What is .NET? 522
CyberBry writes "There's a great technical overview of Microsoft .NET over at arstechnica: "In a remarkable feat of journalistic sleight-of-hand, thousands of column inches in many "reputable" on-line publications have talked at length about .NET whilst remaining largely ignorant of its nature, purpose, and implementation. Ask what .NET is, and you'll receive a wide range of answers, few of them accurate, all of them conflicting. Confusion amongst the press is rampant. The more common claims made of .NET are that it's a Java rip-off, or that it's subscription software. The truth is somewhat different.""
They've released the dev stuff. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They've released the dev stuff. (Score:2, Informative)
Not really
.NET good, not evil (Score:2, Insightful)
.NET itself is a very cool idea wherein any language can be used to write components that can be used by any other language. It's a means of allowing greater interaction between programs.
Hailstorm/Passport is an ill-devised way of online information management. With the amount of paranoia about this kind of stuff, the idea will be either flounder for a while or will be pushed as hard as possible. I think the former, but that's just me.
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Roger Sessions' article does make that point, and the guy running that JVM languages page is quite honorable to link to the criticism.
However, saying that the JVM isn't a suitable substrate because a lot of the language tools written on it are experimental is sort of a non sequitor.
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:2, Informative)
Well yes, apart from the fact that they're in the middle of developing a FreeBSD version right now since they need reference implementations on two platforms to submit it as a standard.
But don't let the facts stop you eh?
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:4, Informative)
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:2, Informative)
I think that this is in refference to the programing language c#, which is a component of MS
ximian is working on a linux port of
and here are Miguel de Icaza's comments [gnome.org] concerning Gnome and mono.
Re:.NET good, not evil (Score:2, Informative)
I honestly can't figure out (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, it does seem like MS is trying to wean themselves out of a strictly x86 world, and portable binaries is a good way to do that. What about performance? Java used to be well known for crappy performance because of the abstraction forced on the code. Will
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft themselves is developing a runtime for FreeBSD. When I say 'runtime' here I mean the CLR and the *BASIC* class libraries. You see, that is the standard that Microsoft has released to the EMCA as a standard, soon to be certified by ISO. It is completely open, non-patented, etc. Anyone can develop a compatible implementation.
However, a few key components are Windows-only: ADO.NET (universal data access) and WindowsForms (the GUI toolkit.) That is where Mono comes in with the development of compatible class libraries on Linux. Please understand: **the interfaces are the same as the Microsoft interfaces**, even though the implementation details are different.
Microsoft is fully aware of the Mono project and is taking no efforts to stop them. It doesn't really matter if they wanted to. The CLS (Common Language Specification) is part of the OPEN STANDARD. This is the definition of how classes and datatypes interact among languages and the IL; unless Microsoft managed to get a copyright on all the method names in WindowsForms, they can't stop me from creating a compatible implementation because I am simply using the CLS to write my classes that run on the CLR to provide objects for use by
(Short Version: go back and actually read the article, then try posting again.)
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that the whole C# is a standard argument is BS. Look at JavaScript, it's a standard, has been for a number of years now. Why is it then, that I can write 'standard JavaScript' and IE will interpret it one way, while Mozilla, Netscape and Opera interpret it a slightly different way ( maybe it works, maybe not ). Why are web programmers still writing browser detection code into web pages? I'll tell you why, because it doesn't matter if someone makes a standard if nobody follows it. Not one browser follows the standard perfectly. Mozilla (IMO) comes the closest, but even that is not perfect. You still have to go back
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:2, Insightful)
Standard ECMAScript manipulating the DOM in standard ways works pretty much identically (except for implementation bugs) all over the place. This requires version 5.5 of MS's engine or Mozilla (maybe others, don't know, don't care), but it works well.
Browser detection code exists primarily because of people using version 4.x browsers
IMO, this is a demonstration of the standard working. The biggest problem is that it requires people to stop using the fatally flawed implementations (IE 4.x, NS 4.x). If they could be *forced* to upgrade, no-one would have to do that kind of crap any more.
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:2)
This is the reason that I love Sun for not releasing Java to a standards commitee.
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:4, Insightful)
What you're complaining about (justifiably) is the DOM, or Document Object Model. The DOM was standardized much more recently, and unfortunately contains a few holes large enough to drive a truck through, necessitating the need for non-standard extensions in practice. (One of the most-commonly-used of these is the "innerHTML" attributes, which is *not defined* in the standard, despite the fact that it is wonderfully useful. Mozilla actually explicitly added it many milestones ago because people were screaming for it. The 'standardized' way of doing that was upwards of 10-20 lines of rather difficult-to-read code, involving walking the tree and regenerating the HTML, then nearly-manually parsing the given HTML back into a tree, then swapping the newly-parsed Node tree into the document! Is anyone surprised nobody, even those who understood it, wanted to do that?)
The DOMs are inconsistent, partially because they're hard to get write. But Javascript itself is nearly unchanged since Netscape 3.0. That's not a typo. Yes, a few nice things have been added (for instance, I think an exception mechanism has been added since then), but effectively all of the language anyone uses on a web page script was there in Netscape 3.0. (How many people here have created their own objects in Javascript, or fiddled with the prototypes? IIRC, this feature was in 3.0, and it's still too-advanced to be necessary in most web scripts. Short scripts don't need a lot.)
This works out on topic nicely... because you're very likely looking at the future of Mono. "What use is Mono when the same code doesn't *quite* run on
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone thought that perhaps Intel (being somewhat friendly with Microsoft) has been pushing this initiative so they can finally put x86 instructions to rest? If Intel has a new processor that doesn't allow x86 instructions (because backward compability would slow it down), all they'd need is Microsoft to force everyone to compile with
Of course, this may not necesarilly be a bad thing. Imagine the speed improvements any processor would have if it didn't require backward compability. The downside is that it'd require a fully-compability CLR.
Sam
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:3, Informative)
Well if you'd read the article then you'd realise that Intel's new Itanium architecture is actually completely unsuited for the kind of JIT techniques used by .NET due to the fact that the CPU doesn't reorder code - it needs the compiler to organise things beforehand.
So I very much doubt that Intel are pushing .NET to wean themselves off of x86...
Look, Ma, it's portable! (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it is portable. Maybe it *IS* real easy to port. Maybe they already have it running on FreeBSD, linux, Solaris, and Plan9.
Doesn't mean they're release it for any platform other than windows...
Re:I honestly can't figure out (Score:3, Funny)
-me
.NET is... (Score:4, Funny)
Bwahahahahaha...
The truth behind the mystery... (Score:2, Funny)
--G
What IS the .NET? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What IS the .NET? (Score:2, Funny)
Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)
Right now I am downloading the seven CD Visual Studio.NET Enterprise final version (yep, already warezed), a $2500 program. It even has a version of Visio bundled for doing application modeling, and that somehow automatically starts producing code, from what I understand. This is going to be interesting to try.
I have had the VS.NET Beta 2 for a few months, and it's generally easy to use, but very slow. I mean, a general "Hello World" application takes several seconds to compile, and also at least 3 seconds to execute! I have done the same thing using the raw
Microsoft is developing a version of the
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:2)
Right now at least, starting from scratch, it is cheaper to pickup VB 6.0, then buy the VS.NET upgrade.
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:3, Insightful)
I ordered my copy from Genesis [academic-softwares.com]. You have to send them proof that you work at or attend a university, but they seem legit.
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
In my case, I'm faculty/staff so unless I get fired or quit, I'm okay.
Re:Official Media from MS does not equal Legit (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, though, your point about legitimacy is well-taken and something was cavalier about originally. IF you're eligible, it's a great deal. If you're not, then it's illegal software.
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:2)
The entire devil's toolkit (MSDN Universal, all OS, office, backoffice, and dev tools) goes for about 2.3K USD.... Course I'm sure there are people who might pay more for everything, but if you break up the kit, it is closer to the real price.
Re: FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder why Miscrosft is developing a FreeBSD implementation? Could it be because substantial portions of Hotmail still runs on FreeBSD? If I remember correctly, MS has yet to successfully port all of Hotmail over to Windows. That being the case, I'd hazard a guess that it's a REQUIREMENT for them to do the FreeBSD thing.
I could be wrong, though. Anyone?
Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
I downloaded the seven CD Visual Studio.NET Enterprise Architect final version (yes, the one they officially released this morning) a month ago from Microsoft's very own download site [microsoft.com]. They made it available as one big download, or as ISOs. You've gotta be an MSDN Universal subscriber to download it, which costs about as much as Visual Studio.NET does, but you get full download access to all of their products (all their OS's, Office versions, server software, beta releases, etc.), not just Visual Studio. Not a bad deal when you add up the street price of all the software.
Was that so complicated? (Score:5, Insightful)
When your friends ask, just tell them "It's a language-neutral Java knock-off..."
Why do people try to make it more complicated? Ok,
Others like to confuse the application that can be written by
The Platform != It's Applications
It's Simple: It's a Java rip off!
Re:Was that so complicated? (Score:4, Informative)
The only problem with that statement is that it's not true --
However, I've heard that C# is a pretty good knockoff of Java.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Was that so complicated? (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance the WindowsForms which are natively compiled components for building client-side applications. If Microsoft didn't do this, the client apps would probably have the same runtime performance problems that AWT and Swing has.
I may be wrong, but I think that Java would be A LOT farther along today if it wasn't trying to be the purest cross platform language. I mean, the number of platforms out there are finite. Sun could write some native code for widgets for the most popular platforms, make the APIs open for people to implement on the less popular and Java apps would be much more competitive to anything Microsoft could come up with.
I think that IBM has something like this with their SWT libraries in the Eclipse IDE... I think Sun needs to embrace that tech and put it on all their supported platforms. Then they could write major apps like StarOffice in Java and still have the usability of a fast GUI. Add in your basic SOAP calls to the J2EE servers and you've got yourself a real
Just my opinion,
-Russ
Re:Was that so complicated? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please understand what you are talking about before repeating someone else's bullshit. AWT is natively compiled components. Like any system which must bind to libraries in another language, there are parts in the relevant language, and peers in native code.
Swing uses the bare minimum of native components and creates its own widgets. This gives you the power to do things you can't do with Windows (and ComCtl32), Motif, Mac, whatever. Swing is not slow in and of itself: try running the program for a while and accessing all the GUI functionality, then all of the classes will be loaded and the JIT will have compiled most bytecode, and you can use Swing happily.
FYI: if you want to improve Swing performance and are prepared to lose a little time at startup, force load all the Swing classes you use (using forClass() ), and unJAR the JRE classes.
Another FYI: why don't Sun do this if it is so obviously superior? Because you can't. There is no cross platform GUI system which uses native widgets and can maintain integruity across platforms. Those which seem to go to extreme lengths to control or modify (by wrapping) the native widgets to bring them in line with their view of the world, and still end up breaking.
Try writing something in Java or WxWindows Universal, and you will get identical GUIs on all your platforms. Go for WxWindows (normal) or Qt, and you have issues - and these are some of the best there are. Don't even talk about Gtk until you've used it on Win32 and discovered its idiosynchrosies.
Re:Can't bring yourself to admit it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft ripped off Sun the same way it ripped off Apple (who ripped off Xerox) when designing Windows. Yeah, you can say they helped develop the first apps for Mac, etc. etc. but the main idea was still Apple's who pushed the GUI concept and standardized the idea and then Microsoft came along six years later and launched Windows 3.0 based on those concepts developed at Apple.
Now Microsoft is doing the same with
Yes they added some good ideas - just like they did with Windows vs. Mac - but they still ripped off the general concepts and tech gains that were made from Java.
Sorry, a ripoff's a ripoff.
-Russ
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
Just coincidental that Windows XP drops default Java support.
First, Java works fine in XP -- you just have to (automatically) download the VM or get it from Sun.
Secondly, the real advantage of .NET is that you can write in whatever language you want to and use components from other languages in your .NET programs. Those are hardly minor advances. Java has had a six-year head start, not to mention a vast amount of hype, and if it's the better technology, it'll hang in there. If developers like the .NET stuff better, they'll use that. In all likelihood, there will be a lot of different competing languages which will be good at different things. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.
Real advantage? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Real advantage? (Score:2, Insightful)
If a Smalltalk programmer is happy with his current ability to create applications, he'll probably stick with it. If he finds some advantage to target the CLR and Smalltalk.NET (whatever it might be called) isn't that different from plain old Smalltalk, he might use it.
Re:Real advantage? (Score:3, Funny)
(I didn't make this, but I find it highly amusing. Yes, Brainfuck is an actual language, and this is an actual package that makes it compile to
Can I use BrainFuck.Net to write webservices?
No. Well, probably not.
Does BrainFuck.Net use the controversial Microsoft Passport system for authentication?
No. The Brainfuck language has only 8 commands, and none of them are related to authenticating remote network users.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Informative)
First, Java works fine in XP -- you just have to (automatically) download the VM or get it from Sun.
That is precisely what I said. XP drops default Java support.
Secondly, the real advantage of
Look, this is a load of bull and you should know it. Any language that maps onto C# cleanly is the reality. Similarly, there is nothing to prevent you from writing a java bytecode compiler for just about any language, so this is no different either. But simply, java is structured a lot like C or C++ without requiring its programmer to micro-manage memory. So, it is just not that hard to program in.
Also, it won't matter much whether developers like it. Microsoft will practically pay them to write C# apps instead of Java apps, and Microsoft has the bank to do it. Default Java support is gone, which effectively kills it for recreational computer users (client end support, anyway).
No,
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
For example, you say you can write Java bytecode compilers for other languages. However, what you overlook is that that doesn't enable you to use components from those other languages in Java, nor does it enable those languages to use Java components. The key to using components from other languages is not compiling the languages to the same bytecode...it is using the same object model.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
Look, we're splitting hairs here about what "drops default Java support" means. To say that it drops support implies that the OS no longer supports Java. It does as long as you have a VM installed (which, again, happens automatically the first time you hit an applet).
Secondly, it's hard to argue that Java was particularly relevent to "recreational computer users" anyway. Very few desktop apps that "recreational" users depend upon are written in Java and applets are less common than ever, so what's the big? Look at it another way -- you get to choose your VM, and isn't choice a Good Thing?
I'm not sure what's "bull" about the fact that you can use multiple languages in the .NET CLR. You CAN. Yes, they have to be .NET aware, but isn't that kind of obvious? It's still a good idea and, by all accounts, it's implemented well.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Also, if you really look at
C# is a neat language, it still remains to be seen if you can write code that is both quick and safe at the same time. (at the same development pace as Java)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Not that I want to write any
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I don't remember the x86 opcode for tail recursion. Or the 68K, SPARC, or PPC one. Would you care to remind me what it is? I guess since there isn't one, it's impossible to run Lisp on Windows, Mac, Sun, or IBM boxes.
Every computer language in existence is Turing-complete; they product code that runs on Turing machines. Some of these Turing machines may be faster or more efficient, but they're all equivalent.
-jon
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Here's a link to an article that explains it [arstechnica.com].
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
And why do you think Sun refused to submit Java to an open standards body? Can you say embrace, extend and extinguish?
Hmmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
.NET sounds like OS X's ne NeXT's Cocoa frameworks *with* the addition of a common runtime library... or... Java
.NET sounds like Java + JVM + jars + beans + JIT (to be fair, Java really doesn't exist without much of the above)
Am I off base?
Cocoa has the bundles concept, which sounds like assemblies.
Cocoa has the framework concept, except they haven't updated for NT in a *long* time.
Cocoa can be accessed through at least 2 languages: Java, Objective C+, and I think someone is working on a Python binding.
Cocoa lacks the VM concept, but if you write in Java, you gain this ability.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)
But if you add the JVM to Cocoa (like Apple has done) you can address two stones with one bird, or something.
Article is inaccurate. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Article is inaccurate. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Article is inaccurate. (Score:2)
Actually, they're more or less both right. What you just listed are the edges of
Adapting these apps to merge with
Strictly speaking, Active Directory is just a directory service, but you could also include Windows 2000 Server (which uses AD for its domain structure), Exchange 2000 (use of AD described above), IE (new browser tools in the OS needed to browse and search the directory) as part of the entirety of "Active Directory."
Re:Article is inaccurate. (Score:2)
UNDERSTANDING MICROSOFT 101 :
The only information one can derive from a document hosted on a Microsoft server is that this document can be used my Microsoft to strenghten its propaganda, without being obvious Microsoft advertising. One example of this technique is "paid programming" on television : when some random person interviewed in the street tells you Bowflex really works, that person has been carefully screened (and often paid) to say that, and you are not watching a real interview. Another example of this is Miguel de Icaza explaining .NET : he is building a business around it, therefore has all the reasons in the world not to trash .NET and stay in good terms with Microsoft.
"Disclaimer: I work at MSFT but this is MY PERSONAL OPINION not some official claim."
UNDERSTANDING MICROSOFT 102 :
"I work for Microsft, this is my personal opinion on Microsoft's products" : anybody who works for Microsoft for any length of time will adopt Microsoft's company culture (or else they won't stay at Microsoft for very long, due to the paranoid single-minded esprit-de-corps the company has been built upon). Microsoft's company culture precludes real personal opinion on any aspect of the Microsoft company and its products, and precludes expressing them if they are not in favor of Microsoft in any way. Any person who tells you he works at Microsoft but only expresses his personal opinions is either :
Overwhelmed by Microsoft's company culture, and has assimilated the company's official lines as their own opinions
A Microsoft astroturfer, part of the more and more subtle Microsoft astroturfing campaign
A troll
Re:Article is inaccurate. (Score:2)
When was the last time you saw a not-quite-Microsoft-friendly document on a Microsoft site ? where can I see even a heavily refuted opinion that's openly anti-Microsoft, with the original text quoted and not the Microsoft-interpreted version of the original opinion ?
I know several people who worked for Microsoft who all tell me the same thing about the Microsoft company culture : adhere unconditionally to the Microsoft way of be booted eventually. What's more, this fact is common knowledge.
Microsoft did not get to be the monopoly they are by spreading information honestly or leaving their employees the choice to do so. This too is a well-known fact.
Good summary (Score:2)
.NET (Score:2, Funny)
Wonderful article.
BBCTech article - Rivals queue up to take on M$ (Score:2, Informative)
I'm not sure how I feel about this statement.
Microsoft is developing its own Java-like language, called C#, and it has developed a tool that lets those familiar with Java use their knowledge to create Java-like programs for
You want the collective /. answer? (Score:4, Redundant)
IMHO, that is probably pretty darn accurate. Nobody knows exactly how just yet. Yeah, it sounds like I am paranoid, I have good reason to be.
Microsoft^H^H^H^Hpoly [cafepress.com]
Classes and APIs more important than language (Score:2, Insightful)
It's neat. But that's it.
In my experience, language skills comes a distant second to knowing your OS.
What I really hope for are quirk-free class libraries, and bugfree APIs. I'd have to find a new job then, of course...
Re:Classes and APIs more important than language (Score:2, Interesting)
Except it doesn't.
The restrictions are imposed *by the CTS*.
If you want your class to be exposed to other classes it must conform to the CTS's rules.
If you merely want to make use of .NET's features -- compiling to IL, a nice class library, and so on -- you can use MI and case-sensitive identifiers and all that lovely stuff. Provided that your compiler supports it, of course. The C++ compiler does, and it works just like it does in native code. The CLR has no problem with multiple inheritance (it doesn't really *know* about it, but it doesn't really know a great deal about single inheritance, either, so that doesn't matter at all).
If you want to use those features but also expose them to other languages (thus, you need to conform to the CTS), you can wrap your non-compliant code in CTS-compliant code.
What you see as a major problem is seen as others by a major benefit. Some languages are more suited to some kinds of development than others. .NET levels the playing-field somewhat, by ensuring that they have equal access to a fairly rich class library -- it means that the *only* distinguishing feature is the language, rather than the choice one used to have to make, of "which language and library do I want to use?".
Re:Classes and APIs more important than language (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the early premises behind the Guile project was that all languages are essentially Scheme, modulo their different syntaxes. Guile was thus to become a Scheme interpreter with various syntax front ends on it to translate from Perl, Tcl, etc. Essentially achieving language independence in a unified runtime. The Guile team has largely abandoned these efforts, however, and concentrated on making Guile a practical workhorse Scheme for standalone use or embedded in a larger program.
I'm a big Scheme and Guile fan, and a part of me is disappointed... Scheme, being self-extensible, would make for a much more robust base upon which to construct a language-neutral runtime than the C# and VB-oriented CLR.
What is .NET? (Score:2)
It is three US-ASCII letters preceded by a period.
It can also be written as 0x2E4E4554.
Or, 0x4BD5C5E3 in EBCDIC.
It has a total ASCII value of 277 (712 in EBCDIC).
Its checksum is 303cb0ef9edb9082d61bbbe5825d972a.
Goes great with
Alone, it gets blocked by the caps lameness filter.
Review misplaces priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Stability before performance, every time.
Or he'd rather be writing, "The JIT produces fast code, but sometimes crashes."? Or, ".NET is vaporware, still three to five years on the horizon."?
The reviewer should recognize and applaud the focus of the developers. Because you know they were sitting around saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if we did this fancy optimization...". Instead, they put first things first.
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil," D.E. Knuth. Learn it. Live it.
SAT time: (Score:2, Funny)
This is a hard one! The good news is that the SAT has no guessing penalty.
Actually excited about .NET (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm excited about
And really, Microsoft.com is the only one that could manage to make this a reality. As much as I hate the company, I can't help but feel grateful that I'll finally be able to write apps in a nice high-level type safe garbage collected language and have that be the most well-supported method. (And if others start using high-level languages, maybe my computer will not crash so much, or have so many buffer overflow sercurity holes.)
(As an aside... I fucking hate when people (like the author of this otherwise good article) use the word 'whilst'. Just say 'while'. It's not like we live in Medieval Britain.)
Re:Actually excited about .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want a language without fun synonyms, use Esperanto, which remains the one true 'Common Language Runtime'.
But you know what? Everyone uses English, Spanish, or what-have-you for international communication, instead. Because we like 'whilst', and words like it --- inefficiency and redundancy and all.
I have a hunch that many developers will feel the same way about all those little bevelled edges on
OTOH, whatever degree of language neutrality they 're planning is certainly a leap in the right direction -- less to change, less to learn. However, quite a few of my fellow coders won't be happy until they have a complete Win32 implementation running atop
And as for that whole spin about
Just my floor(e) cents.
Bertrand Meyer (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, I didn't know he (Bertrand Meyer) has created a training course [amazon.com] on
Who knows which came first, his interest in
.NET according to Steve Ballmer & friends (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think they ever gave a straight-forward definition that clearly stated that .NET is this and this. If they did then I missed it. .NET could do. He introduced and chatted with several MS employees on some of the things .NET could do. I especially liked their comparison to Sun's J2EE Pet Store sample application. They've got this comparison available on the web at: .NET. After three of these we broke for lunch and I went home, still not being clear on what .NET is, exactly.
The show started out with a welcome message from the Microsoft Technology Evangelist...no, really, that was his title.
Next came Steve Ballmer who came out to work the crowd into a frenzy and tout all the things
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/compare/default.asp [microsoft.com]
(I hope Sun posts a followup on Microsofts claims in this comparison)
After this they worked the crowd into another frenzy by randomly giving away three of the XBox games. Then they brought out some folks who gave success stories on implementing
All in all it seemed like I heard mention of several different items:
.NET
Visual Studio .NET
.NET Framework
.NET MyServices
.NET Server ...and probably some others I missed. I'm going to visit Microsoft .NET Defined [microsoft.com] and see if that helps clear anything up...
What .NET is... (Score:3, Interesting)
And Microsoft has provided the answer: Here is the runtime model, here are the APIs you call, here are some tools you can use, here is how to get help if you have problems.
Now substitute a web of connected personal computers -- the Internet -- for a single one, and developers are still asking, "How do I write an application?" And Microsoft's answer is, .NET.
DOS provided very few services to application writers, but with the Windows APIs, things got more sophisticated: support for graphics, for printing, for various other input and output devices, and eventually for networking. These were filtered through a standard Microsoft-provided operating system to various third-party devices, each with their own device driver, which performed the actual work.
In the .NET world, the "API" will handle Internet-related issues such as password verification, price calculation, payment, and so on. The "operating system" will be a set of always-available Web sites that may then dispatch the actual work to third-party sites -- the "device drivers" in the .NET model.
That is an excerpt from a longer article [osopinion.com] which I wrote back in November 2000.
- adam
Where can I find a class library diagram? (Score:2)
VMs, JITs and C# (Score:3, Insightful)
A JIT compiler is a technique used in virtual machine design to speed execution. Technically, a JIT compiler ought to compile code as it reaches it on the execution path for the first time, but thanks to some sly work by Symantec, its become acceptable to call something a JIT compiler even if it actually compiles all the code at load time regardless of whether it is executed or not. Hence the complaints about Java's startup time. Microsoft's efforts in this direction seem faintly bizarre to me. All previous evidence is that keeping compiled code around between runs is not worth it. However, I suppose since they only really support one platform, it won't really cause any problems.
C# is very much not "C++ for rapid application development". It's a completely different language, much more closely related to Java. While C# and Java share C++'s syntax, their underlying semantics are more closely related to Beta or Smalltalk.
As I would expect from someone who obviously doesn't know much about VM or language design, the author also makes far too much of the CL?'s cross-language abilities. While it has good support for implementing functional languages, as far as the much more important OO features are concerned, it is only going to work well for statically typed, single inheritance, single dispatch languages that don't need to do any code generation. Its is my contention that any OO language that can be implemented on the CLR can be implemented equally well on teh JVM.
My first thoughts after reading this: (Score:2, Interesting)
- Will future processors be able to run the IL in some sort of protected mode?
- What scares me is all the public/private key signing. While this is good for preventing viruses, it makes hacking software (almost?) impossible. I am thinking of hacking a DVD player to play all DVDs from all regions (of course in DMCA free zones LOL), or just in general being able to make versions of a program work with an alternative library.
The more I think about it, this
Played with final VS.NET over past two days... (Score:2, Interesting)
erm..anyhow..
The past two days at work, I have been using that version of VS which comes with this month's MSDN subscription.
Most of the time I have been trying to figure out what happened to their data access...It used to be quite simple to hook up some data to a grid or control, but - jeez - I still haven't figured out how to do it simply, and I have built my own data provider controls before so I figure it shouldn't be this difficult.
As one poster mentioned, the compilation and execution of just a simple 'ello World program, with one form and button each took a couple seconds.
I tried out the WebForms for their new ASP.NET, no doubt this stems from experience in the last ASP, but it didn't seem intuitive to me. In fact, I could probably port existing ASP to PHP in a quicker fashion... On a side note, however, I attended a conference where they claimed to be running this on Apache instead of IIS.
I am not too impressed right now with this product... IMHO the best part about the product is the new VISIO. You can do database modeling/reverse engineering and it will generate the scripts, etc like ERWIN or Embarcadero.
I doubt we use this product for awhile at work, if ever.
No more native software? (Score:2, Interesting)
I dunno. This just seems crazy to me. There has got to be a better way to do cross-platform software than what basically amounts to emulation. And in this case it makes even less sense... MS is naturally targeting this mostly at Windows, which is still pretty much a single-platform deal. So where's the benefit in using slow(er) bytecode as opposed to petal-to-the-metal, optimized native code? Argh...
A Blinkered Rant (Score:3, Insightful)
Sweet jumping savior, how the hell did we get here?
I managed to get two pages into ArsTechnica's explaination of what .NET is, what it isn't, and why it will be used before my brain rebelled: "Great fuck, if people would simply stop schlepping shit around in proprietary binary formats, data could be imported or exported in any damn application that wanted to write the translation".
This would be different if .NET was talking about eliminating the concept of an application (document-centric computing). Hell no, it's a bunch of pointy-head nerds and pointy-haired MBAs adding another goddamn layer of nerd-cruft to everything under creation.
".NET has three packets of information: the IL, the Metadata, and the fuck-this-where-can-i-find-nudie-pics"... please, for the love of Mike (God wouldn't have anything to do with this, it's purely From the Other Side), let's not stop everything and reinvent the wheel. We had the chance to carefully think things through and do it right, back in 1990. We missed the opportunity, we're now stuck with what we've got. Hasn't anybody learned anything from Be? You can't go home again.
If .NET makes any fucking difference before it gets replaced with the Next Big Thing, I'll eat my damned crusty underwear. So far, I could grep for .NET and replace it with "Java", and timewarp my pasty white ass to 1997 when it was going to Save Us from platform-specific languages and Microsoft at the same time. I cut my balls off and drank the poison koolaid, but the fucking UFO hasn't poked it's nose out from behind Hale-Bopp yet, the shy fucking bastard.
Spare me the fucking story. You wanna know what the next great savior is gonna be? Sumbitch, he's already here, and Tim-Berners Lee is his prophet. It's the Church of the Holy Hypertext, and it's vessel is Mozilla. The Web lit up the world because it's simple, it's easy to learn, and it's powerful... and, sin of all sins, it's accessible. Nerds and secretaries are building web pages, because it's easy to do. You think Sally Secretary is gonna benefit from .NET's programming language independance? It's wonky new IDE?
Pfft. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will not make programming less hard. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will not change the way we access information. Thicker and thicker layers of cruft will only slow down the spread of knowledge, because everybody's chasing down the next security bug in .fuckingNET instead of sharing what they know.
Re:Language neutrality (Score:3, Interesting)
language neutrality, but based on what I've
read so far, it's only language neutral if
your language is c# or close to it.
However, maybe they should repeat
the claim another million times; it worked
with getting people to think Windows
was secure.
Paradigm neutrality (Score:3, Insightful)
Sad, but true. C# and VB.NET are so close to isomorphic that choosing between them is mostly a matter of whether you prefer symbolic or "natural language" syntax. Notice the number of long-standing VB developers who are trying to work out the relationship between the tool they've been using until version 6, and the new .NET version.
In fact, from the article itself:
I think the key thing is that .NET really only supports one paradigm properly: single-inheritance OO. C# fits that description, VB.NET has been moulded to match it, managed C++ is forced into it. You get the idea. I know it's theoretically possible to use other programming paradigms from this foundation, but surely the question is how well they are supported and how efficiently they can be done, not what could be done with infinite time and resources available. (Insert obligatory reference to the thread about functional languages on .NET the other day here.)
Consider an obvious example: if .NET is reasonably language-neutral, where is the support for generics? C++ has had templates for years, and they are one of its most powerful features. Java has a proposal that doesn't go as far as C++ templates, but does add parameterised type support to a fair degree. (Anyone know if that made it into 1.4 in the end, BTW?) In ML, functions are implicitly generic unless you specify otherwise. If .NET doesn't support such a fundamental feature, then it's immediately dropped an important aspect for all these languages.
Of course, how important the omissions are depends on your programming style. If you don't use generics, then this particular example is no loss to you. But it should be noted that the current trends in programming-language research are considerably ahead of single-inheritance "pure" OO designs. If .NET can't cope with multiple paradigms and newly developed idioms, it's not going to be leading edge for very long. The power of generic programming, functional programming and other completely separate idioms is being exploited in research already, and has been for some time. I don't think it will be long before they start hitting the maintsream, and then the limitations of .NET's architecture may be its undoing.
Re:Language neutrality - not (Score:3, Insightful)
I can understand why they would restrict their framework to a single inheritance, single dispatch in order to be easily used from more languages, but they forbid both multiple inheritance and multiple dispatch in the virtual machine.
I suspect we are seeing the "language-neutral" lie pushed so heavily right now in order to convince people to choose
Re:If it ain't new...it ain't news... (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:MS is developing for FreeBSD?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not explicitly OS independant... (Score:2, Informative)
FWIW, MS's JVM was 100% conformant, and Visual J++ produced 100% conformant binaries; the problem was that it supported some extra bits and pieces (P/Invoke, most notably, which essentially exists in .NET as the wonderful DllImport attribute).
OS independence is brought about by compiling to bytecode (which frees you from hardware constraints) and sticking to the core class library (which frees you from platform constraints), or using classes common to multiple implementations (for instance, WinForms, which are available on both Mono and .NET, and maybe even the shared-source FreeBSD implementation).
Re:Why I won't be developing with .NET: $$$ (Score:5, Informative)
Or... you can go out to MSDN and download the
From the description:
The Microsoft®
Re:Why I won't be developing with .NET: $$$ (Score:2, Troll)
To Microsoft, the only developers that count are the ones with $1,079 and more. That does mean big corporations and others with plenty of $$$. And Microsoft wants to favor those with $$$ so they can get more of that $$$ by creating a platform that requires more machines to run. More machines means more installed systems and more $$$ goes back to Microsoft. Microsoft can easily afford this because it is part of the strategy to cause more $$$ to be shifted to them. That is what business is about, like it or not (personally, I don't like it, but I deal with it).
More like about $6 (Score:2)
Toodles
Re:Why I won't be developing with .NET: $$$ (Score:3, Informative)
The Software Development Kit (all necessary dll's, compilers, etc.) is free. There are also a handful of free IDE's.
VB changes, C++ changes, J++ changes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:dll hell (Score:4, Informative)
Well.
The GAC is reference-counted -- if you no longer have any applications using an assembly in the GAC, it'll get removed (there are some provisos, but that's more or less how it works).
And the GAC does have shared libraries -- it just provides a mechanism for having different versions of those shared libraries. If a bunch of applications all use the same version of the same assembly, then they'll use the same file. So there's still a benefit over static libraries. It just also fixes the problems that have ocurred with dynamic libraries. When they *can* be shared, they will be, but unlike Windows' previous DLL implementations, it doesn't _require_ them to share the same version, even if they're not compatible.
Re:Question : what's the benefit ? (Score:2, Funny)
Hype?
What Happens When Marketing Gets Involved (Score:3, Insightful)
At least, a good one.
This overview is great from a technical angle (the one me and most slashdotters usually have interest in) and decent from a more mundane perspective (the one you pose as in an em-cash or other sales-derived presentation
It's hazardous to your health as a hacker. It looks like a great way to encapsulate any data in a format which is sufficiently protected under the DMCA. (Yet another reason for that law- and the 99 senators who ayed the vote- to be burned at the stake.)
It's also bad for anyone on a non-MS platform; two of the languages are extremely MS-centric, Visual Basic and C-hash (something that should only be done right before you smoke it).
It's bad - all right, worse - for Java fiends. Bad enough Microsoft feels Java is the worst thing to happen to it since the Wicked Witch of the West was introduced to the business end of a water gone, now they're pulling out all the stops with the theoretically embraced and extended J-hash.
Right now, I just wish there was a way to stop those pricks at Microsoft.. besides a HERF bomb in Redmond, WA
Re:What Happens When Marketing Gets Involved (Score:3)
Not so (Score:3, Insightful)