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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

#61

Post by gm »

cbs wrote: post #57
gm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it…

Its not that they're hard per se, they're just another pain in the ass, especially when the alternative is a proven technology obtainable with a no-bullshit grab from a repository and then can be used whenever wherever for whatever.

Exact same thing can be said about "just start to use right away" by experienced .NET people.

Which is the point of the article: It's much more culture than actual tangible differences/superiority.

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

#62

Post by jroseattle »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #58
jroseattle wrote: post #55

Why anyone evaluates .Net as something uniquely different to other languages/frameworks/platforms is beyond me. It has a certain set of capabilities, some it does really well, others not so well. Pretty much like any other language/framework/platform. As with any application or system being built, the available options for building said application should be evaluated and compared for strengths/weaknesses. Whether th…

Except with .Net you are subscribing to a whole set of things. Windows + IIS and everything else that comes with it. If you choose python you can deploy to Linx/BSD/Solaris or even Windows. Also you get a nice choice of HTTP servers to run it on.

Thanks for proving my point. It's all about consideration.

Unless you're suggesting a platform that rules them all?

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

#63

Post by robocat »

gm wrote: post #44
azakai wrote: post #11

I don't agree that it is mostly culture (and "ego"). Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. With open source software, you just download it and use it. If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do t…

Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it…

I am an engineer, and a founder of a small company using Windows and SQL Server. The licences are a time sucking headache - mindless legal crap, hidden liabilities, and confusing interdependencies.

The BizSpark stuff is the worst (read it carefully: what you can do with it is VERY limited compared with what the marketing materials imply you can use it for).

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

#65

Post by gm »

robocat wrote: post #63
gm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it…

I am an engineer, and a founder of a small company using Windows and SQL Server. The licences are a time sucking headache - mindless legal crap, hidden liabilities, and confusing interdependencies. The BizSpark stuff is the worst (read it carefully: what you can do with it is VERY limited compared with what the marketing materials imply you can use it for).

Admittedly when things got stupid (as they can with SQL Server CALs) we just bought CPU licenses and moved on.

Anyway, I still don't see licensing as that difficult. Maybe just a difference of opinions, which is ok.

In the grand scheme of things (IMO again) licensing costs are infinitesimally small compared to, say, choosing the wrong system architect, or not taking into account scale requirements, hiring an idiot programmer, etc.

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

#66

Post by gaustin »

gecko wrote: post #37

So I don't really work at a start-up in a meaningful sense anymore (Fog Creek is a decade old), but my team is just a few people, and we develop in a start-up-like mode for Kiln, which is written almost entirely on a WISC stack. I really, really like .NET, ASP.NET MVC, and C#. And I even have grown to appreciate IIS 7 and SQL Server. But if I left this company and did a start-up project all over again, there is no wa…

> Or take LINQ to SQL. LINQ to SQL is great. Usually. If > you're using it exactly as they intended. When we wanted to > make some of our models automatically supply some query > parameters, though...well, let's just say there was a lot > of T4 templating involved to get around sealed classes, and > leave it there.

I solved what sounds to be a similar problem using reflection and the Linq ExpressionBuilder class(and related classes). It actually turned out really clean and powerful.

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

#67

Post by jiggy2011 »

jroseattle wrote: post #62
jiggy2011 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except with .Net you are subscribing to a whole set of things. Windows + IIS and everything else that comes with it. If you choose python you can deploy to Linx/BSD/Solaris or even Windows. Also you get a nice choice of HTTP servers to run it on.

Thanks for proving my point. It's all about consideration. Unless you're suggesting a platform that rules them all?

No, that's really the opposite of what I'm suggesting. My point is more that there is more you have to consider with the MS/.Net stack because it all comes as one big package.

Want to port your RoR + pgSQL app from Linux over to a Windows server with IIS? Sure you can.

Want to port your .Net + SQL Server app over from Windows to Linux + Apache? Ouch. (well maybe you can use Mono)

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

#68

Post by easp »

gm wrote: post #44
azakai wrote: post #11

I don't agree that it is mostly culture (and "ego"). Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. With open source software, you just download it and use it. If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do t…

Really people? You guys are engineers by trade (and good engineers, at that, no?) and you find licensing daunting? Let's assume you are out of BizSpark, which gives you what you need for free. Now you have a list of licenses to acquire. What I did last was to call CDW, they put me in touch with their MS licensing guy which actually looks at this stuff full time, he took our info down and simplified our options and it…

Microsoft has put a lot of effort into structuring their licensing to maximize their profits. One of the techniques they've used is to make the licensing complex enough that people over-pay to be on the safe side.

Sounds like you took the path of least resistance with Microsoft licensing, and may have paid significantly more for the privilege.

Maybe that was the right business decision for you, but its hardly a refutation of people who decide that open source licensing is a lot less hassle: No BizSpark application to fill-out, no fear of expensive licensing gotchas once they outgrow BizSpark.

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

#69

Post by gecko »

gaustin wrote: post #66
gecko wrote: post #37

So I don't really work at a start-up in a meaningful sense anymore (Fog Creek is a decade old), but my team is just a few people, and we develop in a start-up-like mode for Kiln, which is written almost entirely on a WISC stack. I really, really like .NET, ASP.NET MVC, and C#. And I even have grown to appreciate IIS 7 and SQL Server. But if I left this company and did a start-up project all over again, there is no wa…

> Or take LINQ to SQL. LINQ to SQL is great. Usually. If > you're using it exactly as they intended. When we wanted to > make some of our models automatically supply some query > parameters, though...well, let's just say there was a lot > of T4 templating involved to get around sealed classes, and > leave it there. I solved what sounds to be a similar problem using reflection and the Linq ExpressionBuilder class(and…

That's roughly what we did: the T4 template work in combination with a cache that a) takes LINQ expression trees with invalid, though ITable-compliant, classes; b) swaps out the ITable-compliant classes for LINQ to SQL's Table classes; c) compiles the expression tree into SQL; d) caches it, so we only have to pull this stunt once.

The power of Microsoft's tools is that this is possible. The bane of them is that it was necessary in the first place.

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

#70

Post by azakai »

powertower wrote: post #47
azakai wrote: post #11

I don't agree that it is mostly culture (and "ego"). Purchasing/licensing software is always a hassle. Even aside from the monetary cost, you need to decide which to buy, go through the purchase process, and sometimes you also have some activation hassle. With open source software, you just download it and use it. If you decide to change to another version of the software or different software entirely, you just do t…

The licensing costs for VS.NET, MSQL, and related products are a rounding error compared to the cost of salary paid to a 3-7 man team. Using open-source tools to save a few dollars is a sure sign of either incompetence or inexperience, and a soon-to-fail project.

> The licensing costs for VS.NET, MSQL, and related products are a rounding error compared to the cost of salary paid to a 3-7 man team.

Not for a pre-seed startup. In that common situation, software licensing costs can be by far the biggest cost you have.

> Using open-source tools to save a few dollars is a sure sign of incompetence, inexperience, and a soon-to-fail project.

Saving a few dollars in return for tools that are on average of similar quality - sometimes better, sometimes worse - is in no way like what you just described.

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