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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

#101

Post by icey »

strlen wrote: post #61

I'd love to use C# or F# for development: they're in my opinion, superior languages to Java and Scala (respectively) -- although Scala has several salient and interesting points (implicits, traits) that F# doesn't. However, I am fairly well wed to Linux/OS X, and don't see myself being productive with Windows (whenever I used Windows, the first application I'd install is Cygwin), nor (having never done Windows System…

If you haven't looked at it yet, you may also like Nemerle - http://nemerle.org

You don't really need Windows to write C#, F#, etc. There are emacs modes for them if you like emacs. I'm pretty sure there's an F# module for Monodevelop available.

It doesn't help you with the OS situation at all, but Visual Studio express is free from Microsoft should you find yourself on Windows.

I know C# better than most of the other languages in my toolkit, and it's pretty great, but I don't think that Windows is very enjoyable to use when compared to an OS with unixy underpinnings. Should you decide to check out C# or F# in more depth, I'd recommend staying on the OS you prefer.

Mono is production quality today, you don't have to wait for it.

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

#102

Post by julianz »

berntb wrote: post #41
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…

>> 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?

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

#103

Post by mando511 »

d0m wrote: post #28

With rails or php, developers can use the editor and the OS they want. With .net, you're "forced" to use Visual Studio and Windows. Also, I feel like .net teams are a bit closed to the rest of the programming community. Lots of C#/C++ programmers think that everything that is not C#/C++ is a joke or a little scripting language. "Omg, I would never build my 2D game on Python and save 100 hours" - says the C++ develope…

To your last point, with the nuget package manager it's becoming easier to integrate the latest and greatest into your projects. For example, here's a nuget package that makes sass and coffescript a 'one click install' in your asp.net project: http://blog.paulbetts.org/index.php/2011/05/16/announcing-sa...

But like you mentioned, being easy to integrate isn't enough, you'd still have to justify it, which in a big company is more difficult than a start up.

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

#104

Post by zyphlar »

wslh wrote: post #55
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…

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 people who need the features.) Remember to buy the next version, too, so you don't fall behind on updates and enhancements. And the next version.

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

#105

Post by cookiecaper »

MartinCron wrote: post #70
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…

Monodevelop is apparently a pretty good IDE, even though I haven't used it myself. I personally can't see myself using Eclipse on purpose again.

I used MonoDevelop to write a WebForms-based ASP.NET 2.0 site last year. It was relatively pleasant, had most of the niceties one would have expected out of Visual Studio. I usually development on a Linux stack, so maybe I'm just not enough of a VS power user, but MonoDevelop was fine for me. :)

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

#106

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

gfodor wrote: post #29

Closed source. If it breaks (really breaks) I (or anyone without a Microsoft badge) can't fix it. And if they do fix it, it will take a while for the patch to get to me. Pretty simple if you ask me.

Actually, the full source of the ASP.NET stack is now available from Microsoft and you can easily get decompiled source from .NET framework classes. I would agree that fixing a bug (if found) would be difficult but at least you could understand the behavior and code a work around or substitute.

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

#107

Post by igorgue »

bmj wrote: post #15
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…

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

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

#108

Post by zyphlar »

djjose wrote: post #25
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…

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…

Microsoft has tried time and time again (with their various .Net initiatives explicitly!) to lock the web into their platforms, because they saw back then (and are blinded by the fact now) that the web is the new platform and pretty soon nobody is going to need Windows anymore.

Just look at Silverlight. Who wants to install that on their Apple or Google device? Flash is bad enough. And yet it's what Microsoft wants you to use to make your ASP.Net app have fancy graphs. L-L-L-lock-in.

Even iOS and Android wouldn't be as powerful as they are had fully-interoperable webservices not come first (killer apps like Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and Dropbox are webservices first, apps second. You can't compete with them by making an app first, they're platform agnostic.)

So yeah, given the chance Microsoft will try and make Windows 7 running IE accessing a Windows 2008 Server running a .Net app on IIS with a MS-SQL Enterprise backend the only option. It's a testament to the fierceness of the FOSS and LAMP communities that Microsoft is losing this battle (and the world is better off because of it.)

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

#109

Post by strlen »

icey wrote: post #101
strlen wrote: post #61

I'd love to use C# or F# for development: they're in my opinion, superior languages to Java and Scala (respectively) -- although Scala has several salient and interesting points (implicits, traits) that F# doesn't. However, I am fairly well wed to Linux/OS X, and don't see myself being productive with Windows (whenever I used Windows, the first application I'd install is Cygwin), nor (having never done Windows System…

If you haven't looked at it yet, you may also like Nemerle - http://nemerle.org You don't really need Windows to write C#, F#, etc. There are emacs modes for them if you like emacs. I'm pretty sure there's an F# module for Monodevelop available. It doesn't help you with the OS situation at all, but Visual Studio express is free from Microsoft should you find yourself on Windows. I know C# better than most of the othe…

> Mono is production quality today, you don't have to wait for it.

Having looked at it myself, it just doesn't seem to the case: the only recently got support for generational garbage collection and only plan to support tail call optimization (for F#) in an upcoming release. It's still a technical risk to "bet" on Mono, much more so than on JVM or Erlang/OTP.

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

#110

Post by berntb »

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?

A Mac Mini is really not that expensive. (Do I have to list the $100/year cost, too?)
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