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Why I Left the .NET Framework

blog.jonathanoliver.com

41–50 of 109 posts

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#41
post #4

Some really good criticisms, but I do wonder how long ago this developer left .NET. .NET is now heavily async based. WPF may have started it years ago, but async has been a keyword in the language for quite awhile! (I haven't used a proper lock in ages. Event queues are where it is at! Or pick your favorite paradigm, heck the framework comes with thread pools built in that it'll juggle for you!) In regards to .csproj…

.NET has always had a relatively easy asynchronous model. The async/await keywords made it a whole lot easier but BeginXXX/EndXXX were not that bad, although if you are truly IO bound burning a few extra CPU cycles is not that important.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#42
"Why do we develop this way?"

I think that's the central question in this post. And for me, "because you have to in .NET" is not the answer.

I have no problems not using TFS, not creating database-centric applications, not using ReSharper.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#43
post #4

Some really good criticisms, but I do wonder how long ago this developer left .NET. .NET is now heavily async based. WPF may have started it years ago, but async has been a keyword in the language for quite awhile! (I haven't used a proper lock in ages. Event queues are where it is at! Or pick your favorite paradigm, heck the framework comes with thread pools built in that it'll juggle for you!) In regards to .csproj…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#44
post #28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had to spend a lot of time with csproj files. They look and behave rather a lot like Ant/Maven. This is not a point in their favor. Ant/Maven was loved and then subsequently hated by a lot of java developers. XML is an extremely verbose syntax to have to deal with. But the real killer is one of lockin. Yes you can use msbuild to do things with them but the syntax is really designed not for a developer to r…

FYI, next version will have a JSON-based project file (whether this is better or not is left as an exercise to the reader).

JSON vs. XML is largely irrelevant IMO. What is needed is something with as little extra crap as possible so that it is possible for a developer and/or diff tool figure out what is going on with the file.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#45
> I consider .NET to be an ecosystem including all tools, projects, platforms, organizations, and groups of developers.

Well, that explains the otherwise baffling statement "I left .Net because ... git is so much better than TFS"

That is an opinion that I also hold, but isn't relevant.

If the conclusion is that "but .Net comes with a mindset of using all and only the MS tools" then yeah, avoid narrow-minded people. Again, is that relevant?

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#46
> Why do we develop this way? Why aren't we considering the behavior of the application more than how it's stored? All of my projects now utilize a JSON-based key/value store.

What a self-centered statement. "MY projects don't need ACID or relational enforcement. Therefore, SQL is useless."

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#47
post #28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had to spend a lot of time with csproj files. They look and behave rather a lot like Ant/Maven. This is not a point in their favor. Ant/Maven was loved and then subsequently hated by a lot of java developers. XML is an extremely verbose syntax to have to deal with. But the real killer is one of lockin. Yes you can use msbuild to do things with them but the syntax is really designed not for a developer to r…

FYI, next version will have a JSON-based project file (whether this is better or not is left as an exercise to the reader).

Not really. When your build files are designed to be serialized IDE state no matter what the format you have limited your build system to what your IDE creators decided to express. This is not always what you need and that mismatch will only get more and more out of sync the longer your project lasts.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#48

When I first got started in web development, my brother-in-law managed a large Microsoft shop and got me started with all the software I needed to get going for a huge project I managed to wrangle using .NET when it was at version 1.5(?). We worked on that for something like six months until, one day, all of a sudden everything was version 2.0(?) and it all fell apart! We quickly called my brother-in-law in and he co…

I migrated a number of large services and desktop apps from .Net 1 to 2 and it required unremarkable effort. Some API differences that were well documented. The notion it required you to throw away all your code and change OS is simply absurd.

I completely agree, when I read that part it virtually invalidated everything else specious that was said, that is simply nonsense.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#49
post #24

> Not having a debugger is actually a liberating experience because it forces you to code in a different way. Not having a debugger is like living in the stone age. Personally, the the ability to inspect application state at runtime is non-negotiable.

Fully agree. Some developers like to live in green phosphor vt100 days.

80 column wides and fixed width fonts are completely left overs from vt100 terminals.

Re: Why I Left the .NET Framework

#50
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my case, Germany with lots of Fortune 500 clients.

What size of projects are they? We do a lot of integration projects with our clients, ie integrating with CRMs / ERPs and the timescales on these projects is usually about 10/12 weeks. I enjoy this project turnaround as it means I'm never stagnant on the same project for long and I get to experience new things. I imagine the projects for a Fortune 500 is 1 or 2 years long with thousands of man hours? EDIT: Clarified…

> I imagine the projects for a Fortune 500 is 1 or 2 years long with thousands of man hours?

Yes. Also multiple consulting companies working on the same project.

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