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Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

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Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#41

Post by berntb »

djjose wrote: post #25
bcrescimanno wrote: post #6

There is a strong perception (whether accurate or not--and I honestly don't know the answer) that it's the same old story with Microsoft: if you go the .NET route, you've gotta buy into the entire Microsoft ecosystem. It's not just .NET that you're choosing; you're also choosing Windows servers, IIS, Visual Studio, etc. If that perception is accurate, it's entirely reasonable to say, "Despite liking a lot of what .NE…

Not so sure that's the driver here. Many devs have bought into the iOS ecosystem. This certainly isn't cheap: macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipod touches, ipads. It's also a pretty deep dive to get into. On the web side, I really think cost is the driving factor more than anything. As long as there's a free (open source) solution to MS's framework that is on par (we can argue either way which frameworks/platforms are bett…

>> Many devs have bought into the iOS ecosystem. This certainly isn't cheap: macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipod touches, ipads.

It is a mobile tool chain. You don't need to use Macs for servers... (And the cost of an iPad, iPhone and iPod touch isn't high. You will need a phone anyway. And iPad is the only real game in town for pads, so you'll probably buy one anyway.)

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#42

Post by bcrescimanno »

djjose wrote: post #25
bcrescimanno wrote: post #6

There is a strong perception (whether accurate or not--and I honestly don't know the answer) that it's the same old story with Microsoft: if you go the .NET route, you've gotta buy into the entire Microsoft ecosystem. It's not just .NET that you're choosing; you're also choosing Windows servers, IIS, Visual Studio, etc. If that perception is accurate, it's entirely reasonable to say, "Despite liking a lot of what .NE…

Not so sure that's the driver here. Many devs have bought into the iOS ecosystem. This certainly isn't cheap: macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipod touches, ipads. It's also a pretty deep dive to get into. On the web side, I really think cost is the driving factor more than anything. As long as there's a free (open source) solution to MS's framework that is on par (we can argue either way which frameworks/platforms are bett…

"Not so sure that's the driver here. Many devs have bought into the iOS ecosystem. This certainly isn't cheap: macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipod touches, ipads. It's also a pretty deep dive to get into."

There's a pretty big difference here: lack of choice. If you want to deploy native apps to iOS, you literally have no choice but to get into that world. If you want to deploy web applications (as many startups, especially HN startups do) there are dozens of options to choose from aside from buying into a single vendor's full stack.

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#44

Post by jswinghammer »

mpakes wrote: post #16
sofuture wrote: post #2

The real answer is just as much about our industry’s culture as it is about technology. No, it's entirely about our industry's culture. Which is a shame. It's a fantastic framework that should and could supplant the JVM. It never will though, thanks to Microsoft's boneheaded choices and the blog posts like 'Why I don't hire .Net developers'.

> It's a fantastic framework that should and could supplant the JVM. What makes you feel that .NET is so superior to the JVM? The JVM itself seems like a solid, performant VM platform, and there is a broad selection of languages in Scala, Groovy, Clojure, JRuby, Jython and friends. Disclaimer: I'm platform agnostic and don't currently develop on the JVM or the .NET CLR, so I have no horse in this race. I'm genuinely…

Here are my reasons for not using Java:

Visual Studio .Net (huge), C# vs Java (C# has WAY more features), SQL Server integration (if you are using it), IIS is pretty much painless to configure and works really well with .Net, LINQ which is a pretty good ORM.

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#45

Post by tansey »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #20
sofuture wrote: post #2

The real answer is just as much about our industry’s culture as it is about technology. No, it's entirely about our industry's culture. Which is a shame. It's a fantastic framework that should and could supplant the JVM. It never will though, thanks to Microsoft's boneheaded choices and the blog posts like 'Why I don't hire .Net developers'.

The problem is Microsoft. .Net would be a perfect thing if it wasn't fully owned my MS, in which case it probably won't be far as perfect. However, you have to use MS OS, MS development tools, MS deployment - and it's pretty painful especially because you can't use shiny macbooks any longer :) If you try to replace any element of that chain, you're on your own entirely. On other hand, MS ecosystem is smaller than non…

However, you have to use MS OS, MS development tools, MS deployment

You can use Mono tools if you'd like. For deployment, AppHarbor is just awesome.

...you can't use shiny macbooks any longer

I'm on a brand new Macbook Pro right now and I just pushed to AppHarbor. Bootcamp is great.

For example, what does it have for non-relational storages?

MongoDB works great with .NET. I'm actually about to switch my .NET-based startup[1] over to it from SQL Server.

Stack Overflow started from pure-MS infrastructure and it's 50/50% already - redis, linux frontend proxies.

Everything breaks at scale. This is the same kind of argument people used against Ruby on Rails regarding Twitter. No matter what technology you use, if you reach the massive scale that StackExchange has, you'll delve into optimization voodoo as well. It's one of those good problems.

[1] http://effectcheck.com

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#46

Post by loire280 »

bmj wrote: post #15
vyrotek wrote: post #10

Our startup is based on .Net and hosted on Azure. I don't think I realized just how uncommon this was until we were invited to Microsoft in Redmond and saw the excitement from the developers when they learned that we were a startup. We love the framework. But its definitely not the only stack we use. I also agree that there are bad .Net developers that spoil it for the rest of us. In my opinion, most of the issues se…

I agree, and the shop where I'm employed is the same--we do lots of .NET development, but other products are built on other technologies. As far as bad devs go, don't they exist for most platforms? I mean, is every Ruby programmer a genius?

Lots of people pick up a bit of .NET in business school - just enough to get hired for an entry-level programming position. They don't teach any programming fundamentals in those classes.

After they're hired at a bigcorp, the devs get by through cargo-culting and leaning on the GUI, so they never learn to actually program. Visual Studio is a great IDE, but it's too helpful for the beginning programmer. 5-10 years later, they've got enough "programming experience" on their resumes to get hired as "senior" devs.

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#47

Post by kenjackson »

StavrosK wrote: post #34
MartinCron wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not accurate, for what it's worth. I'm working on a startup with .NET, and while I do use some parts of the MS Ecosystem (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET MVC, SQL Server, IIS) I use plenty of tools that aren't from Microsoft (NUnit, JQuery, Github, ReSharper, TeamCity, DotTrace, DotCover, Selenium). Any good technologist mixes and matches the things that work best for their solution, right?

That's not really saying much. You just mentioned a Microsoft stack with a few client-side or third-party libraries. How easy is it to, say, use Eclipse with C#, nginx and postgres? The pieces you mentioned are either all on the Microsoft stack or irrelevant to it. jQuery and github, for example, have nothing to do with your backend's stack.

How easy is it to, say, use Eclipse with C#,

You do realize that C# in VS is just a compiler? It's csc.exe. There's no reason you can't host it in Eclipse. In fact there are several 3rd party components that allow you to host a C# editor anywhere you like.

The problem, in this case at least, is that the C# experience is so solid that the motivation to create an Eclipse one is pretty low. Maybe the Mono folks have something for it. But the amount of work that MS has done for the C# experience is truly impressive. I can, and have, written C# programs in vim, but it's not something I'd like to do on a regular basis.

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#48

Post by yesimahuman »

I've done development with ASP.Net on Windows/Windows Server/IIS/etc., and I just simply don't prefer it to Python/Django/Linux.

C# is a great language, but I find the point and click/cmd.exe solution to not be as robust and quick as a *nix command line.

Visual Studio is a great tool but it has its quirks, complexities, and bugs.

The .NET stack has a lot of potential for web development (MVC being the shining example), but there are so many technologies that make up the stack that it can be overwhelming. It also doesn't help that they are all sold as being equal but that developers in the know would tell you to avoid most of them (WCF/Web Methods/Web Service files/Web Forms/etc).

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#49

Post by StavrosK »

kenjackson wrote: post #47
StavrosK wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really saying much. You just mentioned a Microsoft stack with a few client-side or third-party libraries. How easy is it to, say, use Eclipse with C#, nginx and postgres? The pieces you mentioned are either all on the Microsoft stack or irrelevant to it. jQuery and github, for example, have nothing to do with your backend's stack.

How easy is it to, say, use Eclipse with C#, You do realize that C# in VS is just a compiler? It's csc.exe. There's no reason you can't host it in Eclipse. In fact there are several 3rd party components that allow you to host a C# editor anywhere you like. The problem, in this case at least, is that the C# experience is so solid that the motivation to create an Eclipse one is pretty low. Maybe the Mono folks have som…

I do realise this, I just added eclipse as an afterthought, as it's arguably as irrelevant as jQuery. The main focus was on the webserver/database, I just didn't expect someone to single the IDE out.

Re: Why Startups Could Use .NET, But Don’t

#50

Post by bcrescimanno »

kenjackson wrote: post #27
MartinCron wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not accurate, for what it's worth. I'm working on a startup with .NET, and while I do use some parts of the MS Ecosystem (Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET MVC, SQL Server, IIS) I use plenty of tools that aren't from Microsoft (NUnit, JQuery, Github, ReSharper, TeamCity, DotTrace, DotCover, Selenium). Any good technologist mixes and matches the things that work best for their solution, right?

Yes, there's definitely a split. Core infrastructure like the CLR, OS, and IDE greatly benefit coming from MS (although none are requirements, as Mono demonstrates). But anyone who does serious .NET dev work knows that tons of third-party tools are used. One big difference I notice in .NET shops is that they seem a lot more willing to pay for the best solution. Whereas for FOSS shops they seem more likely to get an a…

A solution that costs money is not necessarily the "best" solution simply because it cost money.

cough perforce cough

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