Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

infoq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 101 posts

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#51

Post by kenjackson »

javery wrote: post #39
redstripe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And after 3 years if they need to spend 10k on licensing for a very successful site that will be peanuts compared to their own time spent. Or do they value that at nothing? I think this is a bad article/interview because it gives the impression that you can't do websites in asp.net MVC on the cheap.

You are assuming that we would spend more time using RoR then ASP.NET, we have found this to be the opposite. We build out and deploy features in much less time then we would on ASP.NET now.

Not sure if this is feasible, but it would be great to post your ASP.NET vs RoR code to compare the delta.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#52

Post by redstripe »

javery wrote: post #36
redstripe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about your database requirements that prevents you from using SQL server express?

Using SQL Server Express is just trading one time-bomb for another time-bomb. Now instead of a 3 year bizspark timebomb we have a size time-bomb, once we cross that point we are springing for SQL Server. Why use a stunted Express product when you can use MySQL or Postgres for free?

Because it's a robust and feature rich database/tool-set thats great to develop on and gives me peace of mind. It's been a while since I used MySQL but the database and it's tools left me underwhelmed. I found that I could be more productive with SQL server. I haven't tried Postgres.

I guess I like to think if my databases grow too large for the free version that's a good problem to have. It's not that bad a "time-bomb" to me. Many sites will never need the paid version - especially the ones small enough to be so cost sensitive.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#53

Post by kenjackson »

SamAtt wrote: post #3

As an MS developer this really is devastating. Rob Conery is one of the names that any fan of ASP.NET MVC knew. He was involved in the project when he worked there (I'd call him the most high profile MS employee aside from Scott Guthrie). To have him come out and say he couldn't make a startup work with Microsoft technology really tells you all you need to know about that. I still need to use .Net at work but I think…

I'm not a web dev per se, but I never heard of Rob Conery until now. I now ScottGu, Anders, Cutler, Brumme, Dussud, Crowley, Russinovich, Spiro, even Luca, but never Rob.

Not to say he's not a big name, but to say he's the most high profile MS employee beside ScottGu seems absurd. Even in the dev tools space I think you have to give that to Anders.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#54

Post by kenjackson »

robconery wrote: post #49
redstripe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And after 3 years if they need to spend 10k on licensing for a very successful site that will be peanuts compared to their own time spent. Or do they value that at nothing? I think this is a bad article/interview because it gives the impression that you can't do websites in asp.net MVC on the cheap.

When is $10,000 peanuts? Seriously - I'd rather bonus a developer that money then hand it over for something I can get for free.

I think the point is $1 is too much money if the tools aren't the best. But $10k is not a lot of money if the tools are great. I tell my team, if you find a tool that makes you more productive, buy it. There's almost no reasonably priced tool that wouldn't be worth it if the dev thought it was.

We budget around $10k per dev for tools and training per year. We usually come in a fair bit under, but given we spend over $200k/year per dev, this is a small fraction of their cost.

I think your point is that the tools weren't the right fit. Because if they were, it seems like baulking at $10k is a sign that you can't make the right cost-beneift tradeoff -- which is a very bad sign for a company.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#55

Post by pbz »

robconery wrote: post #47
pbz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then why not just replace the database and keep the rest? Were you using Linq to SQL and hence tied to SQL Server? As far as VS I'm sure it would not have been a problem for you to get free versions. However, I suppose if you were to change the database portion, probably a sizable chunk of the application, you may as well replace the whole thing...

But why ? My cost right now (aside from hardware, which is net even) is 0 - without the hoops. Also - the testing story is much better.

Was the cost of rewriting that small? In my view it would only make sense if the cost of rewriting the app is insignificant. If you can do it in a week or two, sure... any more than that and I would start to question if it's worth it. I mean, you gotta make sure it brings in money first, right? :-)

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#56

Post by SamAtt »

robconery wrote: post #45
TomOfTTB wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness (and as the person who made the decision that forces Sam above to use .Net technology) there are reasons to use Microsoft technology even when it isn’t the best fit. Let’s be honest about technology for a second: Things go wrong. No matter what solution you use things go wrong and for the most part non-technical management doesn’t understand that. When something goes wrong they want someone to blame. If y…

Your assumption here is that the blame game somehow is the path to productivity and "the answer". This, to me, means you have a lot of other problems where you work - your platform doesn't matter at all. You're very right, however in that no one gets fired for using Microsoft - but that's changing. Don't take my word for it - ask the guys in Building 42 - they know it too. You touch on a very particular, hot topic in…

I don't agree with your points on human nature.

On blame, every executive staff of a large company that I've ever seen casts blame. Yes there are startups with a small number of people that are all pretty even keel but as soon as you get to a certain size you'll get opposing interests and that's where blame comes from. The blame game is a political game played by people trying to get leverage over other people in order to get more resources. It's stupid but it's the reality of the world. If you don't see it you just aren't high up enough to be the one fighting for resources. Because as someone who read about Microsoft as a kid I know it was happening at Microsoft (Silverberg/Alchin?)

As far as brand, that's just human nature. Look at the side of any Grocery Store brand and you'll see the same ingredients as the big brands. But any grocery store manager will tell you Captain Crunch outsells generic white box crunch 100-to-1. That's why companies build up brands in the first place. That's why Microsoft brags about being one of the most trusted brands in the world.

So this really isn't old guard as much as it's the stupidity of human nature and I really don't see it changing that much.

P.S. This is Username: TomOfTTB not Username: SamAtt. If he doesn't want me posting as him he should learn to @#%& log out.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#57

Post by pbz »

robconery wrote: post #50
euroclydon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DB Servers are irrelevant when you are talking ASP.NET, so long as you use NHibernate.

Tell that to MySQL which runs like an ape through a mud bog on Windows.

Then put MySQL on a Linux box, no need to have it on Windows...

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#58

Post by misterbwong »

aymeric wrote: post #43

I have learned Ruby on Rails and I am amazed that after three weeks with RoR I am more productive than after 10 years with .net I reported my own experience moving from Asp.net to Ruby on Rails in my blog a few days ago: "How an experienced developer multiplied his productivity tenfold" http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/2010/how-an-experienced-...

Did you happen to try out other frameworks before deciding on RoR? I'm thinking about testing the waters outside of MS land and I'd like to know why you chose RoR versus, say, Django or even Struts.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#59

Post by javery »

redstripe wrote: post #52
javery wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using SQL Server Express is just trading one time-bomb for another time-bomb. Now instead of a 3 year bizspark timebomb we have a size time-bomb, once we cross that point we are springing for SQL Server. Why use a stunted Express product when you can use MySQL or Postgres for free?

Because it's a robust and feature rich database/tool-set thats great to develop on and gives me peace of mind. It's been a while since I used MySQL but the database and it's tools left me underwhelmed. I found that I could be more productive with SQL server. I haven't tried Postgres. I guess I like to think if my databases grow too large for the free version that's a good problem to have. It's not that bad a "time-bo…

You can't even do automated backups with SQL Server Express (without some hacks or other tools).

MySQL is a pleasure to work with and so it MongoDB, more so than SQL Server.

If you prefer SQL Server than more power to you.

Re: How We Moved From Microsoft ASP.NET to Rails and NoSQL

#60

Post by matthewking »

javery wrote: post #35
matthewking wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't look at Windows Azure as an option? http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/

We didn't seriously look at Azure for a couple reasons: 1) It's expensive compared to other hosting platforms. 2) I hate lock-in to a particular platform. If we coded against Azure tables we would be locked in to Azure. If we used their SQL platform we would be space constrained. 3) I have used Azure and deployment, updates, and troubleshooting are all slow and cumbersome. It is still a very immature platform.

We're looking at making the move from Rails to ASP.NET MVC. So pretty much the opposite of what you've done, and we're planning on hosting on Azure. So I read this thread with great interest.

We've found that like for like the Azure platform is very well priced and is actually less expensive than our current Ubuntu setup, as well as being cheaper than comparable high level Microsoft hosting providers.

We don't much like lock in either and for the parts of the Azure platform that will lock us in we're extracting the code into a wrapper so we can replace with the minimum of work should we need to switch hosting platform in a hurry. Database wise we're going with SQL Azure and their 10GB limit I find to be quite spacious for our needs, although that would depend entirely on what you're storing. I believe they have 50GB databases in the works for the near future?

The deployment times are an issue and I have heard similar, but again I believe if you upload the project yourself then request the update the deployment time is greatly reduced making it less of an issue. It would take some doing to match Capistrano deployment though which is simply awesome and something I will certainly miss.

Post reply on HN