena that it's resorting to desperate moves.
3. or nah — it's standard Microsoft operating procedure. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
What I'd like to ask is whether anybody that's not currently a .NET fan actually wants to use it? Open source or not. What is the competition? Java? PHP? Ruby? Node.js? All of the above? Anything but Microsoft? Because as an OSS advocate, I see only one serious reason to even consider using it — standardization. Any of those competing platforms could be as good or better, but the problem is: how to get a job in this industry when there are so many massively complex platforms out there. I'm still coding in C, and at 62, will probably live out my working days doing that. But I can still remember when learning a new programming language was no big deal. Even C required learning a fairly large library to make it useful, but it's nothing compared to what's out there today. And worse, jobs (and technologies) don't last like they used to. Odds are, in a few years, you'll be starting over in yet another job where they use something else.
Employers love standardization. Choosing a standard means you can't be blamed for your choice. Choosing a standard means you can recruit young, cheap developers and actually get some output from them before they move on. Or you can outsource with some hope of success (because that's what outsourcing firms do — recruit young, cheap devs and rotate them around). To me, those are red flags — not pluses at all. But they're undeniable pluses to greedy employers. Of course, there's much more to being an effective developer than knowing the platform so you can be easily slotted in to a project. But try telling that to the private equity guys running too much of the show these days.
So, assuming Microsoft is sincere about this open source move,
1. Is .NET up to the job?
2. Is there an open source choice today that's popular enough to be considered the standard that employers would like?
3. If the answer to 1 is yes and 2 is no, make the argument for avoiding .NET.
If you're already using something that works (and who isn't), what's the motivation to change?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Which is probably more important than anything else. The benefit of open sourcing .net core is that mono will get better. So if you have a lot of existing .net code and want to get away from ms licensing, at least ms will keep the dev tool revenue.
I've been a cross-platform coder for about a decade now. I liked the ideas of Java and .NET when they came out, but they were lacking in execution. If you look at everything powering technology today: Big Data, Node.js, Android/iOS, cloud remember (Hotmail was bought by MS, originally on BSD servers) Microsoft hasn't done squat. Meanwhile MS has delivered a lot of failed tech: WinForms, Zune, Windows Phone. (I've only ever seen two people with a Windows Phone) Only the Xbox and .NET have succeeded. I would be very concerned hitching my trailer to MS. They don't do innovation anymore, they don't even do copying (embrace and extend) well.
A big .NET friend of mine has recently taken to web development. He develops on OSX, deploys to Linux (AWS). He loves how he can take one thing and just run it on another. He doesn't have to worry about putting IIS on Linux, Node works everywhere. The code he develops isn't tied to any specific OS platform. Angular is node dependent, but Knockout isn't.
And there in I think the real danger is realized. If you use .NET you are locked into MS stagnant mono-culture, and their failing culture of innovation. If you want bleeding edge, OS agnosticism, MS isn't going to deliver it. Their goal will always be to lock you into their vertical to protect their verticals.
With the very good developments in Linux and the Apple premium is gone, only organizations with legacy applications need consider any Microsoft technology.
PS. I use Qt for everything on Mobile and desktop, Node for server and Knockout/Angular for web client. There is a slight possibility that Qt's QML will work on the web. Python for anything else. This is crossplatform, and not one drop of MS. It is my speculation that MS is a wounded animal, realizing they are like Cadillac. Cadillac realized the average age of their customers were getting older, and over 60 and that market would be no longer driving in a few years. There's an exodus from MS platforms. Their new focus aims to fix this. Buyer beware. Where is the money in it for them?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I work at a funded startup in the Seattle area and we've had several .NET (C#) developer positions open for several months now. We rarely even get applicants and the ones we get rarely pass a basic phone screen.
No way would we discriminate on age. The talent pool from what we've seen is crap.
How come "Ask Slashdot" posts always boil down to "give me some ammunition for an argument with my boss" ?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I think Microsoft is adapting to being one of several vendors instead of being a dominant force. They have to play better with others because they don't have the market power they had 10 years ago.
As for .Net, I used it briefly some years ago and wasn't impressed. Compared to Java, they decided that exceptions don't need to be declared, so you have to look up in the documentation which exceptions you have to handle. However, the documentation doesn't list all exceptions that can be thrown. So I have no idea how one would do proper error handling in .Net.
Another thing that bothered me is that the documentation consists mostly of examples. However, if I read documentation I don't want a code fragment to copy-paste, I want to read the specification for a particular method. In particular, how it handles edge cases. That information was usually missing. Of course you can test the behavior, but there is no guarantee the next release will have the same behavior if the behavior was never documented. All in all, it didn't feel like a good platform for writing reliable applications.
The old gray beards today might say the same with IBM or Digital but once market forces correct a monopoly the company either whithers or adapts.
Doesn't mean MS is no different than any other corporation even if that opinion is unpopular here on slashdot. Timewarner/AT&T/Comcast are far more evil and God forbid what Jobs would have in store if Apple won the Pc wars in the 1980s and achieved 90% marketshare! MS would be tame in comparison.
Under a free market people play nice or loose out.
Today I like Microsoft even though I hated them hence my name 13 years ago. Here are the facts in late 2014 .NET and lots of frameworks
1. IE is not a bad browser anymore. It used to be both feared and loathed in the old days as it was a threat to win32 applications. Today they no longer will ever have the control they did in 2004 when you needed to go to a library to use IE 6 if you used a mac or linux to fill out job apps. Yes I remember doing that. Monster.com was optimized for IE 6 quirks back then.IE 11 is modern and has great debugging tools and behaves like a real browser behaves and has the best security with sandboxing. IE 12 will even have an add-on framework ala Chrome/Firefox. I use adblock on IE today
2. Visual Studio 2015 supports Android and Linux Xiarmin development?? No I am lying. Go google it as emulators are included including CLANG support.
3. Office is available for Android and IOS. Full suite is coming soon
4. MS more liberal with pricing for non corporations. Google VS Community edition. It is pro and free!
5. MS is opening sourcing
6. Azure supports non win32 operating systems.
7. MS is putting more effort in security and stabilizing and fixing bugs now that competition exists.
Am I a fanboy? No. I am agnostic this day but I find MS getting much better and if it were not for Metro I would be a fan even of their desktop products. Windows 7 is a very stable desktop oriented OS. It is not and I repeat not the POS slashdotters who have not run Windows in 15 years remember.
MS woke up and realized oh shoot. IOS and Android are eating our lunch! Eclipse will eat our lunch! Amazon will eat our lunch! Firefox and now I should say Chrome has eating our lunch! Ms has so much competition today on so many fronts it can't go back and use leverage of a monopoly in one area for another. Blocking Android on Windows? Who cares about Windows blah. Block W3C standards iwth IE? Fine I will use another browser etc.
This was unthinkable in 1999. So Linux did not win the desktop wars like we hoped but open source software did win everything else. Browsers are competitive. Mobile operating systems competitive. Development environments are competitive. Clouds and virtual services for legacy win32 apps scare the crap out of them so soon if mega corps want to leave they can.
MS is done. I welcome the new MS. As some (I did not say all folks) products are fairly decent and play well with others.
http://saveie6.com/
There are dozens of languages that compile to the .NET CLI, including BASIC, C++, Ruby, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Python, Lisp, Pascal, Perl, Scheme, etc. C# is the most popular language to compile to the CLI, yes, but almost any other common language out there can be used too.
Yeah but really who uses them?
95% of .NET is in c#. All the VB jobs are still for legacy 5.x and 6.x code that I see. Take it back 85% c# and 10% c++. Just because it can be done COBOL doesn't mean people use it other than to see if they can write a hello world program.
In essence it is a c# based environment.
http://saveie6.com/
Not even that, Visual C++ .NET is a broken aberration that I have not seen used anywhere ever (it's not the same as Visual C++, which is straight up C++). .NET is effectively C#.
From what I understand about .NET is they only open sourced the server side parts. Not the stuff desktop apps would use. Obviously this is because Microsoft is most challenged for market share on servers so has less to lose by doing this, it hopes to cut into the share of other platforms. Microsoft is not giving up much and doing little or nothing to advance cross platform application support on the desktop, mostly maintaining the Windows vendor lockin where it has its monopoly, on desktops.
You're comparing 1990s Apache to 2013 IIS. If you care to know what your talking about, you may wish to have another look to too what has changed in the last 10-20 years. Here's one example that's not only way out of date, but also wrong even for that time period :
> why is Apache still spawning processes for every request that comes in... don't they realize the overhead of that??).
Prior to the release'of Apache 2.0 in 2000 (fourteen years ago), Apache pre-spawned a group of processes and each process would handle one request AT A TIME. It never spawned a process for each request, it had a pool of processes that were reused. Pretty much just like how modern browsers now run separate tabs in separate processes. The #1 reason for that was to allow Apache to use libraries (like GD) that weren't thread safe. If Apache were multi-thread rather than multi-process, you couldn't use those libraries.
Note also that Apache was designed for SERVER operating systems like Unix, Linux, and BSD, not for a desktop OS. On a server OS, forking a few processes at startup isn't that resource intensive- far less intensive that preloading IE and Office at startup.
Of course like everything in Apache, the multiprocessing is done by a module, so you can still use processes rather than threads if you want to. You can do that and by choosing sane settings for the number of spare processes you won't fork new ones more than a few per hour.
> A lot of the performance reasons that are behind people switching from Apache to Nginx
I tested this very thoroughly. 90% of the performance difference of Nginx, which only occurs on some systems, is that it essentially forced noatime, regardless of the administrator's selection of mount options. Back when noatime wasn't the default, less-knowledgeable admins who didn't know to use noatime would see a significant performance benefit from Nginx vs Apache. Knowledgeable admins would mount with noatime, and find that Apache and Nginx performance was almost identical. Knowledgeable admins would also comment out the 90% of available modules they don't use, like mod_speling, and set MaxClients etc appropriately. With a reasonable configuration, Apache can give better performance than Nginx, depending on which benchmark you choose. In all cases, Apache provides more PREDICTABLE performance because it actually works as documented, while Nginx has documentation copy-pasted from elsewhere, but their code isn't actually the same as server they copy-pasted documentation from.
There's no doubt C# is a nicer language to work in that Java but so is just about everything. Java is simply dated. However, there's nothing stopping you from using other JVM languages (like Groovy which is extremely easy to learn for a Java dev).
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
The C standard library provides an API to all your system resources.
The C standard library (libC) provides a very basic API to some of your system resources. You have to include a large number of other libraries in order to obtain a feature set similar to the Java and .NET frameworks.
And in addition to the IO, thread and math limitations that the AC above touches on, there are several other major problems facing the core C libraries: wchar support, qword support, socket support and overflow safe functions. There has been significant balkanization between the BSD, GNU and Microsoft camps on these topics, making cross platform development difficult. I've written a lot of wrapper code over the years dealing with the issue.
The nice part about the Java and .NET frameworks is that they eliminate most of the problems I mentioned and several of the issues the AC brought up.
But I do still find the C libraries, Java framework and .NET framework all lacking. They're good for about 80% of all cases, but I seem to find myself thumping on the native APIs far more than I thought I should. I'm really annoyed at how often I find myself using PInovoke under C#.
My hope is that with the Core .NET moving off to the open source camp, maybe Microsoft can start focusing on adding C# bindings for the rest of WinAPI. The day I can write code without having to use a PInvoke is the day I'll stop writing C/C++ code.
Java was going down the tubes 3 years ago. I had serious doubts about it and was looking closely as Scala
funny how you tried to escape java "going down the tubes" by switching to a ... java emitter.
With the open sourcing of .NET, I wonder how far they've gone. Is it the exact same runtime used on Windows, now fully open sourced like the JVM?
Yes
Was the entire .NET platform open sourced, or just a subset?
The entire *server* stack - i.e. everything you need to run a .NET server application. They have even created a small-footprint webserver Kestrel for Linux based on libuv. The reason for libuv actually touches on a very important aspect/advantage of modern .NET (and to some extent, Windows Server) . More on that below.
Doesn't .NET require IIS to run web apps?
No. You have *always* been able to just self-host the ASP.NET bits. However, MS have taken it a step further and completely separated out the bits of the pipeline so that you can pick and choose. For a long time there have been plugins for Apache httpd and others that would allow you to run Mono. Those will work fine regardless of whether ASP.NET is provided by Mono or MS. Kremel mentioned above, but you can use any other way. ASP.NET vNext is "pluggable".
How will you run a .NET web app on Linux?
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.... | sh && source ~/.kre/kvm/kvm.sh
In the Java world, the entire platform and runtimes are open source.
In the .NET world, the entire platform and runtimes are open source, and the platform specification is governed by international standards organizations (ECMA and ISO).
Microsoft grants patent licenses for anyone who wants to create implementations of the specifications, and Microsoft *specifically* does not require paid testing suites and they do NOT assert that using the APIs constitutes copyright infringement.
And now for some reflections on the differences: Microsofts stack - especially with the latest .NET and Windows Runtime - have grown to become completely focused on asynchronous programming. Windows (the NT line) with the "overlapped IO" available from the initial version always had a very high-performing "completion" oriented async model for all types of IO. While this model could yield much better scalability, to leverage it you had to program in a "callback" style that were often at odds on how you think about a problem (sequentially) as well as poor match for constructs such as exception handling, looping/branching etc.
With C# 5.0 (and the equivalent VB.NET) async became an integrated feature of the language. This is not about smart synchronization primitives, multithreading or similar "low level" concepts. This is aboy having a language that effortlessly allows a programmer to express a sequential problem in a way that allow asynchronous processing all the way down to the system level where overlapped IO will be used. Without invading the way the solution is expressed.
This is huge. I am aware of only one other ecosystem that does something similar: node.js. Python has the capability, but there's no ecosystem built around it where the capability is the default way to design libraries and APIs.
In terms of enabling and supporting async programming style, C#, .NET (and F#) is the most mature option out there, along with the "new" kid node.js.
Java only recently acquired the ability to process web requests asynchronously (yielding the thread to process other requests) - but the language and APIs make it exceedingly hard to leverage this capability for anything useful. If you look up articles for how to do async in Java you will notice a strange t
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
To me, .NET === Resource-Hog
At my place of employment, we implemented a number of .NET apps that were mostly just a wrapper-frontend to our websocket based main app. We can pretty much do the same thing using Chrome, but it was thought this would be easier for our clients to use. Unfortunately, we also run a resource heavy data-generating simulator on the PC along with the app. So we couldn't help notice that when we used the .NET app, the simulator would get starved out. On the other hand, when using a browser, there was no such problem. (BTW: I find this a little ironic as browsers were the original 800lb gorrila.)
So this leads one to wonder if one goal of .NET for MS wasn't to nudge up the number of server licenses, along with licenses for other MS products (IIS,SQL Server, ...)
I was surprised that the WPF issue has not been discussed more. Aside from C#, which is a sweet little language in most respects, and still ahead of Java IMO, WPF is the other fairly unique thing that .NET Microsoft brings to the table. It has no real parallel for the rich- or smart-client use case. (Mozilla's XUL is perhaps the most directly comparable FOSS technology.) And it is NOT being open-sourced. In fact, instead of throwing its weight behind a single WPF / XAML implementation, Microsoft allowed it to fragment between Silverlight (deprecated), WPF (supported only in the most lackluster fashion), and the client component of WinRT (Windows 8 only). This may in fact prove to be the opening needed for the modern HTML5 stack to become the preferred rich- and smart-client deployment technology even for desktop and laptop form factors. In that case it would also rapidly eat away at the very last piece of the technology business that Microsoft dominates.
Nonaggression works!