What is .NET?

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.

[ratajik]

I haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but they actually released the dev stuff for .NET. Article here [com.com]

Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD

[XBL]

There are some good .NET development books coming out now. Even O'Reilly has had one out for a while (which I have), so the publishing companies seem to be eager to sell .NET.

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 .NET framwork development tools, and it seemed much faster (probably because my hand-written code was much smaller).

Microsoft is developing a version of the .NET runtime and classes for FreeBSD. I have talked with the lead engineer of this project over e-mail, and he said that it's due to be out in late Spring. I asked him about the Windows Forms stuff, and he said it will be based on Tk (could someone explain the implications of this?). He also said that there are going to be very few UNIX-specific classes, but they hope people will develop those on their own.

Article is inaccurate.

[Carnage4Life]

Although the article is a decent technical overview of the .NET Framework I don't agree with the articles description of what constitutes .NET. From looking at .NET first hand I prefer Miguel's description of .NET [microsoft.com] which is

Microsoft .NET strategy encompasses many efforts including:

The .NET development platform, a new platform for writing software [.NET Framework discussed in article]

Web services

Microsoft Server Applications

New tools that use the new development platform

Hailstorm, the Microsoft .NET Passport-centralized single sign-on system that is being integrated into Microsoft Windows XP. [now called .NET My Services]

Disclaimer: I work at MSFT but this is MY PERSONAL OPINION not some official claim.

Re:I honestly can't figure out

[rabtech]

You obviously didn't read the article.

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 .NET programs.

(Short Version: go back and actually read the article, then try posting again.)

Re:.NET good, not evil

[jrnchimera]

Hmmm, according to an article I read, .Net applications can only be hosted on webservers running the Windows OS. Perhaps the article from the New York Times is incorrect?

Re:If it ain't new...it ain't news...

[DrPizza]

OK. That's interesting to know. Given that, I, ah, wrote the article, and can guarantee that it wasn't finished, let alone posted, "over two weeks" ago.

BBCTech article - Rivals queue up to take on M$

[jeff13]

This article [bbc.co.uk], rejected by Slashdot for this one I might suppose, has some thoughts regarding what other companies and groups think about .NET (Not exactly favourable) and mentions how other companies will be rolling out there own networks.

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 .Net servers.

Re:.NET good, not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

.NET applications can reside anywhere on the network. Most, though, will reside on your hard drive, just like most of your applications do now.

What you may be talking about is the Distributed .NET concept wherein different pieces of the application puzzle lie across different servers on the network. In that case it may be possible that the servers must be .NET-serving enabled to host application components. That would make sense.

Re:.NET good, not evil

[Dan Hayes]

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?

Move along, no neutrality here...

[Anonymous Coward]

When your friends ask, just tell them "It's a language-neutral Java knock-off..."

Don't. Point them to One Runtime to Bind them All [javalobby.org] instead, which is a good read on the topic of the (absence of) language neutrality in the CLR.

Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD

[clontzman]

I ordered an academic copy of VS Professional for $99. If you're a student, have one in your family or can find a way to finagle a student ID (or take a class at a local university), it's an excellent way to get a legit copy for a very competitive price. The individual languages are cheaper still.

Re:Article is inaccurate.

[DrPizza]

Read the first part of the article more closely. I acknowledge that there's more than just the Framework. But I haven't covered them in this article, as it's long enough already. This is what I meant when I said:

.NET is also the collective name given to various bits of software built upon the .NET platform. These will be both products (Visual Studio.NET and Windows.NET Server, for instance) and services (like Passport, HailStorm, and so on).

A follow-up will talk about such things as, VS.NET, Passport, Hailstorm, and so on. I feel that there are broadly two parts -- the framework itself (your first bullet point), and things that use it or manipulate it (your second, third, fourth, and fifth bullet points). I realize I glossed over them, but I will talk about them at a later date.

Re:Was that so complicated?

[Corrado]

When your friends ask, just tell them "It's a language-neutral Java knock-off..."

The only problem with that statement is that it's not true -- .net is NOT language-neutral. It works well with "managed" languages that are very similar to C# (things like Java), but it fails to support a lot of ingrained things in languages that make them unique and usefull (like multiple inheritence in C/C++). Without this language dependent things, they are just so much foder. You might as well develop in C#.

However, I've heard that C# is a pretty good knockoff of Java. :)

Re:.NET good, not evil

[s0l0m0n]

The biggest problem I see with .NET is that the apps that get created with it will only run on Windows servers.

I think that this is in refference to the programing language c#, which is a component of MS .net, right?

ximian is working on a linux port of .net right now. Currently they are up to version 0.8. Looks like new versions of Gnome will be written for mono, at some point. Of course, if you'd read /. in the past weeks, you would know that. You can read up on it or offer your assistance at Go mono [go-mono.com]

and here are Miguel de Icaza's comments [gnome.org] concerning Gnome and mono.

Re:They've released the dev stuff.

[DodgyGeezer]

Already got it installed! The damn thing doesn't play nicely with the X-mouse unfortunately. The UI must have been developed by the idiots who did Visual InterDev. I seem to remember MSVC5 had some issues with the X-mouse (auto-raise when the mouse went over things like the class-wizards drop list controls). MSVC6 played very nicely. Now it's back with avengence - behaving just as badly as the InterDev crap did.

Not really .Net, but the C++ compiler seems more compliant that before.

Re:Not explicitly OS independant...

[DrPizza]

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:.NET good, not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

The main bone of contention that people have with .NET is the whole Hailstorm/Passport crap that MS is trying to push on us.

passport is based heavily on kerberos which was designed by MIT. I think they just implemented it badly. I think that the underlying architecture is fine.

Hailstorm is just a set of user-centric webservices, published via UDDI and using WDSL to describe it. This begs the question, why can the open source community download the spec and make an open, secure alternative?

just thinking out loud...

Re:Why I won't be developing with .NET: $$$

[overturf]

> Anyone who wants to develop for .NET needs to shell out at least $1,079 for Visual Studio

Or... you can go out to MSDN and download the .Net Framework Software Development Kit for free (*connection charges apply) at this link [microsoft.com]

From the description:
The Microsoft® .NET Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) includes the .NET Framework, as well as everything you need to write, build, test, and deploy .NET Framework applications--documentation, samples, and command-line tools and compilers.

Re:dll hell

[DrPizza]

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:VB changes, C++ changes, J++ changes

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been possible to extend the current Visual Basic over the .NET platform. Microsoft took into account that Visual Basic included about 20 years worth of legacy garbage (GOSUB, ON ERROR) which was seriously hampering it's ability to grow. Microsoft also had a very long laundry list of features that people wanted to see incorporated into Visual Basic.

J# compiles all Visual J++ directly to .NET with no issue, as does Microsoft C++ using the /CLR arguement. COBOL.NET is both completely CLS compliant and COBOL-85 compliant.

Re:.NET good, not evil

[mmacdona86]

They are developing a FreeBSD port of that incomplete and nearly useless portion that they are submitting as a standard. Real .NET apps will in fact be confined to the Windows platform, unless Mono is much more successful than I suspect it can be.

Re:Mod parent up

[blakestah]

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.


That is precisely what I said. XP drops default Java support.

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.


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, .NET is about one and only one thing. Network enabled apps to take the place of Java. The details are different, but the motivation and niche in the marketplace is the same. All the rest is just clever marketing from Redmond, as usual.

Re:I honestly can't figure out

[Dan Hayes]

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...

Re:Classes and APIs more important than language

[alangmead]

That is because the FSF started the Guile project so that people would stop using TCL as an extension language. The basis of the Guile project was RMS's declaration Why you should not use Tcl [google.com] When people stopped trying to use Tcl as an extention language to GNU code, the Guile developers were less motivated to create a system that could understand Tcl syntax.

C# intro

[CFN]

There are plenty of C# intros out on the web (I especially liked the Ask Dr. GUI.NET series at MS, but they are being rewritten to reflect the release version of VS.NET), but O'Reilly recently
posted one [oreillynet.com] that gives instructions on using the compiler/debugger that you can download from MS.

With those tools, one can begin to learn to program with C# without needing to fork over the big green for the new visual studio.

Just thought someone might be interested.

Re:Why I won't be developing with .NET: $$$

[tshak]

Anyone who wants to develop for .NET needs to shell out at least $1,079

The Software Development Kit (all necessary dll's, compilers, etc.) is free. There are also a handful of free IDE's.

Re:.NET good, not evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Language independence has been around for quite a while. Not only CORBA but also Parc Xerox ILU and IBM SOM provided as much if not more language idendepence. Also, if CLR and .Net so language independent why is it that all the languages that use CLR look more like C# than like their originating languages? C++ without multiple inheritence is not C++. Likewise, Eiffel# without design-by-contract and multiple inheritance is not Eiffel. VB.Net is not VB. All these .Net languages are really just C# with different eye-liner

Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD

[Oink.NET]

Right now I am downloading the seven CD Visual Studio.NET Enterprise final version (yep, already warezed)

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.

Re:KDE Myths

[LoseNotLooseGuy]

KDE Myth: Gnome is loosing, its dead, just use KDE.

What, exactly, would Gnome be "letting loose or releasing?" I'm afraid this statement makes no sense. Perhaps you meant to dispel the myth that Gnome is failing to win (whatever that means). If so, the word you were looking for was losing.

If you're going to go to all the trouble of throwing out flamebait, at least check your spelling/grammar. You have been participant #34 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.

Re:Books, VS.NET, .NET FreeBSD

[clontzman]

You are correct, sir (I presume). Once you graduate, they usually have an "upgrade amnesty" type program where you can buy the legit version at the upgrade price. Then again, sometimes not. At any rate, once you're no longer a student, you legally can't use the software (hence the bargain basement prices you get -- $99 for Dreamweaver... $99 for Illustrator... $100 for Office Pro...)

In my case, I'm faculty/staff so unless I get fired or quit, I'm okay.