8 ms·

Personally, it's because Microsoft development locks you in, and costs a lot of money. The OS costs money, the server OS costs money, the database costs money,

Personally, it's because Microsoft development locks you in, and costs a lot of money. The OS costs money, the server OS costs money, the database costs money, the IDE costs money, everything costs money, and you have to use it, for the life of your app. To many young developers these days, and IIS server is the thing your company keeps in the closet to some sluggish legacy monstrosity which has been replaced for years with a better open source solution, but can't be put out of it's misery because it still holds some data that might be useful sometime. Is any of this true? I have no idea. I'm just letting you know the rap it has, and the perceived reasons for that rap.

benologist 13y ago
It's not very true that you're locked into anything anymore. See Mono, Xamarin, Sharpdevelop, etc.
- gisenberg 13y ago
  That's an optimistic world view. Getting a web app built on .NET/MVC4/IIS running on mono isn't a trivial endeavor, and the open source implementations rightfully tend to lag behind the closed implementations.
- kevinskii 13y ago
  We stopped using Mono after a few months. With .NET's Task Parallel Libraries we saw an enormous performance difference between Mono/Redhat vs. .NET/Windows, with the latter often running many times faster. Tuning the GC and heap size didn't make much of a difference. .NET seems to be well worth the cost of running Windows, but the consequent platform and vendor lock-in is still a concern for us.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    Mono's parallel implementation is really bad, yes. I've had similar problems with it (despite the fact that the Mono SGen GC is usually pretty decent at keeping up) Maybe you should contribute a better one. ;)
- Pacabel 13y ago
  What you're saying is only true for perhaps the simplest "Hello World!"-level apps. Much beyond that and it just isn't trivial to use those alternative tools effectively, even when you're specifically targeting them and not actual .NET.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    I've deployed fairly large .NET applications to Mono with only trivial modifications. They behaved equivalently, even if Mono's garbage collector isn't as good.
    - benologist 13y ago
      My smaller experience only had problems within SqlDbType particularly with Date acting as strings and Structured not existing.
Nate630 13y ago
It is a lock in (most technology does lock you into certain dependencies) and it does cost money. But, it's all so easy to use now / saves you lots of time. You can roll out anything using PowerShell these days. Or just copy VMs with OS/IIS/SQL already set-up. Deploying everything can be one-click. VS even has git integration now. The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy.
- 300bps 13y ago
  The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy. In all honesty this is what I find from most unknowledgeable Microsoft bashers. They tried out the MS development stack with Classic ASP, Visual Basic 6 and SourceSafe 15 years ago. Then in their head they're contrasting that to the latest RoR tools with github. Many are not even aware of ASP.NET MVC and how different it is from ASP.NET. Now, this isn't to say there aren't knowledgeable Microsoft bashers but this is what I find from many of them that aren't knowledgeable.
  - d0 13y ago
    As a knowledgeable Microsoft basher, you're right. MVC is better but still a long step away from something great. Some of the internals are crazy bad from attribute thread safety to the numerous singleton piles of crud like the ViewEngines collection and route data. Not only that, the tooling really doesn't scale up well either. I can only say after managing a project with 400 controllers that it doesn't scale up to complex UI or even medium sized projects well. Also we're reaching 5 minute edit, compile, run cycles (on E5 Xeons!). Also production debugging (which is inevitable one day) is a PITA on CLR based projects. It has become the opposite of all promises. It's like wading through tar. To be honest after over a decade of .Net experience and over a decade of Win32/COM etc before that, I'm tired of it all. I wrote my first Objective C+Cocoa application last week (an RPN calculator) and it's where I'd rather be. It was fun and frustration free. I tried to do exactly the same with WPF/C# a few weeks ago and it was horrible.
    - thomasz 13y ago
diminish 13y ago
Moreover, their business unit's licensing/pricing team are chasing your code forever to suck more margins from its use. While developing with MS technologies, you must accompany any code, tests and documentation with a "My License" folder with "licensing.cs" files to calculate, the implied licensing costs of each piece of code you develop along with all required MS components down to the metal. Finally, you must make sure the relevant "My License/licXX.cs" gets updated with changing licensing policies. Next to your developers, designers you must staff an MS certified licensing specialist, or for larger projects a License team with a director level position to analyze, plan, design, test, negotiate and pay licensing costs.
- yulaow 13y ago
  I never ever ever read anything about it. Can you link some information related? Because googling it I can't find anything
- WickyNilliams 13y ago
  Having worked on many enterprise .NET projects I can assure you this is not true, at least in the general case. Licensing is definitely a complex beast but I have never heard of, or followed, this requirement
- codelap 13y ago
  Yea, this is complete bollocks. Not a word of it is true. You may have a shitty thing in your corp that forced you to do this, but that has nothing to do with Microsoft.
- alkonaut 13y ago
  This is satire. Calm down.
  - diminish 13y ago
    thanks for getting the satire :-) few years back i used to work for mankind's largest IT project leading a C# team to develop certain missing parts. Licensing implications for each piece of idea were so immense, we needed to keep architectural decision inline with licensing plans.
mrhyperpenguin 13y ago
Students and businesses can get (and keep) the software for free through DreamSpark and BizSpark.
SDGT 13y ago
VS lock in is a very real thing. At my current employer, there is no way they could ever come off of VS and .Net because of the lack of polyglots in the office. There is one of us that does Java, 3 that do PHP (only in the last 6 months), and 6 that are set up for .Net MVC. Management just can't spare the costs to retrain, and none of these guys go home and code on non MS platforms.
- sz4kerto 13y ago
  That's not what people call lock-in. Then there's Javascript+Sublime lock-in, OCAML lock-in, Emacs lock-in...
- michaelmior 13y ago
  What about Mono? I have no idea how practical this is for real code bases, but I've used it successfully on several smaller projects.
  - gabriel 13y ago
    Mono is quite practical. However, C# is one thing, and the .NET Memory Model is quite another. The memory model is, IMHO, where Microsoft is pushing the limits of the existing C# language.
    - dewiz 13y ago
      could someone point to some article that expand on this topic ? thanks
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      > The memory model is, IMHO, where Microsoft is pushing the limits of the existing C# language. What has Microsoft changed in the .NET memory model that makes you think they're pushing the limits? From what I can tell, the .NET memory model is one of the things that has changed the least. The languages have changed a lot faster than the memory model.
  - Moto7451 13y ago
cliffcrosland 13y ago
We have a C# asp.net MVC web app that we are transforming into a consumer of independent node.js and python web services. I must admit that I sometimes miss the static type refactoring tools visual studio offers when I'm wrestling with grep in node.js code, but my team really appreciates the open source tools and deployment options that come with the OSS territory.
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  Have you considered Vala as an alternative? It has a similar syntax[1] to C# but no compatible libraries. [1]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/ValaForCSharpProgrammers https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/ValaForCSharpProgrammer...
matthewking 13y ago
As far as IDE goes, Visual Studio Express is free and very capable: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-US/products/visual-studio-express-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/en-US/products/visual-studio-exp...
pjmlp 13y ago
Like any other commercial vendor I would say.

benologist 13y ago

It's not very true that you're locked into anything anymore. See Mono, Xamarin, Sharpdevelop, etc.

gisenberg 13y ago
That's an optimistic world view. Getting a web app built on .NET/MVC4/IIS running on mono isn't a trivial endeavor, and the open source implementations rightfully tend to lag behind the closed implementations.
kevinskii 13y ago
We stopped using Mono after a few months. With .NET's Task Parallel Libraries we saw an enormous performance difference between Mono/Redhat vs. .NET/Windows, with the latter often running many times faster. Tuning the GC and heap size didn't make much of a difference. .NET seems to be well worth the cost of running Windows, but the consequent platform and vendor lock-in is still a concern for us.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  Mono's parallel implementation is really bad, yes. I've had similar problems with it (despite the fact that the Mono SGen GC is usually pretty decent at keeping up) Maybe you should contribute a better one. ;)
Pacabel 13y ago
What you're saying is only true for perhaps the simplest "Hello World!"-level apps. Much beyond that and it just isn't trivial to use those alternative tools effectively, even when you're specifically targeting them and not actual .NET.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  I've deployed fairly large .NET applications to Mono with only trivial modifications. They behaved equivalently, even if Mono's garbage collector isn't as good.
  - benologist 13y ago
    My smaller experience only had problems within SqlDbType particularly with Date acting as strings and Structured not existing.

Nate630 13y ago

It is a lock in (most technology does lock you into certain dependencies) and it does cost money. But, it's all so easy to use now / saves you lots of time. You can roll out anything using PowerShell these days. Or just copy VMs with OS/IIS/SQL already set-up. Deploying everything can be one-click. VS even has git integration now. The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy.

300bps 13y ago
The old IIS is like you describe. But, the latest IIS is fast and easy. In all honesty this is what I find from most unknowledgeable Microsoft bashers. They tried out the MS development stack with Classic ASP, Visual Basic 6 and SourceSafe 15 years ago. Then in their head they're contrasting that to the latest RoR tools with github. Many are not even aware of ASP.NET MVC and how different it is from ASP.NET. Now, this isn't to say there aren't knowledgeable Microsoft bashers but this is what I find from many of them that aren't knowledgeable.
- d0 13y ago
  As a knowledgeable Microsoft basher, you're right. MVC is better but still a long step away from something great. Some of the internals are crazy bad from attribute thread safety to the numerous singleton piles of crud like the ViewEngines collection and route data. Not only that, the tooling really doesn't scale up well either. I can only say after managing a project with 400 controllers that it doesn't scale up to complex UI or even medium sized projects well. Also we're reaching 5 minute edit, compile, run cycles (on E5 Xeons!). Also production debugging (which is inevitable one day) is a PITA on CLR based projects. It has become the opposite of all promises. It's like wading through tar. To be honest after over a decade of .Net experience and over a decade of Win32/COM etc before that, I'm tired of it all. I wrote my first Objective C+Cocoa application last week (an RPN calculator) and it's where I'd rather be. It was fun and frustration free. I tried to do exactly the same with WPF/C# a few weeks ago and it was horrible.
  - thomasz 13y ago

diminish 13y ago

Moreover, their business unit's licensing/pricing team are chasing your code forever to suck more margins from its use. While developing with MS technologies, you must accompany any code, tests and documentation with a "My License" folder with "licensing.cs" files to calculate, the implied licensing costs of each piece of code you develop along with all required MS components down to the metal. Finally, you must make sure the relevant "My License/licXX.cs" gets updated with changing licensing policies. Next to your developers, designers you must staff an MS certified licensing specialist, or for larger projects a License team with a director level position to analyze, plan, design, test, negotiate and pay licensing costs.

yulaow 13y ago
I never ever ever read anything about it. Can you link some information related? Because googling it I can't find anything
WickyNilliams 13y ago
Having worked on many enterprise .NET projects I can assure you this is not true, at least in the general case. Licensing is definitely a complex beast but I have never heard of, or followed, this requirement
codelap 13y ago
Yea, this is complete bollocks. Not a word of it is true. You may have a shitty thing in your corp that forced you to do this, but that has nothing to do with Microsoft.
alkonaut 13y ago
This is satire. Calm down.
- diminish 13y ago
  thanks for getting the satire :-) few years back i used to work for mankind's largest IT project leading a C# team to develop certain missing parts. Licensing implications for each piece of idea were so immense, we needed to keep architectural decision inline with licensing plans.

mrhyperpenguin 13y ago

Students and businesses can get (and keep) the software for free through DreamSpark and BizSpark.

SDGT 13y ago

VS lock in is a very real thing. At my current employer, there is no way they could ever come off of VS and .Net because of the lack of polyglots in the office. There is one of us that does Java, 3 that do PHP (only in the last 6 months), and 6 that are set up for .Net MVC. Management just can't spare the costs to retrain, and none of these guys go home and code on non MS platforms.

sz4kerto 13y ago
That's not what people call lock-in. Then there's Javascript+Sublime lock-in, OCAML lock-in, Emacs lock-in...
michaelmior 13y ago
What about Mono? I have no idea how practical this is for real code bases, but I've used it successfully on several smaller projects.
- gabriel 13y ago
  Mono is quite practical. However, C# is one thing, and the .NET Memory Model is quite another. The memory model is, IMHO, where Microsoft is pushing the limits of the existing C# language.
  - dewiz 13y ago
    could someone point to some article that expand on this topic ? thanks
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > The memory model is, IMHO, where Microsoft is pushing the limits of the existing C# language. What has Microsoft changed in the .NET memory model that makes you think they're pushing the limits? From what I can tell, the .NET memory model is one of the things that has changed the least. The languages have changed a lot faster than the memory model.
- Moto7451 13y ago

cliffcrosland 13y ago

We have a C# asp.net MVC web app that we are transforming into a consumer of independent node.js and python web services. I must admit that I sometimes miss the static type refactoring tools visual studio offers when I'm wrestling with grep in node.js code, but my team really appreciates the open source tools and deployment options that come with the OSS territory.

stefantalpalaru 13y ago
Have you considered Vala as an alternative? It has a similar syntax[1] to C# but no compatible libraries. [1]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/ValaForCSharpProgrammers https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/ValaForCSharpProgrammer...

matthewking 13y ago

As far as IDE goes, Visual Studio Express is free and very capable: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-US/products/visual-studio-express-vs http://www.visualstudio.com/en-US/products/visual-studio-exp...

pjmlp 13y ago

Like any other commercial vendor I would say.