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Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

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Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#731

Post by hibikir »

eranation wrote: post #328
jbooth wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because, A), it was an uncalled-for digression into language wars, and B), now that we're here anyways, a lot of us think the majority of features in scala and Haskell for that matter are fundamentally misguided. My goal is not to write elegant code, but to write the least complex code with the lowest cognitive overhead. TCO, 10x the man-hours in maintenance and all that. If the choice is between having to w…

Understood, By the way, I do null checks in Scala, may the lord have mercy on my soul. I don't like all the "I'm functional and smarter than you with my higher kind types, Monads and type classes" attitude that a minority of Scala lead figures have given it. Scala is very pragmatic down to earth language that you don't HAVE to abuse, the issue is that some people abused it on some libraries (e.g. with weird operators…

I'd not say that avoiding null checks requires any serious functional magic. It's a matter of convention: If you are ever using anything that could be null, surround it with an Option. It just makes the fields that might need to be checked explicit.

One doesn't have to learn category theory to realize that Options are great, especially when accompanied by a little bit of help from pattern matching, map, flatten and getOrElse.

The fact that many Scala lead figures that come from a Haskell background are bringing with them a holier than thou attitude doesn't mean that there aren't some functional concepts that are very useful even if your code is mostly imperative, and Option is arguably the least controversial of the lot. It's so uncontroversial it's in Java 8, although suffering from the fact that it is lacking some of the great Scala goodies.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#732

Post by throwawaykf05 »

daveloyall wrote: post #588
com2kid wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just a low level drone here at MS, and I obviously am not involved in any important decisions, but I'd like to add that all the above things happened back when the current generation that works here was growing up. We were all on Slashdot, being outraged and angry 13 year olds. Except now my generation works here, and I think the changes (such as all the ones announced today!) are a good sign of that. At least si…

@com2kid Microsoft defined what computers are capable of. Let me clarify: most people heard Microsoft's version of reality first--and they were amazed! We all were. Computers have changed life for all of us. But computers aren't what they could have been... Microsoft's version of computers is a pale and sickly thing, it's engineered for--that is, optimized for--profit rather than productivity. Some people use compute…

> Microsoft's version of computers is a pale and sickly thing, it's engineered for--that is, optimized for--profit rather than productivity.

I think you have it backwards. It's the new vision of computers (walled gardens, all the interesting logic hidden away in data centers, content consumption appliances instead of real computers) that is pale and sickly.

> How many more lives might have been saved over the past couple of decades if MS hadn't held features--ideas! concepts!--back again and again to enforce planned obsolescence?

Please enlighten me on the ideas! concepts! Microsoft held back again and again that were not available on free software systems?

If you want to talk about Microsoft's "past sins", I believe data trumps anecdotes: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=269498

If you have any solid data (rather than oft-repeated anecdotes) that MS inhibited innovation on a large scale, I'd like to see it.

People certainly yell for reasons, but those reasons are often very poorly informed.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#733

Post by manyxcxi »

jpgvm wrote: post #61

I'm a hardcore *nix guy but boy do I love me some C#. Up until now it's been the best language I have worked with but the worst platform due to it's lack of 'nice things' that we just expect from languages/ecosystems these days. Where 'nice things' is defined as being open-source, having open-source ecosystem of developer tools etc. This isn't so much the beginning (as good stuff has been happening for a couple of ye…

I actually have this conversation frequently with my developers (most of them are .NET), so I'm really happy to hear someone else say this as well. I've done about a an even split in my career with C# and Java and feel as competent as the next guy bouncing between the two languages and delivering projects for clients, but I like writing C# the most, by far. The language is more modern, things like async/await, Linq, and Entity Framework make developing Java web apps drudgery in comparison. Spring does a lot to help (Spring Boot is great), but there's a lot of rolling your own and helping less senior developers figure out how to even START at Java WebApp project.

But when it comes to automating my build process, doing continuous testing and deployment, setting up a environments in containers, or just where I'd rather spend most of my time operating- I'll take *nix and Java all day over IIS/Windows server. No thank you, the only Windows I have in my house is a VM for using Visual Studio and writing C# web apps on the occasion I need to for personal stuff.

I will be truly happy when I can write C# code and deploy to something like Tomcat. I will never again go back to Java when that day comes.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#734

Post by nileshtrivedi »

Sir_Blake wrote: post #646
jacquesm wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not hold it against you that you make a living with MS, that said in the present they do plenty of stuff that they really shouldn't. So it's not just the previous generation, the current one is also anything but clean.

What exactly are they doing today that you don't agree with?

Patent threats and lawsuits against Android OEMs. Sabotaging the office document standard process at ISO. Corruption in cases where governments explored switching to alternative operating systems. Locking down computers using UEFI Secure Boot and taking control away from the owners of the machine.

among other things.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#736

Post by nileshtrivedi »

com2kid wrote: post #415
jacquesm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Stacker - Netscape - SCO And many others besides. Companies have reputations just like people do (that's why we call them 'incorporated') and just like you can lose your trust in a person you can lose your trust in a corporation. This is not about Microsoft just doing 'stupid stuff sometimes' it is about institutionalized criminal behavior sanctioned at the highest level of one of the largest software companies in…

I'm just a low level drone here at MS, and I obviously am not involved in any important decisions, but I'd like to add that all the above things happened back when the current generation that works here was growing up. We were all on Slashdot, being outraged and angry 13 year olds. Except now my generation works here, and I think the changes (such as all the ones announced today!) are a good sign of that. At least si…

Patent threats and lawsuits against Android OEMs.

Locking down computers using UEFI Secure Boot and taking control away from the owners of the machine.

Sabotaging the office document standard process at ISO.

Corruption in cases where governments explored switching to alternative operating systems.

Supporting software patents.

All these happened within last 5 years (and continue to happen).

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#737

Post by nileshtrivedi »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #217
jacquesm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still doing bad stuff today, just on different fronts. That said, I hope they give Google and Apple a run for their money, those are (probably) just as bad. The last ruling in the SCO case was a mere 4 years ago.

> They're still doing bad stuff today, just on different fronts. I mean no disrespect, but what's the bad stuff being done my Microsoft today?

Patent threats and lawsuits against Android OEMs.

Locking down computers using UEFI Secure Boot and taking control away from the owners of the machine.

Sabotaging the office document standard process at ISO.

Corruption in cases where governments explored switching to alternative operating systems.

Working against software patent reforms.

All these happened within last 5 years (and continue to happen).

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#738

Post by guscost »

codygman wrote: post #686
nbevans wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But in Haskell pure functions are guaranteed to have same result with same input." I'm pretty sure that same law applies to a pure function in any language, not just Haskell. #shitthatHNsays

Correct. Though many languages don't encourage and as a result don't have nearly as many pure functions as Haskell code.

In fairness, I could also say that hammers don't encourage carpentry best practices and as a result they cause many more smashed fingers than wood glue. The fact that a tool doesn't prevent counterproductive usage patterns doesn't automatically make it inappropriate for every job.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#739

Post by Pxtl »

SwellJoe wrote: post #474

Microsoft only acts right when they're losing. It took the loss of dominance on the web to begin to produce a standards-compliant, modern browser. Silverlight never really took off because it had such limited OS support. And, now that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt they can't win the mobile device market (and are even losing some of the laptop market to Chromebooks, and Android hybrid devices), they'll grudging…

I'd say the consumer laptop market is also looking a little scary for them - I think consumers mentally categorize all laptops into two broad groups: "Macbooks", and "garbage". And based on the fact that every major laptop vendor fills out their budget end with embarrassingly bad devices, it's not really an unfair stereotype thanks to the bad reputations these companies have built for themselves.

Re: Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

#740

Post by [deleted] »

ssmoot wrote: post #558
jbooth wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I view the collections library as a showcase for how that language works when you're designing an API to be used for 3rd parties. If it's incomprehensible, that worries me. If the collections API is purposely trying to confuse people, blame the Scala team, not me.

That's just BS and given the size of your axe to grind, you have to know it. Akka? Spray? ScalaUtils? Do they take effort to learn? Yes. Are they anything like scala.collections? No. Why didn't you pick scala.concurrent? Or scala.util? Or any number of other packages? Why didn't you use the signatures in the official docs as-presented? The Scala team goes out of their way to present something simple and easily digest…

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