Many Fortune 1000 and even more Fortune 10000 companies is not speculation, it's fact. True, J2EE is more mature and has a much larger adoption rate, but 2nd place is not out of the race.
It is apparent to me that.NET is largely just a new version of COM with all the old guts hidden under a new application management layer and runtime.
.NET has nothing to do with COM. It exists as it is even if COM never existed. As you mention, there is COM Interop wihch yields a small performance hit, so if you have tons of COM objects that you won't be rewriting anytime soon there upgrading to.NET would be a drawback. The reality is, we want to rewrite our COM because the COM is a pain to maintain. The COM interop layer essentially allows us to rewrite at our own pace while having all of the new.NET functinality.
In essence, the major conclusion I drew is that much of our existing code and designs were not useable in.NET
Yes, just as you can't use a PHP function in Java. I'm not sure what your point is.
So your company is going to toss away all its PHP, Cold Fusion, ASP/COM code... interesting setup they must have
Actually, this was the scenerio at my last company. It's called aquisitions and mergers. do you want to bet your job on Microsoft not forgetting its early adopters?
We'll see. We had code in Beta2 that runs flawlessly on the 1.0 CLR less one minor exception (minor syntax change). Of course, being in Beta, we anticipated taking a week or so updating the code to 1.0. If the Beta to 1.0 was so painless, I can imagine the same for the next major revision.
Actually, VB is not a.NET language option. VB.NET is drastically different then VB. VB is not just a language, it's an entire platform. VB.NET is a VB lookalike to help VB developers migrate to.NET. It's like saying that Perl is pretty much the same as.NET because of Perl.NET, or that Cobol is pretty much the same because of Cobol.NET. The analogy still holds.
Seattle was, at one time, the 2nd geekiest city - now it's only 5th:-(. Not too bad considering we're so close to the "evil empire".
BTW: If you are going to the Seattle Sit 'n' Spin meetup then you'll identify me by my ASP.NET hat:-). Don't worry, I've got my EFF t-shirt to make up for it. Yes, that's right, I'm a Windows developer who gives hundreds to the EFF each year. Reconcile THAT!
Sorry if I sound like MS drone, but I have to contest your "+5 insightful" assertions.
a1. If you already have a substantial investment in software written in anything but a.NET language, chances are you aren't very motivated to switch paradigms.
This could be said with J2EE as well. We had a ton of Cold Fusion, PHP, and ASP/COM that we wanted to consolidate into one platform so we could reuse code accross applications. J2EE and.NET are the best candidates for this scenario.
I have yet to meet a serious java developer who has any interest in.NET
Again, this can be said for any set of competing languages. I could also say, "I have yet to meet a serious VB developer who does not have a huge interest in.NET".
Regardless of all the claims Microsoft makes about C#/.NET maturity, nobody in their right mind is going to bet the company on a new MS platform...
This is pure speculation. Sure, it sounds nice to say on/., but we're supposed to be scientists not religious zealots. Do the research (I'm not going to spoon feed it to you) and you'll find that you're wrong very quickly. One quick example, Verizon's entire customer service system (one of the biggest in the world) has been running.NET since it was in Beta. Ask anyone with solid.NET experience and they'll tell you that Beta 2 of.NET was more mature then Java was when it was released. It is much more mature then you think.
There is little imperative to adopt something for which there are no major none-Microsoft commercial offerings.
Unless you have no problems running on a Microsoft platoform, which many do not. Again, look at all of the ".asp" sites out there. The vast majority are NOT running on Chillisoft, and are probably looking to migrate to.NET within the next year or so (source: Gartner... grain of salt applied).
The wait-and-see approach is a tried and true paradigm with respect to version 1.0 software from Microsoft.
For larger and less technically ambitious companies I'd have to agree. However, for smaller companies who need to get away from ASP/COM, Cold Fusion, or even PHP,.NET is a viable solution, as is J2EE. I believe that they are both great competitors. Really, "Web Applications" are moving away from little scripting engines towards compiled, OO, strongly-typed languages. The only serious offerings are J2EE and.NET. I think the competition is great, and will only make our lives as developers better as both technologies get better.
I'm in the same boat as you..NET is stupid. Hailstorm that is. Windows.NET server makes a little bit of sense, but the concept of naming it.NET is kind of stupid as well..NET as a technology is great. It's not perfect, but for a 1.0 (and an MS 1.0 at that!) it's incredible.
What's interesting is that it's not just PHB's that don't understand this issue, many developers don't either - especially those in the Java camp. They see headlines like this and say, "MS's java copy failed LOL!".
terrible showing at E3??? The games were awesome, and made many riding on the fence go out and buy an XBox once they saw the E3 lineup. Sure, the speakers lacked good speaking skills, but that's not how I'd rate a gaming system!
The problem is that you're too pessimistic - hence your original overstatement. Mono has made a ton of progress - moreso then many open source Java programs had after the release of the 1.0 JDK. The difference is, as you mention, MS has no intention of building the CLR and the libraries for other OS's. However, MS does say, "if you want to build it on another OS, power to you". This is the best possible route IMHO. Whereas Sun, for a long period of time, was demanding royalties for their "open platform" product, MS is not. Again, this is why Mono has made so much progress, because MS has been easier to work with then Sun was in 1995-1998ish. Surprising? Maybe to majority of the/. crowd, but not to me.
As a.NET developer I can identify with the crucial classes that are required for most apps, and Mono is very close already. And let's not forget MS's effort to integrate Apache with.NET. Although I personally have no reason to use Linux for.NET, it looks like this reality will come to fruition in a much quicker time frame then any open Java solution.
Re:Don't scream
on
.NET for Apache
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· Score: 5, Informative
Mono is only going to implement the VM, you most likely are still going to need tons of libraries.
This is wrong. All someone has to do is go to the mono project's home page and see that they are implementing the vast majority of the.NET framework - most noteably the classes pertaining to web applications (ASP.NET).
Instead of fighting the inevidable, release your own consumer friendly product that does NOT affect your revenue in a negative way. Then, there'd be little room (for the general public, anyway) for products that do offend your profits.
Are you serious? I mean, there's definitely some FUD in the MSFT article, but let's stick to the facts when critiquing it. Even compared to OS 9 or X, Windows 2K/XP has MUCH better support for 3rd party hardware. Looking a Linux, which has improved greatly, it's still difficult to setup if you have "non-standard" equipment (eg: any sound card other then an SB Live!). My machine has unique hardware in it, which Win95, Win98, and Win2K have all handled almost flawlessly (less so Win95). With Linux it's still an arm-wrestling match.
Ya, buy XP is a HUGE upgrade from ME. Heck, it's almost a completely different product. When XP SP1 came out - with major updates, not just bug fixes - we didn't have to pay $20. I think I'd be frustrated as an OS X user. Personally, I think they should just price major versions accordingly so that all updates are free. As a developer, this would ensure that a larger population was upgrading to newer versions
I've never seen a desktop Wintel box with 4-pin firewire ports. As you mention, laptops for some silly reason tend to use 4-pin ports. So even though I have a 6-pin firewire port on my box will I need the power adapter? That would suck.
...who have never programmed before, but who now find themselves with the need to create their own site-management tools, automated web clients, and web-based applications.
I hope I don't come off as an elitist, but don't we have enough "non-programmers" acting as programmers thanks to the.COM boom? I have full respect for a manager or web designer wishing to learn programming and web development. However, teaching them the tools first is not going to make them a good programmer. I'm afraid that books like this will lead towards more poorly designed and written programs. A web application is software and should be treated as such. Is it just me, or does anyone else share this feeling?
If you want to compare, add Microsoft Office (StarOffice 6.0), IIS (Apache), SQL server (MySQL, PostgreSQL...), Photoshop (Gimp), Money (GnuCash)... etc.
Because we are comparing OS's.
Office OEM $179 versus $70 for StarOffice.
IIS and Apache are irrelevant for the average user. Plus, you can use Apache on Windows, and Windows XP home has IIS Personal Edition on it.
SqlServer is a RDBMS. Compare it with Oracle or DB2 but not MySql or PostgreSQL. Plus, the comparison is pretty silly considering that not all geeks need an RDBMS let alone joe blow.
Photoshop and the Gimp are not comparable - let's not beat this dead horse again please. Older versions of PS are found for very cheap on ebay if money is an issue.
MS Money freaks me out since it logs you into MS's servers when you use it. So, I'll give that one to you.
Why doesn't Bill Gates do something really cool for humanity, like fund a private Mars program?
Because instead of doing something cool, he's people who don't even know what Mars is because all they think about is their starvation and the deadly diseases that plague them.
He wanted to become the richest dude on Earth by running the world's biggest software company. That's it.
We all have our own interests, as well as opinions on what's valuable for humanity. How dare you judge someone just because they don't share the same values that you do.
The last company I was at used all web-based customer management tools. If you searched for something like "I like banannas" it forwarded you to a java based tetris game.
Sure, I'll just go out and buy a copy of OS X for $100+ and install it on my current machine.
MAC's are cool, but so is x86 hardware. It's not as simple of a choice.
As a Windows user I'm a bit surprised.
on
A Linux User Goes Back
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· Score: 4, Informative
I'm a bit surprised he didn't go to Win2K. WinXP has some cool features, but unless the latest service pack really changed things, it feels very unpolished (read: Rushed to compete with OS X).
Re:I think that M$ has Missed the Point
on
Microsoft Freon
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· Score: 2
Less we forget that the entire reason that Sony came into the market is for the same thing that MS is doing now. Sony has a HD upgrade for a reason, and it's not just for multiplayer gaming.
Even though my PS2 is practically the same size (The XBox is a lot deeper, but it's not even as deep as my DVD player so they both take the same practically useable space).
I can understand this if I was running a business from my house. However, I VPN for my employer whenever I'm sick or whenever I'm taking a half day (2-3 times a month). I also VPN to my friends house to play games on his "LAN" with games that don't support TCP/IP without going through some silly service.
Slashdot Mirror
Many Fortune 1000 and even more Fortune 10000 companies is not speculation, it's fact. True, J2EE is more mature and has a much larger adoption rate, but 2nd place is not out of the race.
.NET is largely just a new version of COM with all the old guts hidden under a new application management layer and runtime.
.NET has nothing to do with COM. It exists as it is even if COM never existed. As you mention, there is COM Interop wihch yields a small performance hit, so if you have tons of COM objects that you won't be rewriting anytime soon there upgrading to .NET would be a drawback. The reality is, we want to rewrite our COM because the COM is a pain to maintain. The COM interop layer essentially allows us to rewrite at our own pace while having all of the new .NET functinality.
.NET
It is apparent to me that
In essence, the major conclusion I drew is that much of our existing code and designs were not useable in
Yes, just as you can't use a PHP function in Java. I'm not sure what your point is.
So your company is going to toss away all its PHP, Cold Fusion, ASP/COM code... interesting setup they must have
Actually, this was the scenerio at my last company. It's called aquisitions and mergers.
do you want to bet your job on Microsoft not forgetting its early adopters?
We'll see. We had code in Beta2 that runs flawlessly on the 1.0 CLR less one minor exception (minor syntax change). Of course, being in Beta, we anticipated taking a week or so updating the code to 1.0. If the Beta to 1.0 was so painless, I can imagine the same for the next major revision.
Actually, VB is not a .NET language option. VB.NET is drastically different then VB. VB is not just a language, it's an entire platform. VB.NET is a VB lookalike to help VB developers migrate to .NET. It's like saying that Perl is pretty much the same as .NET because of Perl.NET, or that Cobol is pretty much the same because of Cobol.NET. The analogy still holds.
Seattle was, at one time, the 2nd geekiest city - now it's only 5th :-(. Not too bad considering we're so close to the "evil empire".
:-). Don't worry, I've got my EFF t-shirt to make up for it. Yes, that's right, I'm a Windows developer who gives hundreds to the EFF each year. Reconcile THAT!
BTW: If you are going to the Seattle Sit 'n' Spin meetup then you'll identify me by my ASP.NET hat
Sorry if I sound like MS drone, but I have to contest your "+5 insightful" assertions.
.NET language, chances are you aren't very motivated to switch paradigms. .NET are the best candidates for this scenario.
.NET
.NET".
/., but we're supposed to be scientists not religious zealots. Do the research (I'm not going to spoon feed it to you) and you'll find that you're wrong very quickly. One quick example, Verizon's entire customer service system (one of the biggest in the world) has been running .NET since it was in Beta. Ask anyone with solid .NET experience and they'll tell you that Beta 2 of .NET was more mature then Java was when it was released. It is much more mature then you think.
.NET within the next year or so (source: Gartner... grain of salt applied).
.NET is a viable solution, as is J2EE. I believe that they are both great competitors. Really, "Web Applications" are moving away from little scripting engines towards compiled, OO, strongly-typed languages. The only serious offerings are J2EE and .NET. I think the competition is great, and will only make our lives as developers better as both technologies get better.
a1. If you already have a substantial investment in software written in anything but a
This could be said with J2EE as well. We had a ton of Cold Fusion, PHP, and ASP/COM that we wanted to consolidate into one platform so we could reuse code accross applications. J2EE and
I have yet to meet a serious java developer who has any interest in
Again, this can be said for any set of competing languages. I could also say, "I have yet to meet a serious VB developer who does not have a huge interest in
Regardless of all the claims Microsoft makes about C#/.NET maturity, nobody in their right mind is going to bet the company on a new MS platform...
This is pure speculation. Sure, it sounds nice to say on
There is little imperative to adopt something for which there are no major none-Microsoft commercial offerings.
Unless you have no problems running on a Microsoft platoform, which many do not. Again, look at all of the ".asp" sites out there. The vast majority are NOT running on Chillisoft, and are probably looking to migrate to
The wait-and-see approach is a tried and true paradigm with respect to version 1.0 software from Microsoft.
For larger and less technically ambitious companies I'd have to agree. However, for smaller companies who need to get away from ASP/COM, Cold Fusion, or even PHP,
Unfortunately, this definition doesn't help at all. Pretty much all internet-based software does this.
.NET can be used to create pretty much all internet-based software.
True, and
I'm in the same boat as you. .NET is stupid. Hailstorm that is. Windows .NET server makes a little bit of sense, but the concept of naming it .NET is kind of stupid as well. .NET as a technology is great. It's not perfect, but for a 1.0 (and an MS 1.0 at that!) it's incredible.
What's interesting is that it's not just PHB's that don't understand this issue, many developers don't either - especially those in the Java camp. They see headlines like this and say, "MS's java copy failed LOL!".
terrible showing at E3??? The games were awesome, and made many riding on the fence go out and buy an XBox once they saw the E3 lineup. Sure, the speakers lacked good speaking skills, but that's not how I'd rate a gaming system!
The problem is that you're too pessimistic - hence your original overstatement. Mono has made a ton of progress - moreso then many open source Java programs had after the release of the 1.0 JDK. The difference is, as you mention, MS has no intention of building the CLR and the libraries for other OS's. However, MS does say, "if you want to build it on another OS, power to you". This is the best possible route IMHO. Whereas Sun, for a long period of time, was demanding royalties for their "open platform" product, MS is not. Again, this is why Mono has made so much progress, because MS has been easier to work with then Sun was in 1995-1998ish. Surprising? Maybe to majority of the /. crowd, but not to me.
.NET developer I can identify with the crucial classes that are required for most apps, and Mono is very close already. And let's not forget MS's effort to integrate Apache with .NET. Although I personally have no reason to use Linux for .NET, it looks like this reality will come to fruition in a much quicker time frame then any open Java solution.
As a
Mono is only going to implement the VM, you most likely are still going to need tons of libraries.
.NET framework - most noteably the classes pertaining to web applications (ASP.NET).
This is wrong. All someone has to do is go to the mono project's home page and see that they are implementing the vast majority of the
Instead of fighting the inevidable, release your own consumer friendly product that does NOT affect your revenue in a negative way. Then, there'd be little room (for the general public, anyway) for products that do offend your profits.
Windows has NEVER had reliable drivers
Are you serious? I mean, there's definitely some FUD in the MSFT article, but let's stick to the facts when critiquing it. Even compared to OS 9 or X, Windows 2K/XP has MUCH better support for 3rd party hardware. Looking a Linux, which has improved greatly, it's still difficult to setup if you have "non-standard" equipment (eg: any sound card other then an SB Live!). My machine has unique hardware in it, which Win95, Win98, and Win2K have all handled almost flawlessly (less so Win95). With Linux it's still an arm-wrestling match.
Ya, buy XP is a HUGE upgrade from ME. Heck, it's almost a completely different product. When XP SP1 came out - with major updates, not just bug fixes - we didn't have to pay $20. I think I'd be frustrated as an OS X user. Personally, I think they should just price major versions accordingly so that all updates are free. As a developer, this would ensure that a larger population was upgrading to newer versions
I've never seen a desktop Wintel box with 4-pin firewire ports. As you mention, laptops for some silly reason tend to use 4-pin ports. So even though I have a 6-pin firewire port on my box will I need the power adapter? That would suck.
Don't forget Pontifex by Chronic Logic.
...who have never programmed before, but who now find themselves with the need to create their own site-management tools, automated web clients, and web-based applications.
.COM boom? I have full respect for a manager or web designer wishing to learn programming and web development. However, teaching them the tools first is not going to make them a good programmer. I'm afraid that books like this will lead towards more poorly designed and written programs. A web application is software and should be treated as such. Is it just me, or does anyone else share this feeling?
I hope I don't come off as an elitist, but don't we have enough "non-programmers" acting as programmers thanks to the
Well if you're going to nitpick then nitpick correctly :-). We're talking OEM's here and XP Pro adds less then $50 to the cost of a new PC.
If you want to compare, add Microsoft Office (StarOffice 6.0), IIS (Apache), SQL server (MySQL, PostgreSQL...), Photoshop (Gimp), Money (GnuCash)... etc.
Because we are comparing OS's.
Office OEM $179 versus $70 for StarOffice.
IIS and Apache are irrelevant for the average user. Plus, you can use Apache on Windows, and Windows XP home has IIS Personal Edition on it.
SqlServer is a RDBMS. Compare it with Oracle or DB2 but not MySql or PostgreSQL. Plus, the comparison is pretty silly considering that not all geeks need an RDBMS let alone joe blow.
Photoshop and the Gimp are not comparable - let's not beat this dead horse again please. Older versions of PS are found for very cheap on ebay if money is an issue.
MS Money freaks me out since it logs you into MS's servers when you use it. So, I'll give that one to you.
Why doesn't Bill Gates do something really cool for humanity, like fund a private Mars program?
Because instead of doing something cool, he's people who don't even know what Mars is because all they think about is their starvation and the deadly diseases that plague them.
He wanted to become the richest dude on Earth by running the world's biggest software company. That's it.
We all have our own interests, as well as opinions on what's valuable for humanity. How dare you judge someone just because they don't share the same values that you do.
The last company I was at used all web-based customer management tools. If you searched for something like "I like banannas" it forwarded you to a java based tetris game.
Sure, I'll just go out and buy a copy of OS X for $100+ and install it on my current machine.
MAC's are cool, but so is x86 hardware. It's not as simple of a choice.
I'm a bit surprised he didn't go to Win2K. WinXP has some cool features, but unless the latest service pack really changed things, it feels very unpolished (read: Rushed to compete with OS X).
Uptime Realities in the Slashdot-linked World
Less we forget that the entire reason that Sony came into the market is for the same thing that MS is doing now. Sony has a HD upgrade for a reason, and it's not just for multiplayer gaming.
Even though my PS2 is practically the same size (The XBox is a lot deeper, but it's not even as deep as my DVD player so they both take the same practically useable space).
I can understand this if I was running a business from my house. However, I VPN for my employer whenever I'm sick or whenever I'm taking a half day (2-3 times a month). I also VPN to my friends house to play games on his "LAN" with games that don't support TCP/IP without going through some silly service.