Live data from Hacker News

Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

blog.jonathanoliver.com

81–90 of 113 posts

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they get stigmatized for that way more than average. If a Rubyist never sticks nose outside their beloved technology stack, noone makes such a big deal out of it. Yes, exactly right. > to vitriolic anti-M$ hater mentality Right on - this isn't what OP was demonstrating, I think, but general reactions to Microsoft technologies are pretty bizarre. Use it or don't, but I don't get all the hate.

The hate comes from the iron-fist mentality MS has and had toward its users, and their lack of reliability and lack of responsibility for their part in delivering an unreliable product. Why don't you "get" that ?

their lack of reliability and lack of responsibility for their part in delivering an unreliable product

What part of .NET is unreliable?

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever you could need is right at hand. Except speed, a really nice IDE and good Windows support. > The Ruby ecosystem is so perfectly suited to web development that one hardly needs to go elsewhere to get what one needs... > I think the main problem is that .NET tries to be all things to all devs... So Ruby is all things to web devs, but it's a bad thing that .NET has the same goal for Windows-centric devs? That…

> Except speed, a really nice IDE and good Windows support. Web dev doesn't need any of these things. If you need them, then what you are doing isn't web dev, it's something else. > it's a bad thing that .NET has the same goal for Windows-centric devs? What is "Windows-centric" development? That doesn't even make sense. Web dev is a fairly specific domain with a standards-based protocol stack that's been iterated rel…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever you could need is right at hand. Except speed, a really nice IDE and good Windows support. > The Ruby ecosystem is so perfectly suited to web development that one hardly needs to go elsewhere to get what one needs... > I think the main problem is that .NET tries to be all things to all devs... So Ruby is all things to web devs, but it's a bad thing that .NET has the same goal for Windows-centric devs? That…

> Except speed, a really nice IDE and good Windows support. Web dev doesn't need any of these things. If you need them, then what you are doing isn't web dev, it's something else. > it's a bad thing that .NET has the same goal for Windows-centric devs? What is "Windows-centric" development? That doesn't even make sense. Web dev is a fairly specific domain with a standards-based protocol stack that's been iterated rel…

If you're wondering why you are being downvoted, everything you've stated so far has been opinion with no facts to back it up. Why do you think Ruby is more productive than C#? From my position (as someone who has worked with both lightly, but not extensively) I don't see it - things like LINQ in C# are enormously productive.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#84
post #3

tl;dr version - it's mostly about the portability, shortcomings of Windows as OS, and accompanying software (VS, TFS, IIS, MSSQL etc) being bloated. Zero critics about the .NET framework itself.

It's interesting to see how many of the critiques the author cited in 2013 no longer apply to the .NET ecosystem. To name a few: * Git is now a first class VCS for use with Visual Studio * .NET development no longer tied to Visual Studio thanks to things like VS Code or OmniSharp with Submline * .NET development no longer tied to Windows, dev with a Mac or Linux using .NET core

.NET is still tied to Visual Studio. Neither of the other two alternatives, nor the Mac or Linux ports, are ready for prime time yet.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a Rubyist never sticks nose outside their beloved technology stack, noone makes such a big deal out of it. To be fair, Rails is amazing , the most cutting-edge web framework out there, and it's settling into adulthood nicely. The Ruby ecosystem is so perfectly suited to web development that one hardly needs to go elsewhere to get what one needs. Whatever you could need is right at hand. The .NET dev sitting acro…

>The .NET dev sitting across from me doesn't even use legit source control. Well, there you have it, this guy knows a .NET dev who doesn't use legit version control, so the whole .NET stack is a joke. QED.

But it proves my point perfectly - anti .NET "racism" at its finest :) If - say - some Perl dev with academia background was ignorant of VCS, he'd just be a bad developer and that's it...

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#86
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with the author: the Window's guy are usually the ones focused on Window's only solutions. Like, for example, a Windows admin having not heard of nmap. This is common.

Сould you please estimate what share of *nix admins have heard about VBScript, PowerShell, WMI or group policy?

I think you would find most unix admins know of those things. Powershell is your bash, WMI is your /proc. VBScript and group policy would be things you come across if you work with Samba.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#87

The best language is the one that can get your job done and for which you are able to hire competent developers.

PHP?

Competent developers can be good in any language. Bad developers are bad regardless of language.

You don't hear people say things like "Oh, that guy was an amazing developer, and could build awesome, solid easy-to-read and high-performance code, but his code is so bad nothing short of a complete rewrite can help".

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#88

From the comments: "Why do people have to "leave" technologies? Why can't they just add new technologies to their arsenals without dramatic quitting blog posts? You don't see musicians who have just learned to play the guitar writing "why I'm leaving the piano" posts. Go is great; Node.js is great; some JVM languages are fine; .NET has a hell of a lot going for it too. Evaluate your options at the start of every proj…

I agree about building on skills.

I do wonder though if teams with a choice pick C# or is the use of C# dictated just because the enterprise is bought into the MS ecosystem?

I bet most probably leave C# just because they leave the company that is bought in, not because they no longer like it. You code where the money is.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#89
post #10

> C# is awesome. I think it's a spectacular language. OCaml, Haskell and Lisp are spectacular. Erlang is spectacular. Tcl and Python are spectacular. C# is an OK-language at best. > I'm not aware of any non-Java JVM languages prior to the CLR [...] Except JVM/Java had JPython, JRuby, and Rhino (JavaScript) earlier. Those are interpreted, sure, but they were running inside JVM and talking to Java code already when .NE…

> OCaml, Haskell and Lisp are spectacular. Erlang is spectacular. Tcl and Python are spectacular. C# is an OK-language at best. C# not only has built-in monad comprehensions, it can straightforwardly simulate type classes/traits (which even F# can't do). It also has a full metaobject protocol for handling (extreme) late binding, and a good concurrency story (though I rather prefer the Actor Model). Really, C# only pr…

> C# not only has built-in monad comprehensions

IIRC linq is just a structural transformation. Most languages can define monadic instances, that's not the difficulty (or the value)

> it can straightforwardly simulate type classes

Without HKT?

> it can straightforwardly simulate traits

by copy/pasting extension methods?

> It also has a full metaobject protocol

you can change the inheritance tree of a C# object at runtime?

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework (2013)

#90
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except speed, a really nice IDE and good Windows support. Web dev doesn't need any of these things. If you need them, then what you are doing isn't web dev, it's something else. > it's a bad thing that .NET has the same goal for Windows-centric devs? What is "Windows-centric" development? That doesn't even make sense. Web dev is a fairly specific domain with a standards-based protocol stack that's been iterated rel…

If you're wondering why you are being downvoted, everything you've stated so far has been opinion with no facts to back it up. Why do you think Ruby is more productive than C#? From my position (as someone who has worked with both lightly, but not extensively) I don't see it - things like LINQ in C# are enormously productive.

I'm not wondering, I've been around the block long enough to know how the upvote / downvote convention works. I'm actually surprised I'm not being downvoted more.

Dynamic typing adds an entire layer of depth to the things you can do with tooling, over and on top of what you can do with reflection. If I don't know what's going on in a web app, I can load it up in a developer console, get right to where it's going wrong, and start inspecting everything I can see, even looking up the source code of the methods, whether in my app or in the framework, right in the REPL.

You mention LINQ, that makes C# dev bearable by cutting down on the syntax you need to do basic functional programming. I wouldn't call it "enormously productive".

Post reply on HN