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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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

bad_user wrote: post #118
kenjackson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But only tools that are replaceable, used mostly in development mode. I'm not sure what "tools that are replaceable" means (because to me everything is replaceable), but the comment about mostly in dev mode is just not correct. There are tons of uses of Oracle. In that 25%, it's probably 75%. Tons of MS shops use Flash. Tons of MS shops use EC2. Tons of MS shops use SQLLite. Tons of shops use nHibernate. Tons of MS s…

to me everything is replaceable Well yes, you can always rebuild from scratch. There are tons of uses of Oracle Microsoft has been collaborating with Oracle for the integration provided. It's the only third-party database with that privilege. Tons of MS shops use Flash What's more interesting to me is that tons of MS shops are using Silverlight, even though it isn't the best solution by any stretch of imagination, ha…

[deleted]

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

#122

Post by msbarnett »

julianz wrote: post #102
berntb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.)

And then you'll develop for them using what?

The laptop I was already using for Rails development.

The notion that every dev getting into the iOS space was converting from Windows at an enormous upfront cost seems rather daft. OS X had a lot of dev traction before iOS existed.

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

#123

Post by pmarsh »

vailripper wrote: post #32
bmj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the issue is with Webforms specifically. Webforms abstracts away so much of the way the web works that developers who have spent their careers developing on it never actually understand how the web really works. Concepts like Viewstate hide the realities of web development. The fact that almost all processing takes place on the server-side means they are weak at client-side debugging, etc. That said, I don't…

Having just spent the past couple of months learning webforms ASP.NET coming from a PHP/RoR background what you said is exactly what frustrated me.

Knowing how webforms tried to warp how the web actually works was truly annoying. I understand why they did it, but it really does not help a web programmer in the long run.

And if .NET 4.0 didn't allow you to use ClientIDMode to set your own element IDs I'd have lost it entirely.

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

#124

Post by kenjackson »

bad_user wrote: post #118
kenjackson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But only tools that are replaceable, used mostly in development mode. I'm not sure what "tools that are replaceable" means (because to me everything is replaceable), but the comment about mostly in dev mode is just not correct. There are tons of uses of Oracle. In that 25%, it's probably 75%. Tons of MS shops use Flash. Tons of MS shops use EC2. Tons of MS shops use SQLLite. Tons of shops use nHibernate. Tons of MS s…

to me everything is replaceable Well yes, you can always rebuild from scratch. There are tons of uses of Oracle Microsoft has been collaborating with Oracle for the integration provided. It's the only third-party database with that privilege. Tons of MS shops use Flash What's more interesting to me is that tons of MS shops are using Silverlight, even though it isn't the best solution by any stretch of imagination, ha…

Microsoft has been collaborating with Oracle for the integration provided. It's the only third-party database with that privilege.

Doesn't explain the use of MySql, DB2, Teradata, etc... I don't know who MS works with, but I do know that there are shops that use a wide range of database solutions.

What's more interesting to me is that tons of MS shops are using Silverlight, even though it isn't the best solution by any stretch of imagination, having the extra handicap that its reach is at most half than the reach of Flash, even inside an intranet environment.

Kind of like HTML5 features right? :-)

You decide based on the 5 biggies - OS, database server, web server, application server, caching layer.

And nothing replaces SQL Server, Windows Server and IIS. And if .NET shops have been using Memcached, that's because no alternative was available from MS.

You make it sound like there are a million OSes the FOSS community chooses from. It's Linux. Done. Some random bloke uses BSD, but really it's Linux.

And half the time ppl in FOSS talk about databases its key/value dbs, and there are tons on Windows too. Plus they're often written from scratch. Apache works if you use ASP.NET MVC. Memcached, as you note, also works.

My point, virtually everything you mentioned can swapped out. And even the OS can be, with Mono. With that said the MS implementations tend to work well together. But I conceeded that in the very first line of my original post.

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

#125

Post by dmooney1 »

StavrosK wrote: post #49
kenjackson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ASP.NET works with Apache and Nginx. See http://mono-project.com/ASP.NET

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

#126

Post by famousactress »

I dunno. I get confused, easily. Every few weeks something like this kicks around, I get tricked into saying something unfortunate (but true) about the MS development community, no one changes their mind and the process repeats.

I guess what I keep forgetting to ask is why should I ever consider using .NET for a server side application? I'm totally boggled as to why it's not just a redundant, expensive, risky idea compared to the legions of alternatives. That's very different than suggesting the language or platform is bad... They're not at all. In fact, I think they're great. I just don't understand what makes them worth the trade-offs that come along with signing up.

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

#127

Post by vyrotek »

tmfkmoney wrote: post #111
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…

I have both a .Net start-up which is a Bizspark member and a non-.Net start-up. It's not the software costs for me it's the development costs of using .Net that make it tough. .Net developers get paid a lot which means it's expensive to quit your .Net job and form a start-up and it's expensive to hire people to work on your project.

Tell me about it :) My co founder and I were both .Net developers before we quit and started working on IActionable. But its worth it in the end!

Edit - Do you have an email where I can reach you to talk about StockYoyo.com?

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

#128

Post by mgkimsal »

bad_user wrote: post #81
kenjackson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

although none are requirements, as Mono demonstrates Not to bash on Mono, as Miguel and the Mono team did a fantastic job, but Mono has been more focused on client apps (like for embedding in games). Another reason for why hosting ASP.NET projects on Linux is awful is because ASP.NET was built for Windows. Things like async operations are built for the Windows kernel, having architecture decisions that have a negativ…

Another reason for why hosting ASP.NET projects on Linux is awful is because ASP.NET was built for Windows.

For some reason I'm reminded of Chilisoft ASP. I know it's not the same, but there was quite a market for catering to people who wanted to run ASP on non-Windows servers all those years ago. I guess it never went away.

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

#129

Post by patrickk »

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…

Another reason for startups not to use .NET is that Microsoft-based hosting for web apps tends to be more expensive than the other alternatives.

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

#130

Post by woogychuck »

zyphlar wrote: post #104
wslh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently the same applies to every known service. You have developed using AWS or App Engine and try to migrate to other systems without changing a line of code?

I'd buy your argument if Ruby on Rails only worked on Amazon servers, or if by using Ruby you could only use nginx and not Apache. The fact is when writing a .Net web app, if you don't like the way IIS or Windows Server or their providers are handling things, you're out of options. Oh and if you want those nice features that make the ecosystem usable, you get to upgrade everybody to the Pro version (not just the peop…

That's not really true. The providers in .NET are similar to the convention over config philosophy present in RoR. IIS and ASP.NET provide a lot of features in what they consider the "most common" manner. However, almost every one of the built-in providers can be overridden with a custom provider. In fact, I've set Wordpress up on IIS a few times and used a custom ISAPI module to allow mod_rewite like functionality to create friendly URLS.

You don't have to rely on the built-in providers any more than and RoR app has to use only the scaffolded views.

Also, the Mono project has made it possible to run almost any .NET app on Linux. There are a handful of projects at Novell that are written in C#, but are served via Apache on a Linux box.

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