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Leaving .net

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Re: Leaving .net

#31

Post by berntb »

acabal wrote: post #8

A sizeable chunk of .NET development happens in the corporate/enterprise world. That sort of environment isn't interested in collaboration, open source, etc.--they're interested in the guaranteed support the MS stack provides, and the idiot-proof web basics provided by ASP/webforms/MVC. If shit hits the fan in the .NET stack for a big enough corporate project, someone in the office can phone/email MS and get support…

>> If a bug is found in the stack itself, it won't languish unsolved in bug trackers for years, like many OSS bugs do.

Oh, please...

Over the years, I've personally fixed bugs. And sent in fixes. (Stop complaining -- I promise to send tests too, next time!)

If I run into one that I am unable to grok in a reasonable time, there are always job boards and money.

Bugs -- not to be confused with full sized features -- are generally not that big a problem in even non-popular open source. You don't have to decompile the damn code!!

And you can get bugs fixed without waiting for a new release, next year... maybe.

Re: Leaving .net

#32

Post by dingle_thunk »

People tend to think of Microsoft as much more backward than they actually are. Yes, Microsoft isn't the brighest when it comes to open-source, but they do at least try. And yes, if you're going to live in the Enterprise world, things are a little old fashioned, but that's a reflection of the market, not the vendor. Microsoft makes tonnes of neat stuff that never gains traction because people seem to have convinced themselves that MS is an enterprise-only shop...

Some examples:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/efdesign/archive/2010/06/01/conventi...

http://microsoft.com/web/webmatrix

http://ironruby.codeplex.com/ | http://ironpython.codeplex.com/

http://visitmix.com/ | http://edge.technet.com

http://officelabs.com | http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch

http://microsoft.com/express | http://microsoft.com/dreamspark | http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.asp...

Re: Leaving .net

#33

Post by megamark16 »

braddunbar wrote: post #17

I can't up-vote this enough. I started out as a .net developer. I didn't know anything else so I thought that's all there was. I was very wrong. I'm trying to get out as fast as possible, but applying for a job as a python developer with 4 years of asp.net experience isn't easy.

I was in the same boat as you a few years ago. I had worked on .NET for a few years, mostly webforms, because that's just what was available when I got started. I started tinkering around with Python because I needed a load testing tool and found an open source one written in python but it needed some tweaking to work with the viewstate. Anyway, I started learning Python and Django, built a few little sites and webapps just to try it out (ok, I was hoping one of them might take off...they didn't) and eventually a Python dev shop here in town found me on DjangoPeople.net, looked at some of my Django work, and asked me to come in for an interview. Now I'm hacking Python (almost) full time, plus side gigs and personal projects, and I couldn't be happier to only have to look at .NET once in a while.

Re: Leaving .net

#34

Post by jeffreyg »

jrockway wrote: post #16
mahmud wrote: post #2

There were already open source MVC web frameworks and an army of .net developers who could have collaborated to make them great but nothing much happened. He is lamenting that the .NET community didn't embrace the pioneering MVC frameworks from the OS community, but waited for Microsoft to deliver its own "blessed" framework. Here is what he is forgetting: Economics. A good chunk of .NET developers are not using the…

Actually, quite a few Haskell folks work for Microsoft Research. So it's more like the well-paid Microsoft employees are out there hacking on GHC. The broke mofos are the ones that are working on all that .NET stuff. Working for the government as a low-level programmer is not where the money is at.

And there's too much money in consulting for the government as a low-level programmer.

Re: Leaving .net

#35

Post by PonyGumbo »

st3fan wrote: post #30

What do people here think of .Net as a choice of platform for startups?

The tools are great, and there are a variety of MS programs available to get you using them at low (and sometimes zero) cost - Websitespark and Dreamspark (for students) are both good. From my perspective, the major drawback is that hosting is more expensive.

Re: Leaving .net

#36

Post by dschobel »

st3fan wrote: post #30

What do people here think of .Net as a choice of platform for startups?

for a client application or for the backend?

SQL Server + Windows licensing can get crazy expensive. I know stackoverflow made it work via http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ but I believe even with that program you'll have to cough up the exorbitant licensing fees eventually.

more here: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/stack-overflow-and-biz...

Re: Leaving .net

#38

Post by lelele »

jacquesm wrote: post #5
mahmud wrote: post #2

There were already open source MVC web frameworks and an army of .net developers who could have collaborated to make them great but nothing much happened. He is lamenting that the .NET community didn't embrace the pioneering MVC frameworks from the OS community, but waited for Microsoft to deliver its own "blessed" framework. Here is what he is forgetting: Economics. A good chunk of .NET developers are not using the…

Not only that, if you are a startup that wants to do b2b and you want to sell a product in to that market that will have a tight connection to stuff your clients already run you will be required to use .NET by your customers. Unless you like uphill battles that's the way you'll go eventually. It sucks, but it is the reality of the business environment, web side stuff that is abstracted through some HTTP interface you…

Customers will not worry about "alien" technologies, unless you sell the latter as such. This is a basic sales principle.

Don't ever say you develop applications in Clojure, just say you develop in Java. Clojure is just a Jar, isn't it? Then you are just using a Java library, aren't you?

Prototypes usually end up in production, don't they? Then develop such prototypes in an agile language and just make them follow their destiny.

What are you doing around Hacker News, if you aren't able to hack the system?

EDIT: However, you should also understand when your language of choice just doesn't fit a gray-suited environment, and indeed I think Ruby doesn't. Python does.

Re: Leaving .net

#39

Post by herewego »

I work for a mid-size (read: 100+ employee) IT recruiting company and I have to tell you that this boils down to one thing and one thing only for most people that have chosen .NET: economics.

If you want to be a developer and you're goal is to give your three kids a good life, drive that BMW 5 series, and own a $500k house, then you should be a .NET developer. The math is simple and I have a mountain of data that supports the reality that .NET developers get paid significantly more (20-30%) on average than any of the hot whiz-bang alternatives (Ruby, PHP, Java, etc). The average mid-level .NET developer in a dev-friendly town (san fran, boston, new york, etc) is making $80-90k, Senior $90-110k, Architects $110-130k, Director/Managers $130-160k. Those are averages that don't include bonuses. There are of course exceptions (finance industry add 20% to the above figures, start-ups subtract 10%, etc).

Never underestimate the position that money holds in ones relationship with their chosen path in life.

I think the authors argument is valid and is the reason why most of the developers that leave the .NET world do, but my observations indicate that most .NET/MS developers are lifers.

On a side note, I actively practice development in.NET, PHP, Java, and a few other languages at my 9 to 5. I like to think that I'm fairly unbiased.

Re: Leaving .net

#40

Post by megamark16 »

st3fan wrote: post #30

What do people here think of .Net as a choice of platform for startups?

Well, mine is just one voice, but as someone who's worked for a startup running on the Microsoft stack (ASP.NET 3.5) I can tell you that there are a lot of "cool" libraries out there available for only $799! And there's a lot of cheap labor available overseas to knock out those little side features and tasks for you, all you have to do is drop their code in, then spend a bunch of time trying to make it actually work. And there's Microsoft BizSpark, so you don't have to pay for your software until later. Oh, and servers...err...yeah they're expensive, sorry, there's no way to spin that one.

Just from my experience, .NET as a platform for startsups can be made to sound really good by the people selling it, and there are some startups out there doing it and making it work for them, to which I say good on ya! But from my experience, it ends up being the boat anchor weighing you down. There are a TON of developers available, but finding good ones can be very difficult. Hosting is expensive (compared to linux-compatible solutions), and third party components are plentiful and expensive, and usually still require a fair amount of work to integrate.

My boss at my last job used to say "how can we make this faster? Why is everything so slow?" Well, because you started with a code base written by people who aren't really passionate about software development, they just took your specs and spit something out, so it gets the job done, but just barely. Then you bolted on a bunch of fancy UI components and ajaxified some stuff to give it the appearance of being less slow (oh, and look how pretty your GumDropGridView is!) Cram all of that into the cluster (f*ck) of servers in your server closet and you had a webapp you could start charging people to use. Now you've hired me and you want me to tell you how to make it faster? Well, it can be done, but we've got a lot of work to do. What's that? You've got 3 months worth of funding left? Dude, what do you want me to say?

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