4 ms·

Technologies don’t live forever. At some point you need to upgrade, and at some points there will be some major breaking changes. .NET 4.8 is still fully suppo

by andix 4y ago

Technologies don’t live forever. At some point you need to upgrade, and at some points there will be some major breaking changes. .NET 4.8 is still fully supported, and there is no end-of-life communicated yet. It is a part of windows server 2022, which will be supported until 2031, that’s probably the earliest possible end-of-life date for .NET 4.8.

Someone1234 4y ago
If people are looking at what technologies and companies to invest in, knowing that they may be left high and dry with a "full rewrite"-level of breaking changes is a valid and relevant critique. You want to know you'll be supported through difficult transitions, and that isn't unreasonable. I don't understand why people are coming out of the woodwork to tell everyone that full rewrites are a perfectly normal and expected regular occurrence that you should expect from your tech choice. Python 3 is famous for how much they hurt themselves by ignoring the problem. Many companies never did migrate from 2 to 3, and instead picked tech with better guarantees. I expect the same to occur with .Net Framework.
- int_19h 4y ago
  The big difference between the two is that the classic .NET Framework is still supported for as long as the underlying version of Windows is (and to remind, it still ships in Win11). So old .NET apps don't have to be rewritten to continue running securely.
- andix 4y ago
  Do you have any example what technology gave you a clean upgrade path from 2005 until now, without the need to do major changes? With .NET you can still, use most of your code from 2001, just the UI frameworks (and WCF) are not supported anymore on .NET 5+. They are supported at least until 2031 on .NET 4.8. So you can easily move your business logic to a newer version and leave the UI on an older version. But seriously, who is still happy with a web application built in 2005?
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Even many of the desktop UI frameworks are supported on .NET 5+ (on Windows only). Both WinForms and WPF are back in "support" in .NET 5+ (.NET 8 includes [small] updates for both WinForms and WPF). Not every UI component moves forward, but a crazy amount of them are still compatible after decades.
sebazzz 4y ago
.NET Framework will be supported for much longer than that. It is used in many internal Windows components including MMC snap-ins, ADFS, and other Microsoft technologies like Exchange and Sharepoint. Or maybe it will not be supported as in "we won't provide support for any applications needing .NET Framework, but they may or may not still work"?
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  Or to phrase it another way: Microsoft themselves failed to migrate off .NET Framework to .NET Core for the same reasons their customers are also stuck. PowerShell Core has been available for years but still is not included with Windows. Similarly, even new web UI components such as Admin Center are written using .NET Framework.
  - sebazzz 4y ago
    > Microsoft themselves failed to migrate off .NET Framework to .NET Core for the same reasons their customers are also stuck. I'd wager it is more a question of priorities. I bet Microsoft itself sees Windows Server as legacy tech as they want everyone to move to the(ir) cloud. Partially it is also a organisational problem. Everything you ship as a Windows component incurs a debt, which is exactly why .NET Framework wasn't able to evolve further.

by andix 4y ago

Someone1234 4y ago

If people are looking at what technologies and companies to invest in, knowing that they may be left high and dry with a "full rewrite"-level of breaking changes is a valid and relevant critique. You want to know you'll be supported through difficult transitions, and that isn't unreasonable. I don't understand why people are coming out of the woodwork to tell everyone that full rewrites are a perfectly normal and expected regular occurrence that you should expect from your tech choice. Python 3 is famous for how much they hurt themselves by ignoring the problem. Many companies never did migrate from 2 to 3, and instead picked tech with better guarantees. I expect the same to occur with .Net Framework.

int_19h 4y ago
The big difference between the two is that the classic .NET Framework is still supported for as long as the underlying version of Windows is (and to remind, it still ships in Win11). So old .NET apps don't have to be rewritten to continue running securely.
andix 4y ago
Do you have any example what technology gave you a clean upgrade path from 2005 until now, without the need to do major changes? With .NET you can still, use most of your code from 2001, just the UI frameworks (and WCF) are not supported anymore on .NET 5+. They are supported at least until 2031 on .NET 4.8. So you can easily move your business logic to a newer version and leave the UI on an older version. But seriously, who is still happy with a web application built in 2005?
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Even many of the desktop UI frameworks are supported on .NET 5+ (on Windows only). Both WinForms and WPF are back in "support" in .NET 5+ (.NET 8 includes [small] updates for both WinForms and WPF). Not every UI component moves forward, but a crazy amount of them are still compatible after decades.

sebazzz 4y ago

.NET Framework will be supported for much longer than that. It is used in many internal Windows components including MMC snap-ins, ADFS, and other Microsoft technologies like Exchange and Sharepoint. Or maybe it will not be supported as in "we won't provide support for any applications needing .NET Framework, but they may or may not still work"?

jiggawatts 4y ago
Or to phrase it another way: Microsoft themselves failed to migrate off .NET Framework to .NET Core for the same reasons their customers are also stuck. PowerShell Core has been available for years but still is not included with Windows. Similarly, even new web UI components such as Admin Center are written using .NET Framework.
- sebazzz 4y ago
  > Microsoft themselves failed to migrate off .NET Framework to .NET Core for the same reasons their customers are also stuck. I'd wager it is more a question of priorities. I bet Microsoft itself sees Windows Server as legacy tech as they want everyone to move to the(ir) cloud. Partially it is also a organisational problem. Everything you ship as a Windows component incurs a debt, which is exactly why .NET Framework wasn't able to evolve further.