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Is Microsoft 'Reaping the Rewards' From Open-Sourcing Its .NET Core? (infoworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the embracing-and-extending dept.

An anonymous reader quote InfoWorld: Two years ago Microsoft did the unthinkable: It declared it would open-source its .NET server-side cloud stack with the introduction of .NET Core... Thus far, the move has paid off. Microsoft has positioned .NET Core as a means for taking .NET beyond Windows. The cross-platform version extends .NET's reach to MacOS and Linux...

Developers are buying in, says Scott Hunter, Microsoft partner director program manager for .NET. "Forty percent of our .NET Core customers are brand-new developers to the platform, which is what we want with .NET Core," Hunter says. "We want to bring new people in." Thanks in considerable part to .NET Core, .NET has seen a 61% uptick in the number of developers engaged with the platform in the past year.
The article includes an interesting quote from Microsoft-watching analyst Rob Sanfilippo. "It could be argued that the technology generates indirect revenue by incenting the use of Azure services or Microsoft developer tools."

15 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Re:not quite correct by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    1) Nobody teaches C# as a learning language. Java (for the boring stuff) and JavaScript or Python (for the cool kids) fill that niche. Microsoft hasn't bought any such "win".
    2) Microsoft's code, interfaces, and architecture are well-suited for the specific business cases of the people that pay them money. If you aren't in that group (and you aren't, since you admit it was "forced" on you), then neither Microsoft nor anyone who does pay for their products gives even the smallest shit about your useless opinion.
    3) Microsoft's "inability to cross platform operate" is obviously not what you remember it to be, seeing as this very article is about their open source efforts.
    4) Javascript is not a universal language. It is a pile of hacks and it's nearly impossible to get any stable systems built with it. I've just spent the last several months "shoring up" a shitty JS API by rewriting it in C#.
    5) I haven't paid Microsoft anything for the operation of that (or any other) .Net-based software.
    6) I haven't read any books, much less any as thick as War And Peace, on the topic of .Net development in all of my years of working with it.
    7) Having reached point #7, you're an idiot.

  2. what's so "unthinkable"? by ooloorie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Two years ago Microsoft did the unthinkable:

    I don't see what's so "unthinkable" about it; Microsoft has been pretty honest and well-behaved when it comes to .NET since the start: they created open standards, made legal commitments not to assert any patents, and have supported Mono. That is... unlike that other company and its platform.

    1. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oh man, that's worthy of a spit take. This is Microsoft we're talking about, not a reformed heroin addict. Nothing has changed. This is classic embrace, extend, extinguish.

      Why would they need/want to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" a platform that they themselves created?

      Furthermore, what objectionable things has Microsoft done over the last decade?

      Over the last decade, in what way has Microsoft been worse than Oracle/Sun or Apple? How does anything Microsoft has done compare to the major fuck up represented by Oracle/Sun's API copyright claims?

      Seriously, I understand the Microsoft hatred; they badly misbehaved in the 90's, but that time has long since passed. They have lost their monopoly and they are struggling, and they are behaving accordingly.

    2. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Microsoft has been pretty honest and well-behaved when it comes to .NET since the start:

      That's pretty amusing considering .Net started because they got sued for forking Java, so they make a Java clean-room clone and went with that.

      That said .Net has gone it's own way and Microsoft has been much better behaved lately. But to say it's been so "since the start" of .Net is a massive retcon.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    3. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's pretty amusing considering .Net started because they got sued for forking Java, so they make a Java clean-room clone and went with that.

      Sun had originally promised to make Java an ANSI/ISO standard, and they broke that promise, turning Java into a proprietary standard with an open source implementation. Sun had also promised to make Java a good platform for GUI applications, something else they utterly failed at. I think Microsoft was completely justified in doing what they were doing with Java, and Sun was confirming how dishonest and untrustworthy they were with their lawsuit.

    4. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't see what's so "unthinkable" about it; Microsoft has been pretty honest and well-behaved when it comes to .NET since the start:

      Because it's completely a reversed position from what they had before. See the "halloween letters" for example. It took a long time for the Open Source virus to infect Microsoft, but it's there now.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sure, if you have been in a coma for 20 years and just woken up, this change in position may surprise you. To the rest of us, it's been a pretty gradual development.

    6. Re:what's so "unthinkable"? by gtall · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sun's problem with GUI applications is that they didn't understand them. They had a big machine mentality, not small PC mentality. They never caught on that GUIs are quite like realtime apps, and response at the keyboard and screen really matters. Their notion of creating and freeing "graphic objects" was guaranteed to make GUIs look like they were swimming in molasses.

  3. Is Microsoft reaping benefits here? by mmell · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I sure hope so. They're a corporate, profit-making entity, a fact which they've never attempted to hide or disavow. If there is a benefit to be had from open source, they'll take full advantage of that benefit - hopefully to the mutual benefit of their bottom line and the open source community.

  4. Re:not quite correct by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No. Hell no. Higher education is about teaching concepts and proper practices. A gutted mess of a language simply isn't appropriate for good education. Python is an equally 'easy' language but has far superior constructs for abstraction, sensible error handling , structured and OO design, and so forth. Its duck typing goes easy on new students, but doesn't fall into the traps offered by languages like Javascript or PHP's weak typing.

    Beyond that Java (or C#, the two are almost interchangeable here, and with Java rapidly becoming radioactive thanks to oracle, it might be the better choice) , C/C++, Clojure and Haskell all provide proper computer science training whilst still remaining job market viable.

    And if someone is unlucky enough to end up in a javascript shop, well theres always whisky and the blues.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  5. Re:not quite correct by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the videogame industry at least, C# is extremely popular for tool development and scripting, while C++ is largely used for engine and game code. It's a clean, well constructed language, is similar enough to C++ to train up programmers easily, and integrates well with native C++ code. JavaScript is occasionally used as a scripting solution and for web integration (or web games, of course), but it's not quite as popular for general purpose use, from what I've seen. Lua is still used for runtime scripting as well, while various other languages like Python or Java contribute in minor ways with tools and automation.

    So, once again, a language pissing match is completely pointless unless you specify what you're actually developing, and how it will be used and deployed. How often do I have to say this? Different languages, different strengths.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  6. Microsoft is positioned for success with c# by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The leading 3d engine (Unity) all the indies use is in c# for some strange reason. This gives it a special allure to a lot of game developers... so I don't see it going anywhere in the next five or ten years. It may last much longer than that too.

    --
    God spoke to me
    1. Re:Microsoft is positioned for success with c# by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/9675/is-unity-engine-written-in-monoc-or-c.html

      "The Unity runtime is written in C/C++. [...] The editor is built on the Unity runtime and additionally includes editor-specific C/C++ binaries."
      --AngryAnt (Emil Johansen), Ex Unity Technologies

      "Unity is written in C++, with the following exceptions: [...] There is hardly any functionality in UnityEngine.dll, the only thing it does is relay your c#/javascript calls into the C++ part of Unity. Without the C++ part there is nothing."
      --Lucas Meijer, Unity

  7. Re:not quite correct by DrXym · · Score: 4, Interesting
    No. Javascript is a terrible teaching language. It doesn't enforce programming discipline in any way, doesn't care program structure or types, is grossly inefficient, doesn't actually DO anything by itself because it is a scripting language (the program it runs against has that functionality), and is all around just a bad language. Yes we're stuck with it because it's used by browsers and is convenient in other places like NodeJS but it's not a teaching language unless you want to turn out another generation of Visual Basic programmers.

    At the very least it would be better to teach in Typescript that addresses some of the shortcomings in JS, but then someone would moan that it's Microsoft again. But better yet, programming would be taught on a structured, forgiving, well designed standalone language. There are plenty to choose from. Scripting and other concepts would be introduced once the basics were learned.

  8. Re:int vs float vs double by murdocj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Definitely. If javascript is the first language, people have no clue how to structure things, what types are, that an object is more than a collection of stuff... it's a great glue language if you want to bang out a few lines, it's a disaster if you want to write solid production code. Just look at all the "add-ons" like typescript that adds in concepts like type checking that you get for free in any decent language.