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As someone who has done both Enterprise .NET and startup work, I have to say that the reason we didn't use .NET is much the same as the reason you don't rent a

As someone who has done both Enterprise .NET and startup work, I have to say that the reason we didn't use .NET is much the same as the reason you don't rent a 2-ton backhoe to dig up a flower bed: cost and overkill. Yes, the backhoe might dig the flower bed faster, but it costs $5,000.00 to rent, there's a one-week minimum rental, and its treads tear up your yard to get to the flower bed. On the other hand the shovel may be slower, but you can borrow one from a friend and it doesn't tear up your whole yard. Let's near in mind these are start-ups with limited capital and no time to fill in the holes that your treads tore up in your front yard.

henrikschroder 16y ago
The only thing you really need to pay for is the actual Windows 2000-whatever servers with IIS, everything else you can get for free. Visual Studio Express Edition is free, the .Net framework is free, and you can integrate with all sorts of popular open source products such as MySQL, Postgres, memcached, Cassandra, etc.
- ericb 16y ago
  The first crack-hit is also usually free. Same business model.
- Daishiman 16y ago
  My time doing deployments and dealing with Windows Server issues is not free. Neither is the time lost using RDP instead of SSH, dealing with licenses, requiring much more HD space than the alternatives, and lacking real scripting solutions. I have yet to hear anyone using LINQ on anything that's not SQL Server, and considering the NIH syndrome in Microsoft, I wouldn't recommend it.
  - henrikschroder 16y ago
    My time doing deployments and dealing with Windows Server issues is not free. We don't have any issues with our Windows servers, but I guess the number of issues you run into is proportional to your experience. We would have a lot more problems dealing with Linux servers. YMMV. Neither is the time lost using RDP instead of SSH Practice makes perfect... dealing with licenses What? You buy it, you install it, done? requiring much more HD space than the alternatives Now you're just being silly. Are you worrying about HD space in this day and age? Seriously? and lacking real scripting solutions. I'll give you this, but I've yet to see the need for such an environment. I have yet to hear anyone using LINQ on anything that's not SQL Server Don't use it then? I think LINQ is a horrible idea, and horribly implemented, so I'm staying far, far away from it. I would never use it or SQL Server in a startup, that would be insane. I see how you could accidentally recruit someone who thinks it's the best thing EVER and starts using it all over, but recruiting people addicted to the wrong bleeding-edge technologies is a hazard no matter which technology you use.
    - epochwolf 16y ago
      Have you even looked at how much bandwidth RDP uses compared to SSH? I can have 7 or 8 ssh connections open and monitoring files where windows can't get one remote connection working properly. As for installing, Debian/Ubuntu can't get any easier. apt-get install <package> And if you need the very latest nginx? wget <url> tar -xzvf <tar.gz file> cd <folder> ./configure make make install Even better, you can script this with bash with little effort. (Complex scripting can be more difficult but that's not what we are doing here)
      - pbz 16y ago
        You're comparing apples to oranges. One is graphical while the other is text based. I've personally never had issues with RDP and bandwidth. If you have multiple connections open you can minimize the RDP window; the connection is maintained but the window is not refreshed so it doesn't use your connection.
    - Daishiman 16y ago
      Deploying a Linux server on my environments takes exactly 5 minutes. Most Windows Server installations run over half an hour, require babysitting, and quite a bit of time previous to that if I want to make a custom image, a process which I can't really automate. Using SSH is a much, much better solution for administration. I don't depend on having a large screen or fast connection. Believe, when you're managing servers 8000 miles away it makes you want to tear your eye sockets out. Licensing. You must be kidding. Keeping track of license numbers, WGA validation, and being artificially limited in how I can move OS images around is nothing pleasant. I don't want to depend on anyone's approval for purchasing licenses; I need to download, burn, and deploy. > I'll give you this, but I've yet to see the need for such an environment. I've been a UNIX sysadmin, I've seen my Windows counterparts. Please do take the opportunity, if you have the chance, to learn about shell scripting on Unix. It's incredible. > Don't use it then? I think LINQ is a horrible idea, and horribly implemented Alternatives? I don't know of comparable alternatives. I don't think NHibernate would be right, neither do I want to go back to validating raw SQL.
  - borisk 16y ago
    Haha, LINQ is the best part of the framework. It was in part designed by Erik Meijer and Don Syme(who are big names in functional languages community). LINQ to objects and to XML are widely used. There are hundreds of non-Microsoft LINQ providers, like LINQ to Amazon. Generally LINQ is about higher order functions, monad pattern, map-reduce. Have you tried it? It's fantastic.
    - Daishiman 16y ago
      Of course I have. It's great, but it's only marginally better than other ORMs for my use cases (I know it's technically much more than an ORM). The time I gain writing LINQ queries is lost trying to deploy that solution, or attempting to debug marginally complex queries, something that's generally easier on dynamic languages. SQLAlchemy is still my favorite ORM around. On the same vein, while C# is an excellent language, there's too many sections of .NET and Silverlight that depend on type casting to the point where there's no advantage to using a statically typed language. And unfortunately neither IronPython nor IronRuby are used in the mainstream.
      - Encosia 16y ago
        I think what borisk is pointing out is that LINQ isn't an ORM. It's a language feature. You're thinking of LINQ to SQL, specifically.
- nl 16y ago
  If you are only using VS Express you are working with one hand tied behind your back. If you go for .NET development, at least do it properly. The up front costs really are an issue, though. Also, while it is true you can integrate with all sorts of popular open source products such as MySQL, Postgres, memcached, Cassandra, etc you'd have to ask yourself why not just use the environments they are supposed to work with? Using them with .NET is like doing Windows thick client development in Java - possible, but a horrible experience. It's always the details that kill you. I don't know if you ever had to do Java<->COM integration, but doing that for a while taught me that all platforms have their specialities, and it's a lot easier if you don't fight them.

henrikschroder 16y ago

The only thing you really need to pay for is the actual Windows 2000-whatever servers with IIS, everything else you can get for free. Visual Studio Express Edition is free, the .Net framework is free, and you can integrate with all sorts of popular open source products such as MySQL, Postgres, memcached, Cassandra, etc.

ericb 16y ago
The first crack-hit is also usually free. Same business model.
Daishiman 16y ago
My time doing deployments and dealing with Windows Server issues is not free. Neither is the time lost using RDP instead of SSH, dealing with licenses, requiring much more HD space than the alternatives, and lacking real scripting solutions. I have yet to hear anyone using LINQ on anything that's not SQL Server, and considering the NIH syndrome in Microsoft, I wouldn't recommend it.
- henrikschroder 16y ago
  My time doing deployments and dealing with Windows Server issues is not free. We don't have any issues with our Windows servers, but I guess the number of issues you run into is proportional to your experience. We would have a lot more problems dealing with Linux servers. YMMV. Neither is the time lost using RDP instead of SSH Practice makes perfect... dealing with licenses What? You buy it, you install it, done? requiring much more HD space than the alternatives Now you're just being silly. Are you worrying about HD space in this day and age? Seriously? and lacking real scripting solutions. I'll give you this, but I've yet to see the need for such an environment. I have yet to hear anyone using LINQ on anything that's not SQL Server Don't use it then? I think LINQ is a horrible idea, and horribly implemented, so I'm staying far, far away from it. I would never use it or SQL Server in a startup, that would be insane. I see how you could accidentally recruit someone who thinks it's the best thing EVER and starts using it all over, but recruiting people addicted to the wrong bleeding-edge technologies is a hazard no matter which technology you use.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    Have you even looked at how much bandwidth RDP uses compared to SSH? I can have 7 or 8 ssh connections open and monitoring files where windows can't get one remote connection working properly. As for installing, Debian/Ubuntu can't get any easier. apt-get install <package> And if you need the very latest nginx? wget <url> tar -xzvf <tar.gz file> cd <folder> ./configure make make install Even better, you can script this with bash with little effort. (Complex scripting can be more difficult but that's not what we are doing here)
    - pbz 16y ago
      You're comparing apples to oranges. One is graphical while the other is text based. I've personally never had issues with RDP and bandwidth. If you have multiple connections open you can minimize the RDP window; the connection is maintained but the window is not refreshed so it doesn't use your connection.
  - Daishiman 16y ago
    Deploying a Linux server on my environments takes exactly 5 minutes. Most Windows Server installations run over half an hour, require babysitting, and quite a bit of time previous to that if I want to make a custom image, a process which I can't really automate. Using SSH is a much, much better solution for administration. I don't depend on having a large screen or fast connection. Believe, when you're managing servers 8000 miles away it makes you want to tear your eye sockets out. Licensing. You must be kidding. Keeping track of license numbers, WGA validation, and being artificially limited in how I can move OS images around is nothing pleasant. I don't want to depend on anyone's approval for purchasing licenses; I need to download, burn, and deploy. > I'll give you this, but I've yet to see the need for such an environment. I've been a UNIX sysadmin, I've seen my Windows counterparts. Please do take the opportunity, if you have the chance, to learn about shell scripting on Unix. It's incredible. > Don't use it then? I think LINQ is a horrible idea, and horribly implemented Alternatives? I don't know of comparable alternatives. I don't think NHibernate would be right, neither do I want to go back to validating raw SQL.
- borisk 16y ago
  Haha, LINQ is the best part of the framework. It was in part designed by Erik Meijer and Don Syme(who are big names in functional languages community). LINQ to objects and to XML are widely used. There are hundreds of non-Microsoft LINQ providers, like LINQ to Amazon. Generally LINQ is about higher order functions, monad pattern, map-reduce. Have you tried it? It's fantastic.
  - Daishiman 16y ago
    Of course I have. It's great, but it's only marginally better than other ORMs for my use cases (I know it's technically much more than an ORM). The time I gain writing LINQ queries is lost trying to deploy that solution, or attempting to debug marginally complex queries, something that's generally easier on dynamic languages. SQLAlchemy is still my favorite ORM around. On the same vein, while C# is an excellent language, there's too many sections of .NET and Silverlight that depend on type casting to the point where there's no advantage to using a statically typed language. And unfortunately neither IronPython nor IronRuby are used in the mainstream.
    - Encosia 16y ago
      I think what borisk is pointing out is that LINQ isn't an ORM. It's a language feature. You're thinking of LINQ to SQL, specifically.
nl 16y ago
If you are only using VS Express you are working with one hand tied behind your back. If you go for .NET development, at least do it properly. The up front costs really are an issue, though. Also, while it is true you can integrate with all sorts of popular open source products such as MySQL, Postgres, memcached, Cassandra, etc you'd have to ask yourself why not just use the environments they are supposed to work with? Using them with .NET is like doing Windows thick client development in Java - possible, but a horrible experience. It's always the details that kill you. I don't know if you ever had to do Java<->COM integration, but doing that for a while taught me that all platforms have their specialities, and it's a lot easier if you don't fight them.