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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

#161

Post by woogychuck »

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…

There are definitely 2 distinct cultures of developers using the MS Web Stack. Webforms (what most people typically think of when they thing of .NET) is an attempt to get desktop developers on the web. While it's possible to get good markup out of Webforms, most of the default features are a table-based, inline styled abomination. Until MVC came out, I actually worked on an open source project that focused on fixing the markup generated by ASP.NET.

That being said, the new generation of ASP.NET MVC devs is top notch. People like Scott Hanselman and Phill Haack have helped make some vast improvements in the stack.

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

#162

Post by benliebert »

Totally agree on the commitment to the whole .Net ecosystem, but that is a feature, not a problem, because for the most part the various places play very nice together - so nice in fact that we have time to actually COMPLAIN about this integration :)

Another minor point is that yes, MS has higher licence costs for sure, but the other expense for a business is the development time themselves. A .Net developer can quickly switch between WinForms/Web/Mobile/Silverlight(for what it's worth) with very little learning curve and all within the same IDE. I believe it gives a business many more options without needing to bring in and train specialists.

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

#163

Post by pbz »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #40
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'.

But the culture is a direct result of the Microsoft brand. Many of us have been at this long enough to at least dimly remember Microsoft's antics in the 90s. Others of us are still dealing with other aspects of the Microsoft technology stack, and hating it. For instance, I've spent most of a full work-week with a client recently because their SBS 2008 AD server went haywire. We've been troubleshooting ridiculous netw…

What would you think if I told you I had issues with Linux, drivers crashing, kernel panics, programs not integrating nicely, and for these reasons I choose not to use Ruby?

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

#164

Post by djjose »

msbarnett wrote: post #122
julianz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I obviously don't have hard numbers on this but I can say from my own experience we purchased macs exclusively to build iOS apps for clients. We run a pretty lean shop so we viewed buying macs just for web dev a luxury item. We spent the money early-on on bigger monitors and beefy PCs for less than getting some MB Pros. However with iOS apps being something clients now want, we had to spend the money and of course buy the devices to test. The money spent upfront certainly wasn't trivial. But I admit we could be the anomaly; maybe we were the last shop on earth still coding on PCs. :)

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

#165

Post by djjose »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #42
djjose wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, especial…

True. The point I was trying to get across is that lock-in doesn't necessarily stop devs or people from jumping in. The potential to save or make money is to me the more powerful driver.

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

#166

Post by InclinedPlane »

To be honest, I think one of the biggest problems with using a Microsoft stack is licensing. With Linux/OSS infrastructure the only limit in terms of flexibility is your imagination. Want a server? All you need to buy is the hardware. Want to change the OS on a server? Just takes time and effort. Want to change your infrastructure from a few big iron boxes to 10x as many smaller boxes? Again, just time and effort and hardware costs.

In contrast, with an MS stack you have licensing and purchasing friction at every step. You get mired with infrastructure inertia, you don't want to waste the money you've spent on buying OS/database licenses, you don't want to spend new money on new licenses. Even when the money isn't very consequential (and in most operations it's not) the mere fact that budgeting has to be involved in so many technical changes often reduces flexibility and development velocity. For example, what if you want to merely investigate a potential new server configuration? With Linux you can perhaps find some older hardware and spend some time prototyping a new system, and if it doesn't work you've wasted time but you've at least learned something. With Windows you have to commit money before you've completed your test.

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

#167

Post by Zak »

igorgue wrote: post #107
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 mean, is every Ruby programmer a genius?" Yes, they are geniuses, because of this: http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html

"Genius" may be overstating things a bit especially now that Rails has gotten pretty popular. You do find some people in the Rails world who are a lot like PHP programmers[0] these days, and you do need to take care to weed those out. That said, you'll probably have to do a lot less weeding out to find somebody to work on a Ruby project than a .NET, Java or PHP project.

[0] In this context, a "PHP programmer" is not simply a programmer who uses PHP, but a programmer who uses only PHP and is almost certainly clueless about CS fundamentals.

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

#168

Post by gabbo »

snorkel wrote: post #78

It all goes back to everything Microsoft offers is tightly coupled to Microsoft's ecosystem, and frankly I've played in that space for years and just got bored of it, plus I got tired of investing in learning Microsoft-specific APIs that Microsoft itself kept obsoleting. Nothing really new or interesting is happening in Microsoftland. Instead every new offering is just an incompatible counter-offer to some other esta…

I'm not really trying to refute the broader point you're making, but Passport existed long before OAuth. Late 90s I think.

They're only trying to do the same thing in the most superficial way. Passport was Microsoft's attempt to do single sign-on across the internet by centralizing authentication. It never really caught on. The only place I saw it was on eBay for a few years, nowadays I think it's mostly for MS properties.

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

#169

Post by jf »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #166

To be honest, I think one of the biggest problems with using a Microsoft stack is licensing. With Linux/OSS infrastructure the only limit in terms of flexibility is your imagination. Want a server? All you need to buy is the hardware. Want to change the OS on a server? Just takes time and effort. Want to change your infrastructure from a few big iron boxes to 10x as many smaller boxes? Again, just time and effort and…

Is there a way that BizSpark fails to help here?

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

#170

Post by vyrotek »

josephcooney wrote: post #158
vyrotek wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I see the .NET "culture" has transferred through even to your company name!

I'm glad someone got it! You wouldn't believe the number of people who spell the company name as iActionable. How dare they turn it into an Apple product!
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