.NET luminaries discuss themselves, their technology expertise, and whatever else comes to mind, this time about Visual Studio.
Visual Team Studio 2005 Videos and Info
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Why are there so many articles on this OS News site about .NET? Are a lot of people using .NET? What do they use it for? Is it primarily for web services? Or “rich client applications”, or ASP-like stuff? My friend just took a class on web services at Harvard about wsdl, soap, etc. and it was all done in java. So is .NET mostly for web pages?
.NET for web pages? VS’ ASP forms editor is almost as unstable as it was in the first release. A wrong hit of the spacebar may potentially mess up your entire screen layout. What you edit may be different to what you see in a browser (i.e. items may be ‘cut’ off the screen on a framed set, vs. looking ‘fine’ in the editor). There, does that answer your question?
VS.Net is on my opinion the “weakest link” on the .Net platform, but still when you consider the pros and the cons, it’s a great platform. You can get used to the quirks on the web form editor (I usually do the work on the HTML view instead, it’s safer)…and then again, usually one spends most of the time on the implementation layers, not drawing forms.
Too bad people have such prejudice against anything coming from Microsoft (which I understand), because .Net is actually an excelent platform.
NET? Are a lot of people using .NET? What do they use it for?
I am learning C# now, plan to use it to write client-side GUI apps. It seems to work much better than Java for this purpose. Now, I know that Java means ‘write once, crawl anywhere’, but I actually like my apps to be responsive. ‘OK, so maybe SWT excels on Windows. But in the respect of running smoothly only one platform, it’s really no better than .NET.
I have no idea about web services and such, doesn’t interest me.
We use .NET platform for fax message procesing (multiple T1/E1 solution using brooktrout cards)/SMS processing.
I fail to see what is in VS 2005, or even 2003, that warrants new versions. You can do all of what they are doing in a simple update.
Are a lot of people using .NET? What do they use it for?
No they’re not, and even those that are looking at it (it is the future programming environment for Windows afterall) it isn’t necessarily practical for people:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dna…
Notice the top bit – “Why Aren’t Folks Switching to Visual Studio .NET?” and read the reasons. I found this guy funny. He basically says, “Yer, I know you’ve wrote millions of lines of code and have working systems, and .Net may sort-of work with them, but you’re going to have to re-write them anyway.” Company scenario:
“We’re going to use .Net.”
“Oh wow, cool!”
“But, we’re going to have to completely re-write the 60 COM-based applications we have, tens of thousand of lines of code, and do all of the testing and debugging again. Yes, I know people in every department of the company uses these applications and they need them to get anything done, but we can do it. Any takers?”
Silence.
And if .Net development is so widespread then why continue to tell people with dubious surveys:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/news/forrester/default.aspx
People will move to .Net gradually for new development, as it is the future Windows development platform, but it is going to have to work with all the old COM stuff out there. Microsoft is very reluctant to provide that.
I pretty much hate M$ as much as the next person. I’ve been running Linux as my primary desktop for 5+ years, I’ve got my Java Programmer and Java Developer certification. I’ve been developing both web and desktop apps using open source tools for quite some time now. Currently I’m using .NET to port over legacy trading systems written in unmanaged C++ to managed C# and let me tell you .NET rocks ! It’s never been more easy to interface different system using .NET. Plus I can make sure there are no nasty suprises when an app runs on NT4, W2K or XP. The apps will all run exactly the same on all platforms. I can interface safely with COM objects written in other languages using .NET’s Interop service and as an added bonus I can show dynamic system stats in a web browser without the need to design new classes to interpret the classes I’m using in the trading system. ASP.NET can tap into my C# code and use any/all data structures the trading system uses. Linux and Open Source are great but developing in the .NET enviornment using M$ tools is quite a treat. I would definately recommend anyone to check it out.
“But, we’re going to have to completely re-write the 60 COM-based applications we have, tens of thousand of lines of code, and do all of the testing and debugging again. Yes, I know people in every department of the company uses these applications and they need them to get anything done, but we can do it. Any takers?”
This argument can be used against any technology evolution then, not only .Net.
Usually no one re-writes all the legacy systems at once, it can be done gradually, by demand. Some applications you can opt to leave them alone, others are naturally replaced with newer versions/implementations (developed on newer platforms), so I can’t understand why use this argument against .Net (or any other technology, for that matter)
Why are there so many articles on this OS News site about .NET? Are a lot of people using .NET? What do they use it for? Is it primarily for web services? Or “rich client applications”, or ASP-like stuff? My friend just took a class on web services at Harvard about wsdl, soap, etc. and it was all done in java. So is .NET mostly for web pages?
Every developer I know is at least evaluating it heavily for upcoming projects.
A few guys are already full board using it for daily work.
It will be a gradual move that might not really take off until Longhorn ships.
I’d say for new project development its great. If you have to maintain or slightly extend existing COM applications I’d say to stay on VS6 for now.
“But, we’re going to have to completely re-write the 60 COM-based applications we have, tens of thousand of lines of code, and do all of the testing and debugging again. Yes, I know people in every department of the company uses these applications and they need them to get anything done, but we can do it. Any takers?”
1) If you have any COM application (written in any language) it will work 100% with .NET via the COM Interop Serivice .NET provides. Once you have created a managed wrapper around your unmanaged code using the type library converter utility you can move data back and forth the COM object no problem. All the data marshalling is taken care for you by the Interop Service. There is very little if no need at all for you to touch your existing COM objects/apps that you have running right now.
2) The 10 of thousands of code you have will be reduced to only thousands because .NET takes care of a lot of things for you that you would have to spend time and energy on in C++ (or any other pre .NET language you were using for Windows development).
3) If someone asks are there any takes for any .NET porting jobs raise you hand as soon as you can. There is plenty of $$$ to be made there.
Heh, I guess my answer is going to be smallfryish compared to the big IT guys posting above me, but I use C# frequently for alot of “small” projects that only have value to me; more recently I’ve been developing a client for a network-based game using C# and its been a joy to use, honestly. I only wish .NET 2.0 would be upon us so I could use the new flow control tools.
Initially tried using Java but “toy” applications loaded so slow it was a PITA to see what happens when I only made minor changes to the code, and I really didn’t want to have to wait so long when I started building UI components on top of the core.
90% of code for Windows will be .NET code very soon.
We use .NET for everything from business management rich windows clients, to ASP.NET HTTP handlers on high performance websites and also a bunch of wsdl webservices. We even have a mission-critical .NET Windows app deployed inside a number of banking institutions.
I couldn’t be happier after working with .NET for the last couple years. It makes writing the intial app a breeze and after deployment you can upgrade end users at the flick of a switch… nothing you couldn’t do with older runtimes, but its just so much more easier when you have a pre-tested and “proven reliable” set of managed libraries to do all the dirty work for you.
“Heh, I guess my answer is going to be smallfryish compared to the big IT guys posting above me, but I use C# frequently for alot of “small” projects that only have value to me; more recently I’ve been developing a client for a network-based game using C# and its been a joy to use, honestly. I only wish .NET 2.0 would be upon us so I could use the new flow control tools.”
Actually you do bring in two very valid points:
1) GUI development is ridicilously easy. You get the same amount of flexability you had when developing your GUI with VB6 and once you are done you have something that is equal in power to C++ that is much more type safe and make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot all in one package. I remember in the not too distant past when my developers were using VB6 to design the GUI and then switch over to C++ to code the “under the hood” stuff. Thanks to C# you have everything in one place now.
2) The GUI one develops with C# is very lightweight and it integrates perfectly into the OS. With Java you could set the style of your widgets to look like native Windows widgets but they weren’t 100% correct. And the performance was a bit sluggish too. I loved Java when it first came out and I had fun with it but when it comes to GUI stuff now I’ve switched to C#. Smaller footprint, overall faster feel and a breeze to throw together something with Visual Studio.
I used to be a hardcore VI guy and I’ve written volumes of code with it but switching to VS made me so much more productive. Once you experience IntelliSense it’s hard to live without it
does that mean that you have the ability to do team programming on a single source document? or is is just a cache phrase?
I think this Visual Team Studio is more about modeling and collaboration, team programming on a single source can be done with Visual Source Safe (that dog), as far as I know.
I read somewhere that this thing was supposed to “replace” Source Safe – essentially its another content management system like Source Safe or CVS, or SVN, just with different paradigm of information manipulation. Pretty cool, I think; I’m getting tired of the whole CVS metaphor and something different might be really neat to play with.
David has obviously never developed a .NET app that used a COM object, so why the lengthy reply with all the FUD about how hard this is or how much rewriting is involved? I’m writing an app in C# right now that uses Corel XMetal, an ActiveX control that was designed to be used on a web page with active scripting. Adding it as a Windows forms control was as easy as installing it on my machine and adding it to my project from the COM tab under project references. No magic, on rewriting. The COM interop system automatically generated a typesafe wrapper assembly around the COM object, and I was able to immediatley start writing code to access the XMetal object model.
Why does OS News post so many articles about .NET? It has nothing to do with who is or isn’t using it at corporation X, and everything to do with how MS has strategically positioned .NET as the central Windows programming model for the future. They’re basically saying, “Goodbye Win32, hello FCL,” for Longhorn. That’s huge, and worthy of analysis. Dispense with the FUD and broad generalizations that could never be proven, and focus on whether or not .NET is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing overall for software development on Windows, and what this means for other platforms.
I just can’t understand all the fuss made over .NET. This is just hype. When it evaporates, people will understand that everything they could ever want from a programming environment is already present in Objective-C and LISP.
Objective-C and LISP : these are the languages of the future. How long until programmers realise that and stop learning “technologies” that just reivent the wheel poorly ?