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ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

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Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#71

Post by gecko »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #67
acak wrote: post #6

I am a developer who has leaned towards .NET over the last few projects and one of the things that used to nag me is that the platform is a closed one (and the licensing fees can be a decent part of the cost). I was fairly certain I would migrate off it if the project ever took off seriously. And after seeing the C# love on HN on the poll for favorite programming languages last week, I realized there must be many ena…

I'd pay to have a fully compatible .NET stack on OSX/Linux. Most of our backend code is C#; outside of having to use Windows I've actually found it very pleasant to work with. No need for a full MSVS port, just a working VM/library and build tools (+ maybe an IntelliSense daemon to plug into editors). It'd be interesting to see MS get back to their roots this way.

I'm completely with you: I absolutely love .NET, but I really wish that I could write server-side components for and on OS X or Linux. Mono's getting less painful for server-side work, for what it's worth; if you have light needs, or can easily restart the service on a regular basis, you may find it usable. But I'd definitely avoid deploying an MVC 3 app.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#72

Post by MatthewPhillips »

gecko wrote: post #70
prezjordan wrote: post #69

Looking for some HN insight here. I'm still a college student interested in startups. However, microsoft products really don't excite me. Can someone explain the benefits of C# to a Ruby on Rails coder?

Good parts: C#, and the entire .NET stack, completely skewers Ruby from a performance perspective, while not putting your coding in a straight jacket like Java does. You'll also find what in my opinion are vastly more powerful debugging and profiling tools, awesome threading support (be sure to check out both C# 4.5's async/await keywords and the existing Rx library at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg577609 ),…

> better IDEs if you're into that kind of thing, and more.

With the caveat being you have to be into that kind of thing. Coding C# not-in VS (or MonoDevelop) is not fun.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#73

Post by thisishugo »

prezjordan wrote: post #69

Looking for some HN insight here. I'm still a college student interested in startups. However, microsoft products really don't excite me. Can someone explain the benefits of C# to a Ruby on Rails coder?

* C# is statically typed and compiled, which means a lot of problems the would be runtime errors in a Ruby on Rails project will be caught before deployment at compile-time.

* Being compiled also means theres a lower overhead to running C# code - there's no interpreter overhead.

* Anecdotally, many large sites (e.g. Twitter) that used the Rails stack have complained that the technology behind the site caused problems when they grew. Conversely, Stack Overflow, a large site using the ASP.net stack has never complained that C# was a problem in their growth. Correlation not causation, maybe, or perhaps the "Rails doesn't scale" mantra came about for a reason.

* Visual Studio is probably hand down the best IDE out there with good reason - Microsoft is heavily incentivised to keep developers using the Microsoft stack so making it hard or undesirable to abandon their development environment is important for it.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#74

Post by gecko »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #72
gecko wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good parts: C#, and the entire .NET stack, completely skewers Ruby from a performance perspective, while not putting your coding in a straight jacket like Java does. You'll also find what in my opinion are vastly more powerful debugging and profiling tools, awesome threading support (be sure to check out both C# 4.5's async/await keywords and the existing Rx library at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg577609 ),…

> better IDEs if you're into that kind of thing, and more. With the caveat being you have to be into that kind of thing. Coding C# not-in VS (or MonoDevelop) is not fun.

It depends, actually. For stuff I write in my spare time, it's actually perfectly easy to write C# in Emacs and drive the compile with a short waf script instead of a solution. You'll pick up at least some csproj files if you grab packages from NuGet, but it's not horrible to manipulate them in nxml-mode, and again, it's easy to keep all of your own stuff in simple waf files.

The downside of going this route, of course, is that using VS.NET or MonoDevelop can be a bit of a pain. When working on Kiln, I instead do most of the actual editing in Emacs, and use VS.NET as a solution manager/debugger/decompiler. Not ideal, but functional. You'd also have to go that route if you wanted to use Azure, I believe, since I seem to recall they want the solution file, not the assemblies.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#75

Post by rbanffy »

jongalloway2 wrote: post #47
gfodor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, there is a big bill coming at the end. You need to keep your system running, even though you now have to pay for licenses, don't you? When building your system during BizSpark, you are unlikely to make architectural choices with respect to software licenses, because they are free. Then you graduate, and you're probably looking at a system that uses way more licenses than it would have if you had to optimize aroun…

Yes and no. The point is that you're not retroactively billed for licenses you got while in the program. Believe it or not, a lot of people seem to think that it's just a delayed payment program. Yes, if you're designing a system that's going to require more than 6 servers you might end up paying for a license. Windows Web Server runs ~$470. But for many businesses, if you're using >6 servers you're likely going to b…

> if you're designing a system that's going to require more than 6 servers you might end up paying for a license

Even if you don't have to pay for the first licenses, you'll pay for subsequent upgrades. And designing for the Microsoft makes it harder to migrate to anything else - that's probably why Microsoft invented BizSpark in the first place.

Stackoverflow shows you can get a very significant audience on a half-Microsoft stack, but they have a lot of interesting (as in "different from the ones I have") server management problems because of that. That makes their podcasts much more worth listening.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#76

Post by rbanffy »

meow wrote: post #60
jongalloway2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. The point is that you're not retroactively billed for licenses you got while in the program. Believe it or not, a lot of people seem to think that it's just a delayed payment program. Yes, if you're designing a system that's going to require more than 6 servers you might end up paying for a license. Windows Web Server runs ~$470. But for many businesses, if you're using >6 servers you're likely going to b…

Not to mention, most startups either fail in 3 years or (hopefully) be in a position to pay for the extra servers.

It would be interesting to measure if the odds of failure somehow correlate with chosen technology stack.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#77

Post by rbanffy »

dos1 wrote: post #21
rufugee wrote: post #11

I would consider paying for .net if it received first class treatment on Linux. As someone who has lived through the pain of hosting apps on Windows, I just refuse to do it in the future. I'd love to see Microsoft bring Mono into the fold and truly bring it to the level of the Windows .net implementation.

What part of hosting apps on Windows was painful to you? I actually prefer to host my apps in Windows when I'm able and the technology stack supports it. I don't need to set up new apps often, but when I do, it's many orders of magnitude faster for me to get an app running on Windows vs. Linux. Linux works great as a server OS once I get everything set up and configured correctly. I never need to think about it again…

> I dread having to set things up on a new Linux machine

That's what Puppet, Chef, package management and a host of other tools such as virtual machine images and unattended installs are for.

> There's always some hardware that doesn't install correctly

Most server-grade hardware you buy from reputable sources is exquisitely Linux-compatible. I never had any problem with that.

> it takes an odd sequence of commands that needs to be run in just the right order to get things going

This indicates you are deploying servers without really understanding what you are doing. Your phrase evokes a series of spells that have to be cast in order to conjure the proper demons. Unix machines simply don't work like that - there is no magic.

> Invariably I waste hours on the internet searching forums every time I do this

Buy a good book, read and understand the documentation of the software you use. Hire an experienced consultant to teach you and your team, if needed.

When you understand what you are doing, it is really easy. Every piece is open to inspection and all you need to do is look inside.

> I find IIS 7 to be much easier to set up and customize than Apache in terms of hosting web applications.

Until you need to do something the GUI doesn't allow you to do.

> I also find it's much easier to administrate large groups of Windows servers because of the nice tooling

The tooling is there - you just need to learn it. We use Puppet where I work and we use it to manage our server fleet. Works as intended.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#78

Post by funkah »

acak wrote: post #6

I am a developer who has leaned towards .NET over the last few projects and one of the things that used to nag me is that the platform is a closed one (and the licensing fees can be a decent part of the cost). I was fairly certain I would migrate off it if the project ever took off seriously. And after seeing the C# love on HN on the poll for favorite programming languages last week, I realized there must be many ena…

I think .NET is great, and most of my career has been working in C#, but targeting Windows and developing on Windows is just a bummer.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#79

Post by rbanffy »

matwood wrote: post #32
dos1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of hosting apps on Windows was painful to you? I actually prefer to host my apps in Windows when I'm able and the technology stack supports it. I don't need to set up new apps often, but when I do, it's many orders of magnitude faster for me to get an app running on Windows vs. Linux. Linux works great as a server OS once I get everything set up and configured correctly. I never need to think about it again…

Sometimes it takes an odd sequence of commands that needs to be run in just the right order to get things going. Invariably I waste hours on the internet searching forums every time I do this, getting more and more frustrated the whole time. I have found this to be the case for any system that I've had to deal with for a decent amount of time. Simply change odd sequence of commands to odd registry changes (or xml fil…

You have to be careful with magical thinking. There is a reason why your commands failed when you changed the order and, as a sysadmin, you need to know why.

Usually, it's obvious once you understand what you are doing.

Usually, it's easy to understand what you are doing.

Re: ASP.NET MVC, Web API, Razor and Open Source

#80

Post by marcocampos »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #72
gecko wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good parts: C#, and the entire .NET stack, completely skewers Ruby from a performance perspective, while not putting your coding in a straight jacket like Java does. You'll also find what in my opinion are vastly more powerful debugging and profiling tools, awesome threading support (be sure to check out both C# 4.5's async/await keywords and the existing Rx library at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg577609 ),…

> better IDEs if you're into that kind of thing, and more. With the caveat being you have to be into that kind of thing. Coding C# not-in VS (or MonoDevelop) is not fun.

If you're on Windows there's always SharpDevelop which pretty decent IMHO.
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