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Microsoft Programming IT Technology

What Do Programmers Like About .NET? 161

Posted by timothy from the swooning-over-it dept.
prostoalex writes "Software Development Times did a special report asking the .NET developers what they liked about the platform, since it's been 18 months since the .NET introduction by Microsoft. While the positive responses generally acclaimed Microsoft on integrating C++/C# logic development and VB GUI generation into one environment, some complaints are out there as well. From the article: "When Mark Lindley, manager of development services at Cimco, was working with .NET version 1.0 in September 2002, he needed to implement SSL transactions over TCP/IP. 'It took a long time to figure out that this functionality hadn't been implemented in .NET yet,' recalled Lindley." The article also mentions Honeywell Automated Control Systems, a .NET/J2EE software operation, considering moving their operations to .NET platform."
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What Do Programmers Like About .NET? More

What Do Programmers Like About .NET?

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  • i like .NET (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sumho ( 701478 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @12:01AM (#6847882)
    it sure beats writing windows programs in win32. the only thing i miss(being a java programmer) is javadocs. i mean come on now, if you're going to clone a language, at least do the whole thing, or you're just going to leave people confused. overall though, .net is a nice thing to use. i do wish it did something better, but you can't have everything.

    • Re:i like .NET (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sumho ( 701478 )
      sorry to be so vague, i was being bothered by someone while i was writing the previous comment. anyway, .net has done alot of things right. microsoft's idea of object oriented programming may be a bit off, but they get the general feel for it in c#. there is always the option of java developers to develop using j# but it's really not worth it when you can just do it using almost the same syntax in c#. for examples with j# you have distribute a j# runtime with your applications. this point is, if micros

    • Re:i like .NET (Score:3, Informative)

      by undef24 ( 159451 )
      VS.Net has similar javadoc functionality though exporting xml documentation for all methods. Use a util such as nDoc [sourceforge.net] to give you a nice helpfile for your libraries.

    • Re:i like .NET (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Javagator ( 679604 )
      My company's product moved from UNIX to Windows several years ago. I have been programming in VB and C++/ATL/COM and hating it. Recently, I've been using C# and the .Net framework for desktop applications. It is really a joy to use compared with VB and/or COM. No more 7 different types of strings, "wizard" generated code, IDL, message maps, HRESULT, etc.

      C# is basically Java with performance. It is very easy to program, but powerful. I hate GUI builders, but I have written a layout manager similar to

      • Re:i like .NET (Score:3, Interesting)

        by E_elven ( 600520 )
        >Of course, .Net ties you into Microsoft, which is not a good thing,--

        No, it doesn't. http://www.go-mono.com. Again, the Community does it better, too.
        • No, it doesn't. http://www.go-mono.com. Again, the Community does it better, too.

          We have to be honest with ourselves, here. Anyone who really believes Microsoft will tolerate Free implementations of .NET for long is naive.

          In other worlds, such as UNIX, companies like Sun and IBM really do have to compete on implementation. After all, it isn't overly difficult to move to a competitor. However, Microsoft has no financial interest in being forced to compete in implementation, when, currently, they are th
    • You can do it with ndoc. C# has XML commenting, but the doc generation in VS.net is pretty poor.
      ndoc will create a chm file for you.

    • There is a code documentation tool in Visual Studio.NET that does the thing of extracting xml comments out, using them to annotate your class hiearchy, and then dumps the whole lot into a set of html pages.

      The result is absolutely beautiful, and I prefer it to JavaDoc.

  • What I like about .NET (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @12:20AM (#6847944) Homepage
    It lets me take most of what I've learned with Java, and leverage it with a faster VM and better environment integration. While applications like MP3 players can get away with looking totally weird, I prefer my applications to be consistent.

    Plus, the GUI programming is ultra easy with the model for messages that .NET uses with C# applications. I found it much easier than working with SWING applications.

    Too bad that there's not any handy C# environment for Linux that's complete that I know of. I'd really like to be able to write more C# applications, since the language and GUI libraries are such a breeeze to work with.
    • this is true. i can't stand looking at a swing application. it just hurts my eyes to look at something on my desktop that doesn't look like everything else on my desktop. yes you can use the window swing theme, but the fonts are still different, and swing is just plain slow. i have been playing around with mono on my linux machines. i've read that you can tie wine in with mono so you can use the system.windows.forms namespace, but i have yet to try.

    • I totally agree (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GCP ( 122438 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @05:34AM (#6848735)
      I've programmed for Mac, Unix, Win32, and Java, and I've never experienced an easier platform for writing GUI apps than the combo of C#, .Net, and Visual Studio. (Now for writing algorithmically challenging apps, nothing beats Lisp, but....)

      I think the C# language is a big improvement over Java (the language). So many lessons from years of Java experience have been incorporated into C#, that it's absurd to dismiss it as a Java "knockoff". It's Java done over again with the benefit of hindsight and a lack of legacy baggage combined with the ease of GUI building that made VB so popular (but without any trace of Basic).

      Of course, the fact that it's realistically only for Windows (so far) is a huge drawback (for me). With Java, you can hop from platform to platform and from tool vendor to tool vendor (incl. open source) as they come and go, and there's a lot of security in that. (I seem to change Java IDEs every 18 months or so, and I like that I can do that.)

      If both C# and Java were equally cross-platform and there were good C# tools from vendors other than MS, I'd choose C# over Java in a heartbeat for the language improvements alone. If I'm assured that the client wants Windows only, I'll use C# for sure. When I don't have that assurance, I'll stick with Java for safety. (Of course, if it's not a GUI app, and I don't need the type of safety you get by using a mainstream language, I think some form of Lisp or ML would be my first choice.)

      • C# Builder [borland.com]

        Not sure if this is what you're looking for but they will probably get it on linux before too long (like C++/Kylix).
        • Uh. Thats just an IDE.

          They could port that IDE to Linux, but unless they also want to rewrite the entire framework, you are only going to be able to run the code on windows.

          Mono etc. is what will get c# to linux

      • Re:I totally agree (Score:3, Informative)

        by daveaitel ( 598781 )
        That's because you've never used pyGTK. I have an article about it in the latest Linux Journal. It's cross platform, easy to use, fast, can use native widget-look-alikes, and making something a SOAP method is just as easy as C#. It's basically better than C# in every way. Give it a shot...

        -dave
      • I think the C# language is a big improvement over Java (the language). So many lessons from years of Java experience have been incorporated into C#, that it's absurd to dismiss it as a Java "knockoff".

        There are some really excellent improvements in C# that have Java playing catch-up -- lots of syntactic sugar like autoboxing, and of course the metadata.

        But there are also some really fundamental design considerations in Java where C# just completely missed the boat -- like virtual. Gads, do I not miss vi

  • The IDE (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vandel405 ( 609163 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @12:39AM (#6848005) Homepage Journal
    My experience is that C# is pretty good, on par with java. and C++ is C++, MS bastardizes it a little but it isn't that bad. But the major selling point of VS.NET isn't the .NET part, its the VS part.

    The IDE kicks ass. it's just that simple. I know you may be able to code like a pro with emacs if you know all of the key combos, but the combo boxes that pop up when you type giving you on the fly documentation and revealing the classes/functions available to you is a god send.

    VS is just an awesome IDE that makes up for any short coming of .NET, which i haven't found many.

    • yes the documentation is great and i love hitting ctrl-space so complete code, but i have found a couple shortcomings in the ide itself. i may have not even noticed if i haven't used netbeans so much. when you change the name of the class file inside of the ide, it fails to change the names to reflect your changes in the code. maybe i'm just nitpicking, but it's annoying to o through the code and change all the parts that refer to the old name of the class.
      • I prefer Eclipse+Java (being unwilling to shell out the cash for VS.NET) and Eclipse doesn't do this either.

        I'd call it a nitpick. :)

    • Re:The IDE (Score:5, Interesting)

      by innosent ( 618233 ) <jmdorityNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @12:52AM (#6848038)
      Good point, and you're right. The only other IDE I know of that is IMHO as good as VS is Anjuta. Automatic word completion and pop-up class heirarchies are the most productive thing in an IDE ever created. I can fly through sets of code used on an object in less than half the time, because I only need to type 10 letters on an average line. Things like param = cmd.Parameters.Add("@username", SqlDbType.Char, 15), can be typed in with cmd.P.A("@username", [down 3], 15).

      Do that a hundred times or so for different strings or objects, and you'll appreciate it. Don't get me wrong, I type very fast, but why should I have to? Especially on repetitive things like that.

      The only complaints I have are in VB, where a lot of things have been removed, and only about half of them are implemented in .NET. Try opening a com port in VB.NET (hint: you'll be using the C APIs the entire time). And no, I don't like VB/C#/VC++, but I do like paychecks.

      • Re:The IDE (Score:3, Interesting)

        by erasmus_ ( 119185 )
        I don't understand how that is different from VS.NET and its IntelliSense. When I hit the . after cmd, the popup list of all the methods and properties comes up, so if I hit P and then ., then it types Parameters for me, just like this Anjuta. Same thing for the enum (SqlDbType) - although in C# this is not as easy, VB.NET has great enum completion, where the whole enum pops up and you can hit the arrows to select the one you want instead of typing. The IntelliSense is even better now in VS.NET 2003, as

        • Re:The IDE (Score:3, Interesting)

          by innosent ( 618233 )
          I know there are other ways to generate all the parameters, but I try to avoid trusting Microsoft to implement something correctly. If you use the DeriveParameters function, or a data layer generator, can you be sure that it won't be broken in the next version? Hell, are you sure it works now? Keeping things as simple as possible allows complete control over how your code will behave, and the DeriveParameters function IMHO can't be trusted to work with all database vendors, and for all stored procedures.
          • Comments like this completely baffle me. If you don't trust Microsoft to implement something, then how can you be using their development platform? You know that framework that you're using with every call and that compiler that builds your code? Yeah, they implemented all of those. Anyway, if you don't trust them, write your own generator - the CodeDOM and templated approached have allowed many to do so. Target it towards the OLEDB provider instead of SQL Native and then you won't have to worry about it

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • VS is just an awesome IDE

      Maybe, but I like Eclipse better. The lack of software engineering tools like refactoring support in VS is a real drawback in my opinion.

    • I have used both VS.NET and IntelliJ IDEA [intellij.com] and in my experience, IDEA beats VS.NET on almost every point. In fact, VS.NET feels like a prison that prevents me from being efficient.

      I'd be very happy to hear from someone who tried both, and still like VS.NET more.

  • What I like best about .NET (Score:5, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @01:06AM (#6848073) Homepage Journal
    Is that human resources people who demand 3+ years experience. Those guys are great.
    • Eh, that's better than the people who demand 5+ years with Windows 2000, which unfortunately seems to be common.
      • While I agree with your assessment, remember that Win2k was probably the first OS to be widely rolled out in corporate environments before release to manufacturing. For example, a rather large development company I worked with in Seattle rolled out Win2k RC3 as their standard in 1998.
    • What they're really trying to say is "we want people who have worked with the beta" which is ironic since the people out there who have worked with the beta are way out of their price range.

  • So it's just a VB replacement? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zenyu ( 248067 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @01:35AM (#6848152)
    The people they interviewed all seem to be those VB scripters only refered to as "programmers" by the PHBs. I actually think the .NET classes are an acceptible wrapper around the ugliness of the Windows API.

    I don't really like C# because it just seems to be an inferior Java clone. But .NET as a replacement for ATL/MFC is not so bad. I haven't tried C++ .NET bindings yet but if I have to implement a Windows version of some serious program, and can't use Qt, I want to look into it.

    Are there any programmers here that have given C++.NET a try that also know the joy of Qt? I'd like to hear about the advantages/disadvantages... The only thing that really seems missing from .NET when compared to Qt is the XML definition of UI's. This keeps down the level of that ugly generated code. If you want, you can even ship the XML instead of having it parsed into C++ and compiled (this gives you flexibility at the expense of keeping track of resources outside the binary, I haven't used it except experimentally, but I can imagine some enterprise applications where you might want to be able add a form to by just sticking some XML in your database instead of deploying a new binary to 10,000 desks.) I don't like having to run the Qt preprocessor though, but I don't know if C++ .NET has some of that uglyness too or if it is pure C++. The big downside of the preprocessor is that it makes it harder to write a crossplatform GUI class, like say one that used either a MFC or a Qt or a OpenGL or a Carbon implementation depending on what was available.

    • I don't agree about C# being an inferior Java clone. First things that come to my mind is that Java doesn't support properties, indexers, enums, attributes and multi-dimensional arrays.

      Also, C# way of handling events is just so much simpler and powerful ! Listeners are a pain in the ass IMHO.

      About defining a UI in XML, it will be part of Longhorn release whatever when that be. Microsoft developped their own XML definition and named it XAML. Read more on Devx here [devx.com].


      • I don't agree about C# being an inferior Java clone. First things that come to my mind is that Java doesn't support properties, indexers, enums, attributes and multi-dimensional arrays.

        Also, C# way of handling events is just so much simpler and powerful ! Listeners are a pain in the ass IMHO.
        Except for multi-dimentional arrays I think of all of those as liabilities. Java has conventions for them that fit within a simple "everything is a class" paradigm. If you want a powerful OOP language that does ever

    • Re:So it's just a VB replacement? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hoggy ( 10971 ) * on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @07:55AM (#6849096) Homepage Journal
      I don't really like C# because it just seems to be an inferior Java clone.

      Looking at the upcoming 1.5 release of Java, it seems to me that Java is copying features from C#. From a Sun article on what's new in Java 1.5 [sun.com]:


      Do you want to give us a simple take-home message for each of the six areas of improvement?

      I'll give it a whirl...

      Generics - Provides compile-time type safety for collections and eliminates the drudgery of casting.

      Enhanced for loop - Eliminates the drudgery and error-proneness of iterators.

      Autoboxing/unboxing - Eliminates the drudgery of manual conversion between primitive types (such as int) and wrapper types (such as Integer).

      Typesafe enums - Provides all the well-known benefits of the Typesafe Enum pattern (Effective Java, Item 21) without the verbosity and the error-proneness.

      Static import - Lets you avoid qualifying static members with class names, without the shortcomings of the Constant Interface antipattern (Effective Java, Item 17).

      Metadata - Lets you avoid writing boilerplate code, by enabling tools to generate it from annotations in the source code. This leads to a "declarative" programming style where the programmer says what should be done and tools emit the code to do it.


      Besides generics (due in the next C# release) and static imports, enhanced for loop, autoboxing, enums, and metadata are all features of C#.NET. Frankly, I think the .NET metadata system is substantially better. I also like delegates far better than anonymous inner classes, which I consider to be a sledgehammer to crack a very small design pattern.

      Exactly what do you find to be inferior?

      • Re:So it's just a VB replacement? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @09:52AM (#6849817)
        Exactly what do you find to be inferior?

        In terms of the programming model I find that the unchecked exception model is a serious deficiency in .Net. It leads directly to runtime errors and loss of program reliability. In my opinion this design mistake outweighs by far all of the positives .Net has over Java.

        I am also finding that it is hard to implement many of the commonly used design patterns in .Net. The framework does not seem to support good architectures as well as Java does. Doing MVC in .Net just doesn't seem to be as natural as it is in Java. .Net also has a long way to go in terms of scalability, portability and 3rd party support.

        • Actually checked exceptions are controversial in Java as well. Bruce Eickel who wrote a few Java books for instance argues that there should be no checked exceptions.

          Personally I like that exceptions are checked. It does get annoying at times to write try catch things for small programs but I do not think this is any different from the Python/Perl/Ruby people who diss the idea of explicit types. Its all about the language enforcing some iscipline on the programmer which leads to more reliable software.
      • In my opinion, Java would be better off without many of those new features.

        The enhanced for loop has a horrible syntax, which only saves a few keystrokes at the expense of being very hard to read.

        The autoboxing breaks othogonality in object identification. Consider the following:

        {
        Integer foo = 10;
        ...
        Integer x = foo;
        Integer y = foo;
        if(x == y) {
        // objects are the same
        }
        }

        {
        int foo = 10;
        ...
        Integer x = foo;
        Integer y = foo;
        if(x == y) {
        // objects not the same? WTF?!
        }
        }

        (how do I ebped c

        • The enhanced for loop has a horrible syntax, which only saves a few keystrokes at the expense of being very hard to read.

          Yeah, it is a bit crap. I prefer the C# syntax (foreach ... in ...), but they were insistent on not adding new keywords in Java.

          The autoboxing breaks othogonality in object identification.

          It's not exactly broken. In your example foo is not an object. When you assign to x and y you automatically create an object. It's just like you'd done:

          Integer x = new Integer(foo);
          Integer y = ne

          • Yeah, it is a bit crap. I prefer the C# syntax (foreach ... in ...), but they were insistent on not adding new keywords in Java.

            That didn't stop them from adding "assert" as a keyword in 1.4. Wonder what the rationale behind that was?

            It's not exactly broken. In your example foo is not an object. When you assign to x and y you automatically create an object. It's just like you'd done:

            Well, that was my point actually. A seemingly innocent assignment actually creates a new object, but only depending

  • I like the warm fuzzy feeling of using a propritary platform controlled by a benevelent dictatorship of a company. Bill governs by the divine right of CEOs. Long live Bill!

    • Whoever marked this as Flamebait??? It is clearly humor.

      Using a proprietary compiler is like being a dog on a leash. Anytime they yank your chain, you go along.
      • When you posted this, I was scored 0 or so. Then I got enough funny mods to go to +3, at which point some dork (presumably browsing at +3) smacked me down to 2, e.g. the level of your comment. Kinda funny that your comment so shaped the interp of mine.
        • What's even funnier is that, after being influenced by my post, they modded it as flamebait. So you went up, and I went down. That's the result of bored moderators visiting stories in which they have no interest because they can't comment and mod at the same time.

  • newbie question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hawkbug ( 94280 ) <psxNO@SPAMfimble.com> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @02:00AM (#6848216) Homepage
    I'm a complete newbie when it comes to understanding the whole ".NET" concept, so... my question is, are .Net applications ever compiled so they can be distributed? What I'm asking is, if someone wrote an app in .NET, or C#, whatever it's called, can it be compiled and distributed to people running windows OSes? Or is it like Java, where you need a runtime environment?
    • Here's a good .net primer [arstechnica.com].

    • The answer (Score:4, Informative)

      by GCP ( 122438 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @05:04AM (#6848681)
      It's like Java: you need the runtime environment. For now, that means that most of the installed base of Windows machines won't already have what you need to run an app, so you'll have to include a 21MB runtime with your 21kB app, or point them as MS's website for a free download of the .Net framework (the runtime). Not very pleasant for mass distribution yet.

      On the other hand, the .Net framework is now included in all currently shipping Windows versions, so it will be as standard as the Win32 API itself a few years from now. In fact, it's likely to gradually replace the Win32 API (in my opinion).

  • .NET pluses (Score:3, Informative)

    by pphillips ( 700548 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @02:09AM (#6848234)
    It's nice to be able to transpose between c# and VB.net without much effort. Now I can get more mileage out of every dollar I spend on books (make that 2 dollars if we're talkin about Microsoft Press).

    It'll be interesting to see how web services take off over the next few years. I wonder if anyone will be left after M$ has their free market tantrums.

    ASP.NET is like night and day over ASP. Now I wish we could just get the ASP programmers to use SPROCs instead of hard coding their SQL into the ASP pages! Hey, who needs more than one concurrent connection anyway.

    The IDE is sweet. If you've gone the wayward way and are a M$ Shop, debugging is a snap.

    Overall, a good way to go if you are an inept half-programmer like myself.

  • blah blah ... and hit a button (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Darth_Burrito ( 227272 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @02:11AM (#6848240)
    The article kept hitting on this point:

    "It's a cultural change ... "With .NET we are saying, 'Don't write the code. Connect two things with an object, and hit a button.' It's a big change."

    I really don't understand how .NET represents a fundamental or substantial cultural change in the manner in which we develop software. The development I've done in .NET never compressed down to the level of "connecting two things with objects and hitting a button." Sure I use the base libraries all the time but they are just general purpose programming tools. They can give you stuff like Hashtable and ReaderWriterLock classes. If before .NET you found yourself spending a lot of time writing these kinds of classes, you probably spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel. The bulk of my programming time has always been spent on business or application specific logic.

  • SSL and TCP/IP (Score:5, Informative)

    by Burb ( 620144 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @03:57AM (#6848541)
    I absolutely concur about the omission of SSL from the supplied .NET classes. I was working on a .NET project last year and found out that SSL wasn't implemnented as standard depressingly late in the day. Partly my fault.

    The story has a happy (open source) ending in that we were able to put stunnel [stunnel.org] in front of our application to provide SSL tunnelling. But it gave me a few panic attacks in the meantime.

    • I'm not exactly sure what the article and you mean by 'lack of support for SSL', but I am currently making webservice calls over an ssl connection- simply by setting up the server with SSL and specifying https:// for the url of the WebRequest and setting a certificate policy.

      On a lower level it may not be supported natively, but even then, I would think the encryption namespace would have something to help out for rolling your own, or there's these guys:
      http://www.mentalis.org/soft/projects/ssoc k et/

  • These seem to be major issues: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @05:34AM (#6848736) Homepage

    These seem to be major issues about .NET:
    1. Microsoft doesn't use it for its own products. If .NET is so good, why? If someone said, "I would never eat this, but here is some for you", would you take what was offered?
    2. Programs written in .NET are more easily decompiled. If you discover and implement an especially good algorithm, others may be able to see what you did. Maybe that is the reason for number 1, above.
    3. All the tools are proprietary. The programmer and his employer become like dogs on a leash. Their fortunes are tied to the management decisions of the proprietary vendor. Computer company managements often make sink-the-company decisions; consider the .com self-destruction, for example. When your company uses proprietary tools, your company is dependent on the lifestyle of the proprietary vendor's management, the vendor's ability to hire and keep good people, the vendor's financial decisions, and the vendor's estimation of whether they want to invest more in the tools you are using.
    4. My understanding is that the license agreement for .NET prevents a company from using .NET to compete with Microsoft in some areas. But how does a company know if software it develops will eventually compete with Microsoft?
    Here are three of last week's articles about Microsoft:
    1. Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design [washingtonpost.com]
      The mainstream media is starting to realize that Microsoft products are especially insecure.
    2. (PDF file): The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) urges the Department of Homeland Security to stop using insecure (Microsoft) products [ccianet.org].
      The computer industry attempts to educate those in government about the insecurity of Microsoft software.
    3. Stupid Microsoft Tricks -- Why the Richest Company on Earth Feels it Needs to Cheat [pbs.org]
      A famous industry columnist exposes an example of Microsoft's apparent dishonesty. When ordered by a court to produce all its email records concerning a company that alleges theft by Microsoft, there was a 35-week gap.
    So here's the question: Do you want your company to be tied to the fortunes of Microsoft? If you trust Microsoft to do the right thing for you and your company, then use Microsoft's proprietary tools.

    But remember, Microsoft's products regularly die. Not only do they die, but they die on schedule. It's assisted suicide: Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses [microsoft.com]. Bill Gates is the Dr. Jack Kevorkian [go.com] of the software world. Mr. Gates has, for example, decreed the death of Windows 98, which is used by more than 100,000,000 people throughout the world. It's a little like Dr. Kevorkian expecting to do his work with Jennifer Lopez [postershop.co.uk]. Hey Dr. Gates, a lot of people think the patient is still very much alive!

    Open source means never having to bark.
    • Programs written in .NET are more easily decompiled. If you discover and implement an especially good algorithm, others may be able to see what you did.

      Just like Java bytecodes then. And I don't see too many people complaining about that.

      • Re:Decompilation? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )
        you don't?
        you should.
        you will.
        you do.

        they're ridiculously well decompiling(any turd, including me, can do it using the tools available), and even obfuscation(with obfuscation tools) doesn't make it very unreadable. though, when building server/client stuff.. maybe it's just good, at least you won't end up kidding yourself that you can trust the information that comes from the client. obfuscation makes the class files smaller though, sometimes handy for j2me(j2me apps/games in general oth stay so small usu
    • 1. Microsoft CRM is built in .NET and makes extensive use of this way of thinking to enable very easy customisation. Other products are coming along which are implemented in .NET, and with Longhorn there will be .NET interfaces directly into the OS

      2. Of course, any p-code/VM is going to have that issue. That's why a free obfuscator is shipped with VS.NET 2003, with links to other full blown ones. Java also has options to reduce this.

      3. That's called life

      4. You might want to update your understanding
    • So here's the question: Do you want your company to be tied to the fortunes of Microsoft? If you trust Microsoft to do the right thing for you and your company, then use Microsoft's proprietary tools.

      There are opensource implementations of the CLI too. Mono [go-mono.org] aims to be .NET compatitable.

      So one does not need to be tied to Microsoft, or use their tools.
    • Microsoft doesn't use it for its own products. If .NET is so good, why? If someone said, "I would never eat this, but here is some for you", would you take what was offered?

      Office is being rewritten in .NET. In fact, just about everything Microsoft makes except Windows itself is being rewritten in .NET. This has been publicly known since .NET was first officially unveiled three years ago. Ground-up rewrites don't happen overnight, you know.

      Programs written in .NET are more easily decompiled. If you disc

      • Your tools provider is a business partner. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @10:27AM (#6850087) Homepage

        "The articles you linked to are simply irrelevant to the .NET discussion."

        Your tools provider is a business partner. You should definitely worry about the reputation of your business partners. They will not treat you better than they treat everyone else.
        • They will not treat you better than they treat everyone else.

          To the contrary, Microsoft has proven they treat their developer community better than everyone else. It's one of the few places where they show consistent "big wins" whenever somebody starts cataloging the pros and cons.


          • Interesting. That is believable to me.

            The thing I did just before looking at your comment was to read this message I just received by email:

            "The biggest reason why I'm reluctant to working more on my C++ skills is that Visual C++ is a terrible tool. When setting up a project, one has to spend a considerable time in a non-resizable small modal window and enter lists of space-separated file paths. And that's only in the first few minutes of the use of the program."

            I really, really want to like Mi
    • If someone said, "I would never eat this, but here is some for you", would you take what was offered?

      *shrug*, just like vegetarians at a BBQ. Maybe MS is just weird?


    • More information to add to the above:

      I've read about overly restrictive Microsoft EULAs, but this is all I can find now.

      Runtime Runaround [gripe2ed.com]. (You can't use a program you wrote in the Microsoft FoxPro language under Linux.)

      Remember this about EULAs: They bind you now. However, maybe the most scary thing about EULAs is that the vendor can change what they say in the future, after you have heavily invested in your tools, and cannot easily change. Basically, you can be held to a contract to which you

    • Even more info:

      This EULA [microsoft.com] from Microsoft's web site limits free speech: "5.9 Benchmark Testing. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Framework component of the Product to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval."

      The point is not that this particular clause causes you difficulty. The point is that it illustrates that Microsoft believes it continues to have enormous power over its products after you have paid for them.
    • VS.NET was written in .NET, you want to rethink that statement perchance?

      And since you obviously don't have any idea about what you are talking about, I'll ignore the rest of your comment, everyone who responded agreeing with you, and the freaking moderators whom moderated this insightful like the lemmings that they are.

      What was it, the fact that you itemized your points that suckered everyone in?
    • Microsoft doesn't use it for its own products. If .NET is so good, why? If someone said, "I would never eat this, but here is some for you", would you take what was offered?

      Thats a bit unfair. MS has been developing its Windows applications in native C/C++ for over 10 years. They obviously have significant infrastructure based on these technologies that isn't going away overnight. To expect them to release .NET (the platform, not the marketing propaganda) versions of Office, SQL Server or IE in such a

      • For me, the major point is that if I develop with .NET, I am going down a road from which there is no easy return, because of the lock-in associated with proprietary ways of doing things. If I like everything about that road, fine. But, if I find significant disadvantages, such as .NET slowly locking me into using Microsoft operating systems, that's frightening.

        Choosing .NET is a bet-the-company decision for many developers.

        If you look at the evolution of .NET, it clearly is going in directions tha
        • Choosing .NET is a bet-the-company decision for many developers.
          Choosing any language/environment is a bet-the-company decision. It's either going to to remain popular and viable, or it won't. There's no guarantee Java will still be widely used in 5 - 10 years, either.

          A friend of mine works at a PB shop that would like nothing better than to switch to .net or java, but is looking at a huge investment to do so.

          • Java is a good example of the low quality in the development tools we have compared to what is possible. It could be a fine language, but the people who make decisions about it don't love themselves and others enough to finish the job.

            You are right: Choosing any language or environment is a bet-the-company decision.

    • If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have let Bjarne Stroustrup do the talking, instead of me: What do you think of C#? [att.com]

      Somewhere he has given an opinion about .NET, but I can't find it. Does anyone have a link?

    • Somewhere else, that I can't find now, Mr. Stroustrup made much stronger statements about .NET. But here is what I can find. It's very recent.

      From Linux Journal, Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup [linuxjournal.com]:

      LJ: What do you think about the .NET-platform and its child, the C# language?

      BS: I still know too little about .Net to be comfortable writing about it.

      LJ: Can C# be a universal language for everything?

      BS: No. It's too high level for many kinds of systems programming, too specialized to Windows for m

  • What I dislike about .Net (Score:4, Informative)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @08:00AM (#6849110) Homepage Journal
    http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/11/21859/2846
  • The web-enabled features of .NET /VS make it killer for me. I've previously developed CGI/DLL's with SOAP API's using Delphi, which is my personal language of choice. However, for anything involving a web server, I'm seriously loving c# and .NET.

    1) Writing SOAP applications. It is pretty much as simple as declaring a c# method as a web-method, and hey-presto, it's SOAP-able.

    2) Step through debugging web applications (including web services).

    3) Performance - nice fast execution, nice fast developme
  • Unlike VB 6 and C++, which were at "opposite ends of the world," the differences between VB.NET and C# are minor, said Janacek, who began working with .NET while it was still in beta. "You can code in C# and show that code to a VB.NET programmer, who can read it straight out. The framework controls are identical. The syntax is a little bit different. But catching errors, writing to files--that's the same across languages," he said.

    So C# is just VB.NET with squiggly brackets? MS are geniuses.
  • given that .Net is really just Redmon-sanctified Java? Given that this is the case, how yummy could an MS targeted development platform get? Of course, my .Net is Java. On OS X. Thanks MS, but no thanks.
  • ".NET advocates are quick to point out that Java offers only limited support on the client side, and that it also lacks rapid application development tools comparable to Visual Studio .NET. "

    I figured that symantics visual cafe was on par with vb 6 ide. Also netbeans, and eclipse are getting pretty close to full ide, with GUI development, web authoring and publishing and web services. Netbeans is actually pretty cool.

    • I can't speak for VC, Netbeans, or Eclipse as I haven't used them extensively, but JBuilder has been the cat's meow for us on the project I'm on now. I've got everything I had in VS.NET and a little more. Having also earned my chops in .NET, I can tell you that the big difference between them (aside from .NET vs. Java) is in ease of setup. It was a bear to get JBuilder 8 SE set up to do server process debugging in Tomcat and Tapestry. VS.NET can be a bear to set up too, but only as the exception, not th

  • Ruby bindings to .NET.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by tcopeland ( 32225 ) * <tom&thomasleecopeland,com> on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @02:04PM (#6851861) Homepage
    ...are available on RubyForge [rubyforge.org]. Makes it even easier to reuse .NET code...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I m taking a WebServices class at a university, and .NET Visual Studio is a requirement, and all the projects will be done in .NET .

    The Reason: .NET is easier to install and work with since it is GUI based.

    Real Life developing doesn't always include a nice GUI. What about making Student learn the whole technology stack, from installation to configuration to usage????

    I remember when I was in school for my undergrad we were made to install our own instances of Objectivity [objectivity.com] and Oracle and other Java rela

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