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Dot Net - a wrong step by MS?

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SKA:
Was .NET all a mistake?
http://www.i-programmer.info/professional-programmer/i-programmer/2830-was-net-all-a-mistake.html

Dumping .NET - Microsoft's Madness
http://www.i-programmer.info/professional-programmer/i-programmer/2591-dumping-net-microsofts-madness.html

Ska

vlastimil:
Interesting articles.

I became a .net skeptic shortly after it was released in 2002 after I had to work on a larger desktop app in .net. It promised simple nasty-error-free environment, but did not deliver. Don't get me wrong, it is good enough for server-side components or simple desktop apps (if you do not mind the need to have the proper version of the framework installed on users' machines (which I do)).

HTML5+JavaScript makes a lot of sense for client apps. I have actually been considering exploring that direction not a long time ago. XULRunner seems intriguing - it is maintained by Mozilla, open source, the binaries are relatively small (compared to .net framework). If anyone has actual experiences with XULRunner, I'd love to hear about it.

mahesh2k:
Microsoft seems to be following failed experiment pattern after every successful OS. e.g.
Win 98 (Hit)->Win ME (Fail)->Win XP/2000 (Win)->Vista (Fail)->Windows 7 (Win)->Windows 8 (erm fail?).

.Net framework managed to keep more developers and users on windows platform(desktop). Basically by limiting the developers to HTML+JS, they kicked many windows desktop dependent business developers. All the languages which were dependent on .NET with Iron tag are going to end. JS+silverlight is not powerful like vb/c# or java or python, if it was that powerful it could have been used already on linux or apple way before.So basically end of innovation for languages on microsoft platform. C#/VB for windows are going to end once 7's life cycle ends.

HTML+JS has benefit of limited security issues and the issues that comes with it are likely to be patched easily. But it gives less scope for developers for innovation. If they come up with app store for those apps then imagine 100k same and repetitive apps. Again there is going to be benefit of jumping early in this platform development to get some marketshare of new platform apps. Imagine writing JS based apps for finding files on hard drive(FARR?) and same type of app can exploit the system as there isn't anything to control these apps during initial framework. Then they'll launch some framework to manage and tight things up and developers and users will start from 0. Again if we assume that they keep C++ and WPF developers on this platform, still rest of the languages on new platform are equal to dead because all of them have to rewrite installers for current language distributions (like python, ruby etc).

I think of this as big change for developers moving to linux based desktop or even apple. My 2 cents.

wraith808:
I guess I have to be the first to disagree.  First, though .NET is language agnostic to a large degree, the large development with .NET was C#, and though they try not to say it, it is the defacto language for .NET.  I think that, more than anything else, is why the support for C++ in the managed world has languished.  And I don't look at it as a bad thing.  A lot of our legacy applications are built in C++/COM, and everyone dreads having to get them set up to debug, let alone actually work in them.  Don't get me wrong; I think C++ will always have its place.  I just don't see it becoming a major player in the standard Windows business application market again.  All you have to do is look at the jobs available ads to see what a fallacy that thought is.

HTML5 is a browser based technology.  No matter how robust they become, desktop applications won't disappear, which is why the second part is fallacy.  Even Silverlight has its place in Microsoft's strategies.  HTML5 is the language of choice in Microsoft for internet applications; Silverlight is still Microsoft's language of choice for intranet applications.  There is a big difference.

A lot of the article seems to be based on concepts that are not competing, and arguments that don't hold water IMO.

Eóin:
If Windows 8 adopts an HTML5/JavaScript app infrastructure there wont be a lot of apps ready for it to run.
--- End quote ---

If the future of Windows apps is HTML5/JavaScript then Windows has no future.
--- End quote ---

If is the key word! This article, Windows 8 for software developers: the Longhorn dream reborn?, seems to suggest those fears are unfounded.

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