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Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

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Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#101

Post by robconery »

abrudtkuhl wrote: post #32
fleitz wrote: post #30

It's just not trendy and the release cycle is very long compared to open source. The long release cycle contributes to the tech side being less newsworthy. Also, the stack is fairly standardized so if you are making a website your stack is going to be either ASP.NET or ASP.NET MVC and it's going to run on the sanctioned VM, and you'll likely be running SQL Server. Contrast this with the ruby stack you might be runnin…

I must take this opportunity to note that the ASP.Net MVC release cycle is far more aggressive than Rails. Secondly... SQL Server is by no means required in the stack. We are using MongoDB as our datasource in an ASP.Net MVC app. You can use ANY database.

That's not entirely accurate. MVC releases major releases once per year - Rails releases quite often... just not full point releases. In fact they pushed 2.3.4 and within a week pushed 2.3.5 as there was a bug found :).

Yes, you can use any DB - good point.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#102

Post by cont4gious »

absconditus wrote: post #95

Not all start-ups are "web 2.0" companies. You likely are completely unaware of any of the start-ups in a field like health care where Windows is king.

not necessarily true. I'm working on a health care startup, and we're running a LAMP stack.

granted, we're a web 2.0 health care company, so we're more of a hybrid.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#104

Post by drawkbox »

Going away from MS platforms by startups is due to cost and quality (of developers).

Annoyances with the latest MS Platforms:

- Nasty URLs (capped, trailing file types) - although it can be done with IIS7 routes or preferrably IIRF which runs IIS5-current. They still dont' have a mod_rewrite solution unless you run server 2008 with IIS7. Look at how nasty this looks: http://www.ferrari.com/Italian/Pages/Home.aspx, why not just http://ferrari.com/? The reason, their frameworks suck defaulting to path cruft, file extensions and capitalized urls.

- ASP.NET WebForms single-form per page travesty.

- Again, File naming and the ASP.NET MVC again relies on their capitalized URL paths and .aspx extensions everywhere.

- XML and SOAP crazy over RESTful/JSON based services (they tried to remedy this with WCF but configuration failed)

- All MS developers are not free thinkers much, they use whatever MS tells them to use from LINQ, MS SQL Server, Sharepoint etc. Even such things as using JSON, jQuery and Entities they didn't use until Microsoft had the frameworks then all of a sudden they loved them. I kid you not most people still used the Microsoft AJAX framework until 2008ish.

- VB.NET

- DataSets just clutter all applications

- MS seems to have lost the skill to make simplified engineering solutions (sure their tools are simple but they are overly configuration nightmares or lock in by requiring the tool otherwise it is painful).

- All good .net developers when they become engineers or entrepreneurs typically leave the platform for cost and better solutions. MS seems to attract mediocre or enterprisey programmers like Java (this could be due to the popularity of both platforms attracting more developers overall)

- Sharepoint kills developers dreams.

You can do .NET like modern web development but for the most part the developers in the MS culture don't.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#105

Post by cschep »

AmberShah wrote: post #60
pg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just a matter of fashion. Only a handful of the startups we've funded use anything from Microsoft.

That doesn't discount the idea of fashion. YC attracts a certain crowd of applicants that tend to be younger and more closely tied into the emergent technology trends. If they have the time to take X months off of their jobs and their families, they also probably have time to learn new technologies that they didn't use in school or at work. I'm young enough but with a busy full time job and a toddler, learning new te…

I totally hear this, "using what you know" is really powerful.

Be careful here though ...

> I know better than to expect to converse about our MS technology with the HN crowd, though.

Lots of positive posts, even in this thread!

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#106

Post by pornel »

strlen wrote: post #98

First, don't make a decision based on what other people are doing. Don't make a technical decision based on the job market either: that's an argument commonly used for Blub. If you have a cool and interesting project, people will not mind learning a different language to join you, even if they're mostly hobbyists who would never touch MS Software on their own. There are some caveats, however: you should have a solid…

Unfortunately Cocoa# seems to be completely dead (mono website says project is being "revitalized" on cocoa-sharp.com, but the domain has expired and fallen into squatters' hands).

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#108

Post by pg »

AmberShah wrote: post #60
pg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just a matter of fashion. Only a handful of the startups we've funded use anything from Microsoft.

That doesn't discount the idea of fashion. YC attracts a certain crowd of applicants that tend to be younger and more closely tied into the emergent technology trends. If they have the time to take X months off of their jobs and their families, they also probably have time to learn new technologies that they didn't use in school or at work. I'm young enough but with a busy full time job and a toddler, learning new te…

I think you misunderstood me. evo_ is saying that it's unfashionable to talk about it when you use Microsoft software. I replied that in my experience the reason startups don't talk about Microsoft stuff is that they're not using it, not that they are and are embarrassed to say so.

It may well be that YC-funded startups consistently differ from the average startup. But that doesn't mean that such differences are due to fashion. The kind of people we fund are more consistent in knowing what they're doing than in being young. So if as a group they differ from the norm on technical matters, the more likely hypothesis is that the norm is lagging.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#109

Post by dpifke »

Encosia wrote: post #97
noodle wrote: post #9

as it has already been mentioned -- having to pay license fees means ramen profitable is even further away for your average, small bootstrapped startup. there are some good startups based on the MS stack, but they're generally startups done by people with money, connections, or extensive experience in the MS stack.

With BizSpark or WebsiteSpark, you have three years. Then, a Windows Web Server 2008 R2 license only costs $469. If a business can't manage to scrape $469 together after three years, they probably have larger problems.

Even a startup can scrape together $469. But $469 per server is another story, especially in businesses that grow to require hundreds of machines.

$469 is a significant percentage of the hardware cost. The last time I bought a bunch of servers, they were in the $2500 range.

Re: Ask HN: (No) Microsoft based start-ups?

#110

Post by rksprst »

We're on the Microsoft stack at SocialBlaze: http://www.socialblazeapp.com (Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, asp.net MVC 2.0, c# 4.0)

We do a lot of processing and storing of data, SQL Server is awesome for that.

Microsoft has a bad rep, but the libraries/tools/services they have are pretty powerful, bug-free, and easy to implement.

Only downside seems to be cost, but with BizSpark you don't have to worry about it for 3 years. And after 3 years you really shouldn't have to worry about it either because paying for it shouldn't be a problem.

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