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Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

sirchristian.net

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Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#41

Post by royjacobs »

skrebbel wrote: post #12

I strongly agree with the author's conclusion, but I strongly disagree with many of his points. Notably, with his recommendation to consciously go all the way with the Microsoft vendor lock in. Our startup's backend is made in C#, and we're very happy with the choice. We use Postgres, we host it on Docker containers on Linux, and our devs are equally spread over Windows, OSX and Linux. MonoDevelop is a remarkably gre…

Isn't ServiceStack(.OrmLite) a commercial product nowadays? Did this affect your choice in any way?

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#42

Post by dtech »

billpg wrote: post #30

I'm getting a 404 error. Is there a cached copy out there? EDIT: The blog's front page has a full copy of the article at the top. (As I write this at least.)

But it still being DoS'ed by HN traffic. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#43

Post by doczoidberg »

icelancer wrote: post #40
doczoidberg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need expensive Windows Servers to host your stuff no. For startups you get 3 years free server: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/default.aspx

I've tried to sign up for this about 5 different times and have been denied and ignored every single time despite providing plenty of documentation at every turn. Pretty typical of my experiences with Microsoft.

strange. For me it was no problem.

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#44

Post by Htsthbjig »

I always wondered why computer languages and economy becomes religion and dogma.

We use multiple languages and multiple OS in my company.

When you have a company you have your own interest and your customers interest in mind.

Some times those interest are not the same of Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM or Oracle.

Just developing on a single proprietary language from a single company on a single OS (and yes I know Mono and I don't have a good opinion on it) is a huge red flag for me.

We use whatever is necessary for solving our customers problems. Some times it means using C#, most most of the times we use better alternatives.

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#45

Post by dtech »

doczoidberg wrote: post #27
blibble wrote: post #11

there's nothing in that post that gives C# a measurable advantage over say, Java. Visual Studio Express? still way behind JetBrains IntelliJ (the community edition is FOSS). Visual Studio is unusable without JetBrains Resharper, which isn't cheap. Azure? AWS Bizspark? not required for Java dev as everything's free and OSS anyway. Popularity? most popular .net libraries/tools (NUnit, NAnt, NHibernate) are all clones o…

a measurable advantage of c# over java is LINQ.

Java now has lambda's and a stream API, with which you can do the same thing as LINQ: http://blog.jooq.org/2013/11/02/does-java-8-still-need-linq-....

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#46

Post by JackMorgan »

sirchristian wrote: post #33
skrebbel wrote: post #12

I strongly agree with the author's conclusion, but I strongly disagree with many of his points. Notably, with his recommendation to consciously go all the way with the Microsoft vendor lock in. Our startup's backend is made in C#, and we're very happy with the choice. We use Postgres, we host it on Docker containers on Linux, and our devs are equally spread over Windows, OSX and Linux. MonoDevelop is a remarkably gre…

I agree "get all the free Microsoft goodies when you start, and once you really need the paid versions you're probably successful enough that the cost doesn't matter much" is one fair conclusion to the article. However I don't believe that's the only conclusion. Mostly I want .NET to be a consideration as an option when building out the technology in a startup. I'm concerned about vender lock-in as well, just less co…

Why do you want .NET to be considered?

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#47

Post by steviee »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #44

I always wondered why computer languages and economy becomes religion and dogma. We use multiple languages and multiple OS in my company. When you have a company you have your own interest and your customers interest in mind. Some times those interest are not the same of Microsoft, Apple, Google, IBM or Oracle. Just developing on a single proprietary language from a single company on a single OS (and yes I know Mono…

I agree. My experience (and please tell me when I'm wrong) is that Windows developers for the most part stick to their choice of framework while multi-OS (Windows included) developers are more open to the wonders of the world.

So statistically the .NET guys may be more narrow-minded regarding development stacks.

Steviee

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#48

Post by dtech »

blibble wrote: post #11

there's nothing in that post that gives C# a measurable advantage over say, Java. Visual Studio Express? still way behind JetBrains IntelliJ (the community edition is FOSS). Visual Studio is unusable without JetBrains Resharper, which isn't cheap. Azure? AWS Bizspark? not required for Java dev as everything's free and OSS anyway. Popularity? most popular .net libraries/tools (NUnit, NAnt, NHibernate) are all clones o…

In my experience C# is just a better language than Java (which isn't suprising, as C# was made just to be a better Java clone). Things like

  * value types (instead of boxing)
  * no type erasure
  * runtime exceptions
  * dynamic/duck typing
  * operator overloading (try working with arbitrary length decimals in Java)
just solve a lot of the small headaches of everyday programming.

That said, I still prefer Java because of the ecosystem and newer JVM languages like Clojure and Scala might just make Java irrelevant.

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#49

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

dkyc wrote: post #2

Interesting how the post completely ignores the quality of the language . Most people I know don't use C# for the same reason they don't use Java: Because it's often feels bloated, over-engineered and too verbose for building stuff fast. It has nothing to do with Microsoft, Azure or scaling, they just prefer whatever dynamic language they're comfortable with.

> ignores the quality of the language ... just prefer whatever dynamic language they're comfortable with.

"quality of the language" is not the same as the "dynamic" vs the "statically typed", "strongly typed" or "compiled" nature of the language.

Strongly typed languages have definite advantages because of the type guarantees that they provide in any successfully successfully compiling program. They have disadvantages too as you mention.

Nevertheless, many people feel strongly that where a strongly typed, statically typed, compiled language is available (i.e. not in a browser) it is an advantage to use it. And compared to java, c# generally is more terse and expressive.

"Quality" is subjective depending on what you value. If you only hang with dynamic language people then yes, c# and java are not of interest to you. Don't mistake that for a quality issue, or a universally held opinion; it is a design goal and design philosophy issue.

Re: Unapologetically build your startup technology in C#

#50

Post by JackMorgan »

leorocky wrote: post #3
dkyc wrote: post #2

Interesting how the post completely ignores the quality of the language . Most people I know don't use C# for the same reason they don't use Java: Because it's often feels bloated, over-engineered and too verbose for building stuff fast. It has nothing to do with Microsoft, Azure or scaling, they just prefer whatever dynamic language they're comfortable with.

I've only ever heard good things about C#. I believe C# has first class anonymous functions, makes async operations easy, and a combination of VisualStudio and JetBrains resharper you have a pretty amazing development environment. I haven't programmed much with C#, but like I said I've only heard good things.

C# is a fine option if your choices are C# or Java. On the other hand, F# is safer and 3 times more concise language that can do everything C# can It interops perfectly with any C#/VB.NET libraries. I'd think long and hard when writing any new C# code, and defend why you need to reduce your possible solutions to only those C# supports, when you could have the ability to do everything C# does and more with F#.
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