VS.Net Apps Can Now Run On Linux 245
MxTxL writes "EWeek is reporting here about a plugin for Visual Studio.Net, called Grasshopper, that allows web applications that once only ran on IIS to be run on Tomcat or other J2EE platforms. The Mainsoft Developer Zone has more details on how it works but basically it converts the MS Intermediate Language into Java bytecode. The developer is also a supporter of the Mono Project."
Nothin' but .NET (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nothin' but .NET (Score:3, Interesting)
VS.NET is an excellent dev environment with good tools but Windows 2003 is clunky as a server. And MS SQL is a lot of money for a whole bunch of features most people never use. (I'm talking about federated databases, clustering, etc., NOT transactions, stored procs, etc)
Re:Nothin' but .NET (Score:2)
http://jcxsoftware.com/ [jcxsoftware.com]
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyhow, there's no such thing as a "VS.Net App". It's been possible to compile
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have titled it "VS.Net applications now run on J2EE Servlet Containers".
Personally, I think this is cool, but not Earth shaking. The most important reasons for users to do this would be to either migrate to J2EE or to get access to Java standard libraries. Since people on the MS side of the fence tend to rely heavily on the IDE to do a lot of the heavy lifting, I'm not sure it helps them that much. They can't maintain the software except by targeting the dotNet environment; their IDE doesn't know anything about the Java standard libraries or the J2EE container facilities. Maybe if they wanted to prototype stuff in VS IDE and then add things like security using filters or byte code modification to do AOPish method interception.
In any case I see three possible applications. First, if some horrible security hole is found in IIS, you can get off in a hurry and deal with the maintenance issues down the line. Second, you may decide to use this to scale a successful application up using midrange iron. Third, you can show your boss that servlet containers do everything your application needs (but we all knew that, didn't we)?
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Mainsoft is that one company which Microsoft funded while it killed off the others. Mainsoft is the one announcing a tool that'll let you write software in Microsofts API(
IMO. History IS the best teacher.
LoB
Re:oh well (Score:2, Interesting)
The power of
There are other options of course, such as OpenStep, but
Open GUI standard (Score:2)
It would not solve all of the problems, or even most, but it would bring systems so much closer.
Re:Open GUI standard (Score:2)
Re:Open GUI standard (Score:2)
Re:Open GUI standard (Score:2)
Problem solved.
Re:Open GUI standard (Score:2)
Mono's XSP does this too (Score:5, Informative)
Still, nice to know there's an alternative if for some reason XSP doesn't work out.
Re:Mono's XSP does this too (Score:5, Funny)
HTTP Status 404 -
type Status report
message
description The requested resource (/index.aspx) is not available.
Apache Tomcat/5.0.28
why from byte-code to byte-code? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:why from byte-code to byte-code? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:why from byte-code to byte-code? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's how they turned a bunch of UNIX software vendors into Windows software vendors back in the NT v3.5x days.
To see how far they'll go, look at the Microsoft pur
java ripoff (Score:5, Funny)
Re:java ripoff (Score:2, Funny)
Re:java ripoff (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:java ripoff (Score:3, Informative)
Re:java ripoff (Score:2)
Re:java ripoff (Score:2)
Re:java ripoff (Score:2)
Languages for MSIL and Java bytecode (Score:2)
I thought he was talking of Java the Language, as that's what the article is all about (Java bytecode).
Bytecode is platform, not language. All these languages [dotnetpowered.com] can be compiled to MSIL (.NET bytecode). Likewise, all these languages [robert-tolksdorf.de] can be compiled to bytecode for a JVM.
Re:java ripoff (Score:2)
Re:java ripoff (Score:2)
Because you need to integrate apps that already exist - hence MS promoting
Stop - don't do it (Score:5, Funny)
Paranoid? Think again! (Score:2)
(just kidding).
Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
~phil
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:5, Funny)
PHB: Is this 'Linux' thingy written in
tech: no.
PHB: does it leverage the power of XML?
tech: er, no
thats all i'm afraid, my buzzword library has gone blank.
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:3, Informative)
specifically this quote:
Many people ask this question "Java is platform independant, what about .NET ?".
The answer is "Yes" and "No" ! The code you write is platform independant, because whatever you write is getting compiled into MSIL. There is no native code, which depends on your operating system or CPU. But when you execute the MSIL, the .NET framework in the target system will convert the MSIL into native platform code.
So, if you run your .NET exe in
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Is
And, do you know of any serious commercial application in
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I will however readily admit that I've very little experience in java enterprise development, but if java can outperform some of the amazing features of
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Err...excuse me?!
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Most of these things have been done before...
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Java is faster for some things,
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
The differences in the way the VMs work DOES lead to an overall speed difference and memory usage difference. The main two Java programs I'm using for comparison here are Azureus and Eclipse, which I know people often use as examples to prove that Java programs aren't horrendously slow. And that's true, they aren't all that slow. But a lot of effort is put into them, and in my experience the
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Actually a good chunk of the "point" of .NET is language independence. Right now I'm on a couple of projects where portions are written in C# and portions are written in VB.NET. If we wanted to, we could do portions of it in Managed C++. The notion is that if you have a developer that's good in C# and one that's good in VB.NET instead of one having to learn the language of the other, they can both work together.
Of course the limitation to
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Not strictly true. They made
Well I certainly don't agree with MSs decision not to implement VMs for other platforms, you can understand thier reasons for it (hey why should they spend the to time building support other platforms when they want you to use thier platform). I think had
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
C# is open and they have published the specs for their byte code, but that hardly makes it easy to implement a VM on any other platform because the entire
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
From the link [microsoft.com]:
It is also expected that ECMA standardization will make the CLI available on a wide range of computing platforms. This combination of multi-language capability
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Not completely true. Microsoft doesn't have commercial VMs for other platforms, but they provide Rotor [microsoft.com] which runs on FreeBSD and Mac OSX.
Re:Maybe im missing something here.. (Score:2)
Ah, but the real question is... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1819422,00 .asp [eweek.com]
Classic ASP apps can run under a .NET enabled server. EWeek should eat they dog food they're writing about.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, but the real question is... (Score:2)
Another buzzword of it's day, whose single trick was to save every file requested as a file on the docroot.
The URL can be pulled apart to show the caching technique:
0,1759,1819422,00.asp
0 = cache|don't cache
1759 = template id to use... the template is bound to the path so you don't need to send this in
1819422 = some ID used to fetch whatever you want on the page, article in this case
00 = features... consider them flags for other platforms, re-format for WML, etc
The
V5, V6, etc (Score:2)
Vignette was the biggest
Re:Ah, but the real question is... (Score:2)
Vanilla please (Score:5, Insightful)
A better albeit more time-consuming solution would be to rewrite the source code itself. The plugin in question might possibly be of some use if we need to quickly port a small application from
Re:Vanilla please (Score:2)
Re:Vanilla please (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that you
Re:Vanilla please (Score:4, Insightful)
The same can be said for ANY platform. The number of bugs that you'll encounter is a function of the quality of your system architecture and the quality of code that you write, NOT the platform. The
"My guess is that you are either a student (Or recent Grad), work for a government agency, or Non Profit agency, education, or a Really big company that has a lot of disposable money. time-consuming == waisted money."
Yes, i do work in a reasonably big company, and i've developed over 10 medium-scale and enterprise solutions. Believe you me, no company has money to throw away. Every decision has to be justified across several parameters, namely ROI, stability, performance, maintainability, and so on. Furthermore, funding for a project comes out of a department, not from the company itself. Hence, your argument of a big company having a limitless budget is irrelevant, as the (big company's) department budget is never limitless. In fact, it might be much less that the budget of say, a startup or a much smaller company.
Again, i'm not saying that the plugin serves no purpose. All i'm saying is that this mechanism of porting to a different platform is only limited for simple and non-critical applications. As a project manager or a technical lead, are you willing to stake your reputation (or your career) and say that the ported Java code will be as stable as the original
Will the plugin successfully translate a remoting application, a web service with SOAP serialization, an ASP.NET application that extensively uses HTTP Handlers and HTTP Modules?? A lot of features that exist in
Re:Vanilla please (Score:2)
You've never worked for a government contractor have you? I spent a couple years working for one of the largest US defense contracting companies and trust me when I say government contracts are literally black holes that
I think I need glasses ;) (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone bother to read the EULA? (Score:5, Informative)
"Small Workgroup Configuration" means a Java-based hardware and software configuration supporting the execution of a Developer Application and limited to (a) Apache Tomcat excluding any other J2EE application servers and (b) single CPU (Central Processing Unit) computers excluding computers with multiple CPUs' and excluding cluster or grid of computers.
You can forget running on your personal multiple cpu development machine, let alone anywhere reasonable, unless you pay the price. It ain't free folks!
I went digging to find the price for deploying it on anything but what they consider a workgroup machine. You'll find that in What are the licensing terms for Grasshopper [mainsoft.com]. Bring lots of money! At least MS gouges me only once.
I believe I'll stick to doing my own porting, thank ye!
It's not that bad (Score:2)
I suppose they do price themselves out of the water for smaller apps, but assuming this can run large apps correctly then it could save a LOT of cash.
I see failure! (Score:3, Insightful)
Again such large clients are most likely to want this tool too, a common case being new
Medium sized companies would most likely run it on
For smaller companies, looking to save money on MS licensing, Mono will be a better alternative since they would not have the integration requirements of the larger companies, which only Java can provide. Mono has been tested more rigorously than this byte-code conversion magic.
Then there are software development companies, looking to port their
So who would try this product, other than purely out of academic interest or curiosity? I have a totally pessimistic view about this product.
Re:I see failure! (Score:2)
The market I can see for this is consultancy companies with expertise in VB.Net that are required to deliver a solution running on Linux.
No staff retraining will be necessary so they can make use of the existing skills. The costs involved will be way less than those of such retraining. Furthermore they will be able to deliver something quickly to the client. The ongoing server fees can be hidden in the consultancy fees.
Any ongoing problems will require more consultancy to remedy them
Working around the holes in the .net framework (Score:2)
Off the top of my head I can think of two specific examples that will cause problems, but I'm sure there are many more:
1. Printing the contents of a rich text box.
Microsoft's solution to working around this hole is detailed here [microsoft.com]. Note how it starts with the line [DllImport("user32.dll")].
2. Clearing the console
Microsoft's recommended way of doing this is detailed here [microsoft.com] and, once
Hooray! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah... that's just what the world needed...
What a great idea! (Score:2)
E-M? (Score:2)
Re:E-M? (Score:2)
I imagine it could possibly be simpler to get J# code from MS running, combined with the NetCF and a byte-code converter from Java. Kind of like running Win95 in Bochs on your PDA... (i.e., useless)
Re:We tried working with Mono... (Score:2, Informative)
The same text [slashdot.org] (only s/Linux/Mono/g)
was in Slashdot article
"Get The Facts" Campaign Working.
Re:We tried working with Mono... (Score:2)
The same text (only s/Linux/Mono/g)
was in Slashdot article
[sarcasm]
The Microsoft Marketing Dept??
[/sarcasm]
Re:We tried working with Mono... (Score:2)
Re:You're a cr*p employer (Score:2)
No it isn't. You move the person responsible on to "special tasks" often with a slight promotion, put a new manager in charge who has no clue, and leave it up to the engineers on the project to get you out of the poop.
That's how "we" used to do it anyway...
Re:But can in compile inline asp.net pages? (Score:2)
I assume the title is refering to the fact that this tool only seems to be available as a plug-in for VS.NET.
Re:Vi (Score:2)
Re:Great switch (Score:2, Interesting)
To defend my point, the JVM is undeniably technically inferior to Microsoft's CLR (read 'Technical Overview of the Common Language Runtime' [slashdot.org] - say what you like about Microsoft, but Erik Meiker is a fine researcher, whom I know from the Haskell community).
Furthermore I've worked with Tomcat for a number of years now (though not with IIS for a while), and it is an appalling and unstable piece of software.
If the moder
Re:Great switch (Score:3, Informative)
I was about to be REALLY shocked when I saw your link to a research.micorosoft.com sub-folder on
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
No, a study explaining what the differences are is presented by people who've both studied and used it (somewhat in their roles at Microsoft Research)
Wow, Java is celebrating ten years? There are two ways to undermine the point that you're trying to make. First, Microsoft have a longer history of developing virtual machines for programming languages (in Visual Basic). Secondly, are you claiming that after ten years it can't be improved on? T
Re:Great switch (Score:2, Informative)
Riiight, because Microsoft has so many ex-Smalltalk pople working for it unlike Sun*... Sun knows more about VMs just from Self [sun.com] then Mircosoft ever will.
Java owes nothing to Microsoft Research. Nothing. Your lack of seemingly any context regarding VMs is simple astounding.
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
I'm not saying that Sun didn't buy in talent, and eventually pull up from the nose dive which was their initial releases, but the fact remains that Microsoft came out of the gates running. (After the lawsuits stopped MS investment it's ironically IBM that took the lead...)
Excuse me? Tell me I'm wrong (I admit I've never used it), but pure interfaces? (and true subtyping?) I was unde
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
Object composition (to avoid the lack of multiple
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
I remain of the opinion that Microsoft popularised the idea of first class interfaces, that that was a good thing and that that had an influence on the design of Java...
To be clear, what I was saying was that that seems to be where Sun got the idea - nothing you've said has convinced me otherwise.
In particular, can you point me at any reference to this as a (pre-Gamma) 'design pattern' (i.e. documented idiom) in any s
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
I'm not talking about the efficiency of implementation of the JVM - by definition the thing in itself is inferior (under-featured).
In any case, even on that level (and as I said on another branch), Microsoft have the longer experience in VMs - anyone who was using Java right at inception (like me) knows what a huge step forward their JVM was over
Re:Great switch (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude, you were doing so well up until that point. Then you had to go and blow it by claiming that Microsoft's JVM was an huge leap forward compared to Sun's JVM.
I mean, come on! You could have strung this troll out a lot longer if you'd just been a bit more subtle.
But no,
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
Re:Great switch (Score:2)
Thanks for your opinion - from an anonymous coward that really stings...
I forgot that's all that's important. I bow to your great wisdom. I shall also give up all the exotic languages that can run on the CLR and take up Fortran, because speed is all that's important...
Something tells me that you don't even really know what a virtual machine is, or how it's defined... but I'm stupid so what do I know?
Re:Sorry, I find it useless (Score:2)
Well, I think that the idea is to develop/debug in VS.NET and deploy to a Java container. In other words, this plugin opens up the possibility of deploying on the other major web platform. This just gives the option of using a Java platform if, for whatever reason, being tied to IIS is unfeasible.
After all,
Re:Sorry, I find it useless (Score:2)
" The major strength of VS.NET is in its integrated debugging tools (C++, SQL, ASP(X), JS etc.). "
You need to get out more. The VS.NET's debugging tools are many years behind Java's (not surprising since Java's a 10-year older platform). For a concrete example, consider unit test frameworks that are part of practically any java developer environment. Yes, the marketing PR material claims that a future version of VS.NET (2005) will have unit test features that do e
Re:Java kicks .NETs arse (Score:2)
For another,
Re:Java kicks .NETs arse (Score:2)
As for thr third party SDK's... well, to be honest when I work on projects we all have to use the same thing. If I want to use Visual Age, which has a good Java SDK and you insist on Eclipse that
Re:Java kicks .NETs arse (Score:2)
Something accurate. MSDN is totally unreliable. I remember losing almost two weeks of work trying to debug code that followed the documentation. It was only unleashing a disassembler on a Microsoft program that finally showed that the fault was in the docs, not the code. Of course, magically Microsoft's coders had known what the correct in-memory layout was.
There were other similar occasions but fortunately I'm capable of learning from my mistakes and haven't touched any of MS's sh
Re:so stupid it hurts (Score:4, Informative)
Free as in beer. The same as the
"2. Java has an On-Line users manual that is top notch."
same for
"3. Java is not Microsoft"
Nope. But it should read: "Sun is not M$ ( though they would really love to be )".
Or
"4. Java has way better 3rd party SDKs (I.E. eclipse) than
IDEs are for losers. Gimme a powerful, expressive language ( Python, Ruby, Haskell, Ocaml ), capable of yielding the power of ten java imports in a sentence, and a good text-editor ( XEmacs ) and i'm sold.
Re:Java kicks .NETs arse (Score:2)