based on my last few years of microsoft development



.net seems like it is completely different to asp



its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls 

etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself more 

and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms site 

server did. is this the right direction to follow.



sure j2ee sees a similar thing



but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data access 

the more flexibility you have



the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java 

script and if you use ado the data access also



i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace 

techniiques previously



with the .net platform this becomes more difficult



i am interested in everyones thoughts



ben

My thoughts....



.net is completely different from ASP, JSP, CGI, IDC, even Java.



Cross platform totally sucks....Not worth the effort.  Won't pay anymore for

it, may even run from it. Pie in the sky...I could care less.



I am a contract programmer/DBA.  If you want it to work in Linux, I will

architect and write for that, if you want FreeDBS, that too. Microsoft is

ASP, or .NET.  But I won't try and create one solution to do all three.



To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what I

think it is all about.



My $0.02



tc





-----Original Message-----

From: visual_ben@h... [mailto:visual_ben@h...] 

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 10:28 AM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Which direction to go in?



based on my last few years of microsoft development



.net seems like it is completely different to asp



its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls 

etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself more 

and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms site 

server did. is this the right direction to follow.



sure j2ee sees a similar thing



but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data access 

the more flexibility you have



the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java 

script and if you use ado the data access also



i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace 

techniiques previously



with the .net platform this becomes more difficult



i am interested in everyones thoughts



ben

Finally!  Someone who sees the world the way I do.



----- Original Message -----

From: "Todd Carrico" <ToddC@m...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 12:33 PM

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





> My thoughts....

>

> .net is completely different from ASP, JSP, CGI, IDC, even Java.

>

> Cross platform totally sucks....Not worth the effort.  Won't pay anymore

for

> it, may even run from it. Pie in the sky...I could care less.

>

> I am a contract programmer/DBA.  If you want it to work in Linux, I will

> architect and write for that, if you want FreeDBS, that too. Microsoft is

> ASP, or .NET.  But I won't try and create one solution to do all three.

>

> To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what

I

> think it is all about.

>

> My $0.02

>

> tc

>

<snip>

To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what I

think it is all about.

</snip>



Well, some of us have been around long enough to recognize this

argument<grin>.



1. The lang is too high-level for 'real work'

2. It fails to give users the proper control in order to build the best

performing apps

3. There are so many possible ways to compile this high-level stuff on

various platforms, for different hardware setups, that programmers will

never be confident that the low-level code was handled correctly and ther

results will be less than adequte for most solutions.



And these kinds of items were brought up when the world was moving from

assembly-level coding to 'high-level' languages like BASIC and C!!



MCA









-----Original Message-----

From: Chris Kersey [mailto:ckersey@m...]

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 3:56 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





Finally!  Someone who sees the world the way I do.



----- Original Message -----

From: "Todd Carrico" <ToddC@m...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 12:33 PM

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





> My thoughts....

>

> .net is completely different from ASP, JSP, CGI, IDC, even Java.

>

> Cross platform totally sucks....Not worth the effort.  Won't pay anymore

for

> it, may even run from it. Pie in the sky...I could care less.

>

> I am a contract programmer/DBA.  If you want it to work in Linux, I will

> architect and write for that, if you want FreeDBS, that too. Microsoft is

> ASP, or .NET.  But I won't try and create one solution to do all three.

>

> To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what

I

> think it is all about.

>

> My $0.02

>

> tc

>

I suppose history will repeat itself in this case as well...



tc





-----Original Message-----

From: Mike Amundsen [mailto:mike@a...] 

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 2:54 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?



<snip>

To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what I

think it is all about.

</snip>



Well, some of us have been around long enough to recognize this

argument<grin>.



1. The lang is too high-level for 'real work'

2. It fails to give users the proper control in order to build the best

performing apps

3. There are so many possible ways to compile this high-level stuff on

various platforms, for different hardware setups, that programmers will

never be confident that the low-level code was handled correctly and ther

results will be less than adequte for most solutions.



And these kinds of items were brought up when the world was moving from

assembly-level coding to 'high-level' languages like BASIC and C!!



MCA









-----Original Message-----

From: Chris Kersey [mailto:ckersey@m...]

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 3:56 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





Finally!  Someone who sees the world the way I do.



----- Original Message -----

From: "Todd Carrico" <ToddC@m...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 12:33 PM

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





> My thoughts....

>

> .net is completely different from ASP, JSP, CGI, IDC, even Java.

>

> Cross platform totally sucks....Not worth the effort.  Won't pay anymore

for

> it, may even run from it. Pie in the sky...I could care less.

>

> I am a contract programmer/DBA.  If you want it to work in Linux, I will

> architect and write for that, if you want FreeDBS, that too. Microsoft is

> ASP, or .NET.  But I won't try and create one solution to do all three.

>

> To get performance, you have to get close to a platform...And that is what

I

> think it is all about.

>

> My $0.02

>

> tc

>

hehe - got that right.



here's the story pass along to folks nowadays...



When confronted with a recent dramatic change in direction for software

development proposed my Microsoft, one industry pundit told a group of

programmers and project managers:



- it's gonna be too slow

- it's a layer *on top* of the existing OS, so that's dumb

- they've botched up the language so badly that no-one will want to use it

- re-learning all the API calls is something folks will not be willing to do

- why would anyone stop coding for the current platforms that are working

fine for a system as bad and ill-concieved as this?

- by making this change Microsoft is abandoning it's current market for a

'pie-in-the-sky' system that no-one wants and that will never last

- If this actually worked as they imagined, it would put most software

vendors out of business anyway (which it will not - so it's bound to fail)

- either way, this decision my Microsoft is just an indication of how shay

their market share really is and it means that Microsoft will be out of

business in a short time





This was a set of points offered after seeing early demonstrations showing

how Microsoft was going move from DOS to Windows.



MCA

Mike Amundsen

host your .NET Webs at www.EraServer.NET





-----Original Message-----

From: Todd Carrico [mailto:ToddC@m...]

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 5:33 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





I suppose history will repeat itself in this case as well...



tc

Well I don't think you understand or know the whole Dot Net picture. I don't

because it's implications and various implementations are so huge. Someone

put it this way to me; "It's the same as when MS came out with 3.1 to

replace DOS". One simple fact about .NET is you can program a web app in

half the time and much more elegantly using for example code behind and

server controls. After a brief time with JSP and Tomcat, I think I would

shoot myself if I ever had to give up .NET to go back to that paradigm. An

analogous question if you were considering .NET compared to other

programming solutions would be, "Do I want to drive around in a Ford Taurus

or a Ferrari?"  I'll take the Ferrari any day.



- Pete Ehli -



-----Original Message-----

From: visual_ben@h... [mailto:visual_ben@h...]

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 3:28 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Which direction to go in?



based on my last few years of microsoft development



.net seems like it is completely different to asp



its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls

etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself more

and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms site

server did. is this the right direction to follow.



sure j2ee sees a similar thing



but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data access

the more flexibility you have



the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java

script and if you use ado the data access also



i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace

techniiques previously



with the .net platform this becomes more difficult



i am interested in everyones thoughts



ben

Mike,



Fantastic! That one is going into my best-of file.

he he!



yeah, kinda strikes close to home, eh?



MCA



-----Original Message-----

From: Mitch Denny [mailto:mitch.denny@w...]

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 6:47 PM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





Mike,



Fantastic! That one is going into my best-of file.

Mike can I quote you on aspfree.com with that?  That is way to funny for the

java, novell, oracle and any other na sayer.  Why if people hate microsoft

so much just go off and play with their "gadgets" (learned that is a product

btw) and leave us poor MSFT folks alone to play with .NET!





* -----------------------------------------*

* Steve Schofield

* ASPFree.com

* steve@a...

*

* http://www.aspfree.com

* http://www.csharpfree.net

* http://www.abc2xml.com

* -----------------------------------------*

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mike Amundsen" <mike@a...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 4:36 PM

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





> he he!

>

> yeah, kinda strikes close to home, eh?

>

> MCA

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Mitch Denny [mailto:mitch.denny@w...]

> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 6:47 PM

> To: ASP+

> Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?

>

>

> Mike,

>

> Fantastic! That one is going into my best-of file.

Steve:



Feel free to pass along the story on aspfree.



MCA

Mike Amundsen

host your .NET Webs @ www.EraServer.NET





-----Original Message-----

From: Steve Schofield [mailto:steve@a...]

Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 1:19 AM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





Mike can I quote you on aspfree.com with that?  That is way to funny for the

java, novell, oracle and any other na sayer.  Why if people hate microsoft

so much just go off and play with their "gadgets" (learned that is a product

btw) and leave us poor MSFT folks alone to play with .NET!





* -----------------------------------------*

* Steve Schofield

* ASPFree.com

* steve@a...

*

* http://www.aspfree.com

* http://www.csharpfree.net

* http://www.abc2xml.com

* -----------------------------------------*

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mike Amundsen" <mike@a...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 4:36 PM

Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?





> he he!

>

> yeah, kinda strikes close to home, eh?

>

> MCA

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Mitch Denny [mailto:mitch.denny@w...]

> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 6:47 PM

> To: ASP+

> Subject: [aspx] RE: Which direction to go in?

>

>

> Mike,

>

> Fantastic! That one is going into my best-of file.

The only real problem Microsoft face at present is their reliance upon a 

kind of hardware whose future is looking increasingly shaky. The 

PC-server market has for years been underpinned by the home PC market: 

the processors, motherboards, memory and, in large part, the drives, are 

all standard PC components - and cheap for that reason. They're mass 

produced. The reason we have 1 GigaHertz CPUs in the PC world these days 

is Quake 3 Arena, I'm afraid, not Windows 2000 Advanced Server. With the 

collapse in the home PC market, these components have, ironically become 

even cheaper, as they gather dust on shelves. 25-pence-a-Meg for some 

RAM, anyone?



However, what happens when the shelves have emptied? It's worth 

remembering that when the first IBM PCs came out in the mid 80s they cost 

the modern-day equivalent of about 10 thousand dollars each. They were 

specialist items and commanded a specialist price, for that reason. PC 

servers might get real expansive real fast in the next few years, and 

unless Microsoft can shift .NET off them, then they may developing a dead 

end product. Microsoft want developers to stay in the PC world, because 

it's what made them big in the first place, but the future of things like 

Webservices, frankly, looks a lot more like it's going to come off big 

hardware like Sun Microsystems's EU10000, or the IBM Z-servers. Hardware 

can always solve scalability problems better than software can: that's 

the brutal truth of the matter, and if PC-severs become more expensive 

and new developments and advances take longer and longer, they will stop 

being a viable product.



One big UNIX box can potentially be as troublesome to administer as 

trying to run an enormous cluster of PCs, and Microsoft have managed some 

impressive scaleability figures under rigged circumstances, using truely 

vast clusters of PCs. But this image of enormous air conditioned caverns 

full of harware, is what we associate with the mainframe world. Now 

Microsoft are bringing that image into reality in the PC world - what 

goes ariound comes around?



The real problem is that we just don't know how expensive PC-servers will 

eventually become. Clustering them will work, but if the cost of the 

eventual cluster - in terms not only of buying them, but in terms of 

housing them, keeping them cool, keeping them clean and keeping them 

running - is too high, then the boss ain't gonna sign the cheque. He'll 

just rent some space on a Z900 and say to Hell with it. And then you'll 

suddenly be a Java developer again.



For a long time, people have looked at companies like IBM with pity - 

stuck in their mainframe world. What none of them seem to have realised 

is that the mainframe industry in the US alone is worth 60 billion 

dollars a year. People haven't stopped buying mainframes - and IBM 

haven't got any poorer these last two decades - all that happened was a 

temporary blip, in which this slighly funny typewriter-looking thing 

called a PC became big news. Trouble is, people have stopped buying the 

typewriters: no one has stopped buying the mainframes. The differnce 

between .NET and Java, is that Java will run on a mainframe but .NET can 

only run on a typewriter. If you feel secure, developing for the 

typewriter world, and can envisage a future in which vast arrays of 

typewriters sit in air-conditioned caverns, held together with miles and 

miles of cabling, then do so, but I say Microsoft would be well advised 

to shift this .NET thing onto a big-iron operating system, because it's 

too good an idea to let it die out.



These last few weeks we've seen on this list that a lot of you people - 

the first line of customers for .NET - just don't buy the "language 

interoperability" thing, which has been .NET's main selling point. You 

want C#, and nothing else, it seems... maybe because you all know that 

"VB.NET" is just a bizare jumble of ASCII characters, whereas C# is - 

well, it's sharp, isn't it? "The webinterface? Oh we'll leave that to 

those VB.NET monkeys we keep down in the basement, what we want from you 

guys is some real slick database stuff..."



If all you want is C#, then all you want is a cleaner, more streamlined 

Java. The irony is that if Microsoft hadn't gone for language 

interpoerability, we probably wouldn't be waiting for .NET, right now, 

we'd already have it. Maybe it would still be called Visual J++.



Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the problem for .NET, as I see it.



Daniel Walker

Wrox Press



> based on my last few years of microsoft development

> 

> .net seems like it is completely different to asp

> 

> its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls 

> etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself 

more 

> and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms 

site 

> server did. is this the right direction to follow.

> 

> sure j2ee sees a similar thing

> 

> but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data 

access 

> the more flexibility you have

> 

> the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java 

> script and if you use ado the data access also

> 

> i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace 

> techniiques previously

> 

> with the .net platform this becomes more difficult

> 

> i am interested in everyones thoughts

> 

> ben

Daniel,



I can't say that I agree with everything you say,  but you are spot on with

the last two paragraphs... At least from my own personal point of view.



I don't give a damn about cute interfaces, I certainly don't care about how

the layout of the web page is created.  I'm employed as a developer, not a

designer, we have other people to design a web page or a nice user

interface.  I've never met a developer who can also design a pretty

interface that could be used at a professional level.  I don't care about

flash, or DHTML or any of the other things going on around the interface.



My purpose is to produce the business rules,  to create robust validation

techniques,  to access the database in a manner that caters for a scalable

architecture.  So,  my agenda when looking at a language is how best that

allows me to achieve my purpose.  C# on .NET appears at the moment to be the

cleanest appoach, therefore if I want to use .NET, I want more information

about .NET and C#...

I don't give a rats ass about integrating my code with VB (or cobol, pascal,

fortran smalltalk or any one of the number of languages that will supposedly

make an appearance),  yes it's nice to have at last a set of standards for

types,  some might even say inheritance from other languages is useful, but

at the end of the day I'll be working in a company that will choose on a

language (hopefully c#), and in all probability will not even look at the

other languages that exist, it's simply uneconomical to use different

languages within a company, the problems with staff retention and

experienced developer hiring is difficult enough without adding to the

problem with multiple languages and technologies.



I know someone will now write up about it's not the language thats

important, it's the .NET infrastructure, the language is secondary...

Maybe,  but without a language the .NET infrastructure will be unused.



.Net isn't the transient approach that you suggest that allows Microsoft to

slip-into the mainframe world when/if PC servers dissapear,  it's a

desperate attempt by Microsoft to retain developers in their operating

system, Windows.

Let's face it, the last ten years have been hell for developers for Windows,

every couple of months a new technology, API or addition has meant that we

need to take on more information and adapt our system to make better use of

the technology.  The hardest part of this takeup for technology has been the

development tools available.  VC got SDKs and headers for the new technology

(if you were an MSDN subscriber), but you couldn't really use these things

because your mess of an install would just get worse if you start having to

add dynamic libraries and typelibraries for stuff that wasn't even

documented fully. VB had it even worse: Got VB6, stick with Windows 95

technology until we bring out 7, we might just add one or two bits in a

service pack.  So COM+ comes and goes and everyone continues just writing

COM components because thats all VB allows, the world moves on, webservices

start to be talked about...  Without .NET the Microsoft development platform

will not be able to compete in todays modern network enabled world.



Microsoft have a lot gambled on the success of .NET, they are hoping that a

hierachical object based runtime will allow future technologies to be just

slotted in, and the takeup be easier for developers. If this takeup doesn't

happen, then Microsoft could be on it's way to obscurity. God help us, we

might all become Linux developers!



Paul



-----Original Message-----

From: Daniel Walker [mailto:danielw@w...]

Sent: 05 August 2001 13:54

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





The only real problem Microsoft face at present is their reliance upon a

kind of hardware whose future is looking increasingly shaky. The

PC-server market has for years been underpinned by the home PC market:

the processors, motherboards, memory and, in large part, the drives, are

all standard PC components - and cheap for that reason. They're mass

produced. The reason we have 1 GigaHertz CPUs in the PC world these days

is Quake 3 Arena, I'm afraid, not Windows 2000 Advanced Server. With the

collapse in the home PC market, these components have, ironically become

even cheaper, as they gather dust on shelves. 25-pence-a-Meg for some

RAM, anyone?



However, what happens when the shelves have emptied? It's worth

remembering that when the first IBM PCs came out in the mid 80s they cost

the modern-day equivalent of about 10 thousand dollars each. They were

specialist items and commanded a specialist price, for that reason. PC

servers might get real expansive real fast in the next few years, and

unless Microsoft can shift .NET off them, then they may developing a dead

end product. Microsoft want developers to stay in the PC world, because

it's what made them big in the first place, but the future of things like

Webservices, frankly, looks a lot more like it's going to come off big

hardware like Sun Microsystems's EU10000, or the IBM Z-servers. Hardware

can always solve scalability problems better than software can: that's

the brutal truth of the matter, and if PC-severs become more expensive

and new developments and advances take longer and longer, they will stop

being a viable product.



One big UNIX box can potentially be as troublesome to administer as

trying to run an enormous cluster of PCs, and Microsoft have managed some

impressive scaleability figures under rigged circumstances, using truely

vast clusters of PCs. But this image of enormous air conditioned caverns

full of harware, is what we associate with the mainframe world. Now

Microsoft are bringing that image into reality in the PC world - what

goes ariound comes around?



The real problem is that we just don't know how expensive PC-servers will

eventually become. Clustering them will work, but if the cost of the

eventual cluster - in terms not only of buying them, but in terms of

housing them, keeping them cool, keeping them clean and keeping them

running - is too high, then the boss ain't gonna sign the cheque. He'll

just rent some space on a Z900 and say to Hell with it. And then you'll

suddenly be a Java developer again.



For a long time, people have looked at companies like IBM with pity -

stuck in their mainframe world. What none of them seem to have realised

is that the mainframe industry in the US alone is worth 60 billion

dollars a year. People haven't stopped buying mainframes - and IBM

haven't got any poorer these last two decades - all that happened was a

temporary blip, in which this slighly funny typewriter-looking thing

called a PC became big news. Trouble is, people have stopped buying the

typewriters: no one has stopped buying the mainframes. The differnce

between .NET and Java, is that Java will run on a mainframe but .NET can

only run on a typewriter. If you feel secure, developing for the

typewriter world, and can envisage a future in which vast arrays of

typewriters sit in air-conditioned caverns, held together with miles and

miles of cabling, then do so, but I say Microsoft would be well advised

to shift this .NET thing onto a big-iron operating system, because it's

too good an idea to let it die out.



These last few weeks we've seen on this list that a lot of you people -

the first line of customers for .NET - just don't buy the "language

interoperability" thing, which has been .NET's main selling point. You

want C#, and nothing else, it seems... maybe because you all know that

"VB.NET" is just a bizare jumble of ASCII characters, whereas C# is -

well, it's sharp, isn't it? "The webinterface? Oh we'll leave that to

those VB.NET monkeys we keep down in the basement, what we want from you

guys is some real slick database stuff..."



If all you want is C#, then all you want is a cleaner, more streamlined

Java. The irony is that if Microsoft hadn't gone for language

interpoerability, we probably wouldn't be waiting for .NET, right now,

we'd already have it. Maybe it would still be called Visual J++.



Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the problem for .NET, as I see it.



Daniel Walker

Wrox Press



> based on my last few years of microsoft development

>

> .net seems like it is completely different to asp

>

> its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls

> etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself

more

> and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms

site

> server did. is this the right direction to follow.

>

> sure j2ee sees a similar thing

>

> but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data

access

> the more flexibility you have

>

> the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java

> script and if you use ado the data access also

>

> i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace

> techniiques previously

>

> with the .net platform this becomes more difficult

>

> i am interested in everyones thoughts

>

> ben

Wow



When i asked for eveyone views!!! I am so impressed as a young programmer 

to have learned so much!!!



I am interested by the last response regarding the hardware involved. I 

was wondering why .NET couldnt be used on a huge UNIX or solaris platform. 

Why couldnt writer of any language c# vb.net etc use this on unix. I 

understand that microsoft have built there business using the pc market on 

windows operating system (why cant dot net extend beyond just windows at 

the end of the day its all transistors(?)) but what is the issue with huge 

operating systems using .NET if it is a faster more efficient approach. I 

know scalability is perhaps the key concern, i know it bugs me, because 

the acheivement of it covers not only software but hardware, bandwitdh 

etc. but surely if .net is a scalable, easily implemented soloution then 

why can't microsoft allow it to work on unix, linux solaris, atari (only 

joking)



I think this would be something of interest to a younger programmer who 

perhaps has learned to program through microsofts visual studio and doesnt 

have a full grasp of the balance between hardware and software and a full 

understanding of the different operating systems.



Having great fun with dot net sooo much cleaner than the old asp



ben (in tokyo)

Well, firstly, let me say that there are people within Wrox far better 

qualified to comment than myself. I speak only as a private citizen, here.



Let me chuck this into the pot... How many of you don't think Windows is 

a Unix clone? (Those who've watched two site admins use Terminal Services 

to access a Windows Server family desktop over a remote lines

simultaneously and get handed two separate, totally unique images of the 

operating system and the desktop, can answer first ;) ). What stops .NET 

being a big iron product, is. IMO, Language Interoperability - it's big 

selling feature. Certainly, I don't see porting C# and .NET from Windows 

onto another Unix as a big problem. Unixes have been reuniting 

themselves, around the world for the last few years, to the extent that 

it is very easy for operations like KDE, for instance to develop 

consistent interfaces for many flavours of Unix - Solaris, Linux, BSD, 

you name it. If you presented me with a K desktop, today, I'd be puzzled 

to tell you what operating system I was looking at.



One of the other reasons I caution about the big iron servers, is that, 

as they gain prominence, the Boss Man is going to want to deploy on them 

- arguments shmarguments! - he's going to want to deploy on one. The 

problem with pointy haired boss is that he likes BIG STUFF, and if he can 

tell his cronies at the golf club that he's deploying his web content off 

something that calls itself a "Superdome" or has four zeros in its name, 

he'll do it. Pointy Haired Boss likes the word "Mainframe" and trusts the 

word "IBM" far more than he does "Microsoft" - all he knows about 

Microsoft is that it's cool to hate their products and it has something 

to do with wearing blue button down shirts and Chinos. At end of day's 

play, that may be as much of deciding factor as any real scalability 

issues. The "one big box" argument makes sense to pointy haired boss. The 

"space rented on a big box, owned by someone else" argument is even more 

appealing.



Daniel Walker

Wrox Press



> Wow

> 

> When i asked for eveyone views!!! I am so impressed as a young 

programmer 

> to have learned so much!!!

> 

> I am interested by the last response regarding the hardware involved. I 

> was wondering why .NET couldnt be used on a huge UNIX or solaris 

platform. 

> Why couldnt writer of any language c# vb.net etc use this on unix. I 

> understand that microsoft have built there business using the pc market 

on 

> windows operating system (why cant dot net extend beyond just windows 

at 

> the end of the day its all transistors(?)) but what is the issue with 

huge 

> operating systems using .NET if it is a faster more efficient approach. 

I 

> know scalability is perhaps the key concern, i know it bugs me, because 

> the acheivement of it covers not only software but hardware, bandwitdh 

> etc. but surely if .net is a scalable, easily implemented soloution 

then 

> why can't microsoft allow it to work on unix, linux solaris, atari 

(only 

> joking)

> 

> I think this would be something of interest to a younger programmer who 

> perhaps has learned to program through microsofts visual studio and 

doesnt 

> have a full grasp of the balance between hardware and software and a 

full 

> understanding of the different operating systems.

> 

> Having great fun with dot net sooo much cleaner than the old asp

> 

> ben (in tokyo)

Daniel,



Microsoft is positioning its software to interoperate and utilize these

other systems (AS400, Mainframes, etc.) by developing gateway products such

as Host Integration Server and Biztalk Server. So, companies will not need

to maintain many PC servers if they don't want to and they will still be

able to utilize Microsoft's other great server products such as Internet

Security and Acceleration Server

(http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/productinfo/overview.htm), Commerce

Server (http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/productinfo/), Content

Management Server (http://www.microsoft.com/cmserver/), etc. using a small

number of PC servers.



Why has the home PC market "collapsed" as you put it? Well, the economy is

not doing well and people have started to spend less money as a result.

That's not the only reason but it's certainly a very important point to

consider when analyzing declining PC sales. Also, PC sales of the higher end

machines has actually gone up.....even more evidence that the economy is as

much to blame for declining PC sales (the lower down the income chain you go

the more you see a decline in spending overall - people with above average

incomes are still buying PCs). I think it is also worth mentioning that we

are also entering a time where PC sales *should* start to decline because

only so many people will buy PCs. At some point, we should see more people

upgrading their PCs than people buying new PCs.



PC hardware has not gotten cheaper because it's not selling.....it's gotten

cheaper because they are producing more of it now than ever. Also, many of

the products being produced have been available for some time so we are no

longer paying for R&D. For a few years, most peripherals were very expensive

because they were all new! This is not the case anymore. Look at the cost of

harddrives - 6 years ago a 400mb hard drive might have cost you $500.

Obviously, the price for hard drives has gone down exponentially. This is

not because hard drives are sitting on shelves - it's because of advances in

technology (much of this has to do with advances in production technology).

The same principle can be applied to RAM.



I'm baffled as to why you feel PC servers will get real expensive real fast

over the next years. What leads you to believe that?



You seem to think that the future of .NET and Web Services is on IBM and Sun

hardware. Well, neither of them has been on the Web Services hunt as long as

Microsoft has so I hope they start considering Web Services when they design

their hardware. Your statement about scaling with hardware is only partially

correct. You can only add so much RAM and so many CPUs into a single

machine. Once your single machine can no longer have hardware added you

begin to add more machines - regardless of machine type....PC Server box,

Sun box, AS400 etc. So, I pose this question to you - Would you rather

maintain a cluster of PC servers, Sun Solaris machines, or IBM mainframes? I

am pretty sure that if you took all costs into consideration of a task as

big as clustering those machines you would see that it is much cheaper to

maintain the cluster of PC servers. Have you seen Microsoft's Application

Center 2000

(http://www.microsoft.com/applicationcenter/evaluation/overview/default.asp)

? Awesome product. Check it out if you are curious about a scalable and

maintainable Windows clustering solution.



You mention some rigged test, performance metrics, etc. Do you have any

links to provide some hard evidence of that?



We DO know how much it cost to cluster PC servers. People do it all the

time. E-Commerce sites like http://www.bn.com and http://www.zagat.com are

running on PC server clusters (web server and SQL Server clusters are used).

Want to know how much it costs to cluster PC servers then head on over to

http://www.orcsweb.com (premiere web hosting company) for a free quote. For

a slew of case studies showcasing successful clustering projects check out

http://www.microsoft.com/servers/evaluation/casestudies/default.asp.



This $60 billion dollars of mainframe sales that you indicate does not

differentiate between new buyers and those who are upgrading/replacing aging

systems. There is no doubt that a significant number of companies bought

into mainframe systems 25 years ago. In fact, many companies have so much

money invested in these machines that it is difficult to stomach the cost of

a mainframe to PC server transition. Fortunately, Microsoft has created two

great products to help augment the transition from a mainframe environment

to a PC environment - Host Integration Server

(http://www.microsoft.com/hiserver/evaluation/overview/default.asp) and

BizTalk Server

(http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/overview/default.asp).



I do think it would be neat to see the .NET environment on many platforms

but I'm not sure it's technically or economically feasible for Microsoft to

undertake such an endeavor. Time will only tell I suppose.



I think you might be a little off in saying that language interoperability

is *the* main selling point of .NET. I would say that the main selling point

is different for different audiences. Developers are not the target audience

for language interoperability. CIOs and IS managers (people who are

concerned with technology migrations over time) are probably a more

convinced audience. Another selling point for CIOs and IS managers are web

services. Your right - developers, on the other hand, are concerned with the

whiz bang features of ADO.NET and the new .NET framework class structure -

that is their selling point.



C# is very slick. It is much like Java. It will likely be adopted as the de

facto .NET language by many companies. However, I think you are making a

some unfair statements regarding VB.NET - "VB.NET is just a bizare jumble of

ASCII characters...". This statement is pretty humorous considering the

number of professional VB developers (estimated 3,000,000 worldwide).

Significantly higher than any other language available. I think it would be

a mistake to assume that a significant number of those developers *will*

make the transition to VB.NET. VB.NET is quite different from VB6 but it is

still a great improvement. VB developers have a lot of new concepts to

learn. Is it unreasonable to ask professional developers to learn new

concepts? Not as long as you give them the required time to do so. Microsoft

has been saying all along that you should not upgrade your VB projects to

VB.NET unless you have something to gain feature wise. Also, saying that

VB.NET developers will be creating web interfaces is just a weak slap in the

face of VB developers and really doesn't make any sense. Remember, VB.NET is

no longer a second class citizen. VB.NET has all of the OO capabilities it

once lacked. It also has access to all the .NET Framework just as C# does.

So, we no longer have the C++ and VB6/API woes of the past. It sounds like

you need to do some research on VB.NET before you go bashing it.



Language interoperability may not be a highly utilized feature of .NET. It's

way to early to say. I can confidently say that (IMHO) it will entice some

non-Windows platform shops to consider .NET. I'm pretty sure that deep down

in the marketing hype you would find that this is one of the big reasons for

language interoperability in the .NET environment.



My 2 cents....ok my 5 dollars.



Alex - Asplists.com Moderation Team

http://www.aspalliance.com/aldotnet

http://www.asp-grandrapids.net

Paul,



Cute interfaces? I have to say that your not much of a developer if you

don't care about interfaces. The whole point of any application is that it

is easy to use for the end user and that they can get done whatever it is in

the shortest amount of time, its called productivity. The whole reason why

we develop applications is that users can get information they need or

accomplish some task that took them longer in the past. The user doesn't

give a rats ass that you created some n-tier application that does this and

that. All they care about is making their job easier.



Sorry about the rant but some of the e-mails from this list-serv have really

irked me.



Mark A. Struck

struckm@a...





-----Original Message-----

From: Paul Birch [mailto:paulbirch@b...]

Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 9:18 AM

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





Daniel,



I can't say that I agree with everything you say,  but you are spot on with

the last two paragraphs... At least from my own personal point of view.



I don't give a damn about cute interfaces, I certainly don't care about how

the layout of the web page is created.  I'm employed as a developer, not a

designer, we have other people to design a web page or a nice user

interface.  I've never met a developer who can also design a pretty

interface that could be used at a professional level.  I don't care about

flash, or DHTML or any of the other things going on around the interface.



My purpose is to produce the business rules,  to create robust validation

techniques,  to access the database in a manner that caters for a scalable

architecture.  So,  my agenda when looking at a language is how best that

allows me to achieve my purpose.  C# on .NET appears at the moment to be the

cleanest appoach, therefore if I want to use .NET, I want more information

about .NET and C#...

I don't give a rats ass about integrating my code with VB (or cobol, pascal,

fortran smalltalk or any one of the number of languages that will supposedly

make an appearance),  yes it's nice to have at last a set of standards for

types,  some might even say inheritance from other languages is useful, but

at the end of the day I'll be working in a company that will choose on a

language (hopefully c#), and in all probability will not even look at the

other languages that exist, it's simply uneconomical to use different

languages within a company, the problems with staff retention and

experienced developer hiring is difficult enough without adding to the

problem with multiple languages and technologies.



I know someone will now write up about it's not the language thats

important, it's the .NET infrastructure, the language is secondary...

Maybe,  but without a language the .NET infrastructure will be unused.



.Net isn't the transient approach that you suggest that allows Microsoft to

slip-into the mainframe world when/if PC servers dissapear,  it's a

desperate attempt by Microsoft to retain developers in their operating

system, Windows.

Let's face it, the last ten years have been hell for developers for Windows,

every couple of months a new technology, API or addition has meant that we

need to take on more information and adapt our system to make better use of

the technology.  The hardest part of this takeup for technology has been the

development tools available.  VC got SDKs and headers for the new technology

(if you were an MSDN subscriber), but you couldn't really use these things

because your mess of an install would just get worse if you start having to

add dynamic libraries and typelibraries for stuff that wasn't even

documented fully. VB had it even worse: Got VB6, stick with Windows 95

technology until we bring out 7, we might just add one or two bits in a

service pack.  So COM+ comes and goes and everyone continues just writing

COM components because thats all VB allows, the world moves on, webservices

start to be talked about...  Without .NET the Microsoft development platform

will not be able to compete in todays modern network enabled world.



Microsoft have a lot gambled on the success of .NET, they are hoping that a

hierachical object based runtime will allow future technologies to be just

slotted in, and the takeup be easier for developers. If this takeup doesn't

happen, then Microsoft could be on it's way to obscurity. God help us, we

might all become Linux developers!



Paul



-----Original Message-----

From: Daniel Walker [mailto:danielw@w...]

Sent: 05 August 2001 13:54

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





The only real problem Microsoft face at present is their reliance upon a

kind of hardware whose future is looking increasingly shaky. The

PC-server market has for years been underpinned by the home PC market:

the processors, motherboards, memory and, in large part, the drives, are

all standard PC components - and cheap for that reason. They're mass

produced. The reason we have 1 GigaHertz CPUs in the PC world these days

is Quake 3 Arena, I'm afraid, not Windows 2000 Advanced Server. With the

collapse in the home PC market, these components have, ironically become

even cheaper, as they gather dust on shelves. 25-pence-a-Meg for some

RAM, anyone?



However, what happens when the shelves have emptied? It's worth

remembering that when the first IBM PCs came out in the mid 80s they cost

the modern-day equivalent of about 10 thousand dollars each. They were

specialist items and commanded a specialist price, for that reason. PC

servers might get real expansive real fast in the next few years, and

unless Microsoft can shift .NET off them, then they may developing a dead

end product. Microsoft want developers to stay in the PC world, because

it's what made them big in the first place, but the future of things like

Webservices, frankly, looks a lot more like it's going to come off big

hardware like Sun Microsystems's EU10000, or the IBM Z-servers. Hardware

can always solve scalability problems better than software can: that's

the brutal truth of the matter, and if PC-severs become more expensive

and new developments and advances take longer and longer, they will stop

being a viable product.



One big UNIX box can potentially be as troublesome to administer as

trying to run an enormous cluster of PCs, and Microsoft have managed some

impressive scaleability figures under rigged circumstances, using truely

vast clusters of PCs. But this image of enormous air conditioned caverns

full of harware, is what we associate with the mainframe world. Now

Microsoft are bringing that image into reality in the PC world - what

goes ariound comes around?



The real problem is that we just don't know how expensive PC-servers will

eventually become. Clustering them will work, but if the cost of the

eventual cluster - in terms not only of buying them, but in terms of

housing them, keeping them cool, keeping them clean and keeping them

running - is too high, then the boss ain't gonna sign the cheque. He'll

just rent some space on a Z900 and say to Hell with it. And then you'll

suddenly be a Java developer again.



For a long time, people have looked at companies like IBM with pity -

stuck in their mainframe world. What none of them seem to have realised

is that the mainframe industry in the US alone is worth 60 billion

dollars a year. People haven't stopped buying mainframes - and IBM

haven't got any poorer these last two decades - all that happened was a

temporary blip, in which this slighly funny typewriter-looking thing

called a PC became big news. Trouble is, people have stopped buying the

typewriters: no one has stopped buying the mainframes. The differnce

between .NET and Java, is that Java will run on a mainframe but .NET can

only run on a typewriter. If you feel secure, developing for the

typewriter world, and can envisage a future in which vast arrays of

typewriters sit in air-conditioned caverns, held together with miles and

miles of cabling, then do so, but I say Microsoft would be well advised

to shift this .NET thing onto a big-iron operating system, because it's

too good an idea to let it die out.



These last few weeks we've seen on this list that a lot of you people -

the first line of customers for .NET - just don't buy the "language

interoperability" thing, which has been .NET's main selling point. You

want C#, and nothing else, it seems... maybe because you all know that

"VB.NET" is just a bizare jumble of ASCII characters, whereas C# is -

well, it's sharp, isn't it? "The webinterface? Oh we'll leave that to

those VB.NET monkeys we keep down in the basement, what we want from you

guys is some real slick database stuff..."



If all you want is C#, then all you want is a cleaner, more streamlined

Java. The irony is that if Microsoft hadn't gone for language

interpoerability, we probably wouldn't be waiting for .NET, right now,

we'd already have it. Maybe it would still be called Visual J++.



Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the problem for .NET, as I see it.



Daniel Walker

Wrox Press



> based on my last few years of microsoft development

>

> .net seems like it is completely different to asp

>

> its not just a platform for certain languages. by using server controls

> etc configured with xml snippets and documents you are tying yourself

more

> and more to microsoft with the sites that are developed much like ms

site

> server did. is this the right direction to follow.

>

> sure j2ee sees a similar thing

>

> but the more your code is seperated from the display layer and data

access

> the more flexibility you have

>

> the new stuff makes tou rely more on ms for html form elements and java

> script and if you use ado the data access also

>

> i could always convert my asp apps to jsp easily using find and relpace

> techniiques previously

>

> with the .net platform this becomes more difficult

>

> i am interested in everyones thoughts

>

> ben

Mark,



You're at the wrong end of the diatribe...  The whole reason that .NET is

currently being produced, the whole reason that there is a need for .NET to

exist is to ensure that the middle and back end tiers work in a scalable

fashion that doesn't break with every version change, and are able to exist

and implement with modern technologies and hardware easier.



The whole point to ASP.NET is that the interface is seperated from the code

allowing designers to go off and do their thing, and me to implement my

stuff without messing up all the fancy graphics.



I'm a developer, thats what I do,  I don't even pretend to be able to

produce a polished interface that would be presentable to a user (I probably

couldnt get two text-boxes and a button on a form to look professional).

Thats why we have designers, thats why I don't give a "rats ass" about the

interface, it's not the domain I need to provide an interest about it, I

worry about the data and validation instead...



And if you think .NET is about the interface, think again... there are much

better tools out there that provide the designer with easier and faster

means of producing the pretty graphics and links.  Flash, Dreamweaver, hell

even Front Page. Go on, ask a designer what tools they prefer.



The user doesn't care about anything but one tier, I agree, but if the other

tiers are developed crudely then all of a sudden that first tier doesn't

seem to have it's sparkle or professionalism anymore.  Thats what .NET is

for,  you dont use SOAP directly from the UI, ADO.NET doesnt sit there, WEB

services are not UI based.  The middle two tiers are predominantly the

domain of .NET.



The UI?  you might as well have continued with Interdev, that had about the

same functionality that you see  currently in VisualStudio.NET



The only concrete thing going for .NET on the UI front at the moment is the

proposed inter browser compatibility,  and guess what, to make that work

properly with anything but the base microsoft components you will need

someone like me, a developer.







-----Original Message-----

From: Mark A. Struck [mailto:struckm@a...]

Sent: 05 August 2001 23:20

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





Paul,



Cute interfaces? I have to say that your not much of a developer if you

don't care about interfaces. The whole point of any application is that it

is easy to use for the end user and that they can get done whatever it is in

the shortest amount of time, its called productivity. The whole reason why

we develop applications is that users can get information they need or

accomplish some task that took them longer in the past. The user doesn't

give a rats ass that you created some n-tier application that does this and

that. All they care about is making their job easier.



Sorry about the rant but some of the e-mails from this list-serv have really

irked me.



Mark A. Struck

struckm@a...

Just ONE correction, inline with ***



-----Original Message-----

From: Paul Birch [mailto:paulbirch@b...]

Sent: Montag, 6. August 2001 02:15

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?



Mark,



<...>

The UI?  you might as well have continued with Interdev, that had about

the

same functionality that you see  currently in VisualStudio.NET



*** NO NO NO :-) We are creating a framework for visual inheritance in

websites, and are just now building full visual integration into VS7.

This would not have been possible in Interdev - VS7 is a great editor,

extremely extensible.



The only concrete thing going for .NET on the UI front at the moment is

the

proposed inter browser compatibility,  and guess what, to make that work

properly with anything but the base microsoft components you will need

someone like me, a developer.



*** Full acknowledgement. On all other points, btw.



Thomas Tomiczek

THONA Consulting Ltd.

All I'm trying to do is make you think outside the (beige) box.



I can see a future in which there is actually more, not less, web-enabled 

electronics in the home - most of it probably Microsoft stuff, because 

they're great at making stuff for the home consumer. In many ways .NET 

will always survive in that environment and it's interoperablility with 

the big iron will help to ensure that. Microsoft have always been good at 

implementing protocols in their software, despite what others may say. 



What I don't see, however, is a future for the home PC. The problem with 

the home PC is that it's too clunky. It needs it's own room, for goodness 

sake! There's a desk and chair rendered useless by this big chunk of 

beige stuff. I currently own a PC, but it's a bit like having your own 

mainframe, isn't it? It takes up a lot of space, it's untidy and its 

ugly. If I could replace it with a smaller gadget I would, because the 

only work I do at home needs nothing more than a browser. I suspect a lot 

of home users are thinking that way. They've bought a computer and 

discovered that they don't need one - they only need what it can do.



Most home PC users need:

A browser

A mail client

Maybe a word processor

Perhaps spreadsheets



If they're retired, they probably don't need the last two.



Anything else - like games - is better delivered off a dedicated console, 

hand-held, small gadget, whatever - I think .NET in the small gadget 

world has a guaranteed future, because it's neater than Java. This is 

slightly ironic, since Java started out in the small gadget world and 

evolved onto (mainframe) servers. .NET started out on servers and may end 

as the default standard for small gadgets.



Dan



> Daniel,

> 

> Microsoft is positioning its software to interoperate and utilize these

> other systems (AS400, Mainframes, etc.) by developing gateway products 

such

> as Host Integration Server and Biztalk Server. So, companies will not 

need

> to maintain many PC servers if they don't want to and they will still be

> able to utilize Microsoft's other great server products such as Internet

> Security and Acceleration Server

> (http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/productinfo/overview.htm), Commerce

> Server (http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/productinfo/), Content

> Management Server (http://www.microsoft.com/cmserver/), etc. using a 

small

> number of PC servers.

> 

> Why has the home PC market "collapsed" as you put it? Well, the economy 

is

> not doing well and people have started to spend less money as a result.

> That's not the only reason but it's certainly a very important point to

> consider when analyzing declining PC sales. Also, PC sales of the 

higher end

> machines has actually gone up.....even more evidence that the economy 

is as

> much to blame for declining PC sales (the lower down the income chain 

you go

> the more you see a decline in spending overall - people with above 

average

> incomes are still buying PCs). I think it is also worth mentioning that 

we

> are also entering a time where PC sales *should* start to decline 

because

> only so many people will buy PCs. At some point, we should see more 

people

> upgrading their PCs than people buying new PCs.

> 

> PC hardware has not gotten cheaper because it's not selling.....it's 

gotten

> cheaper because they are producing more of it now than ever. Also, many 

of

> the products being produced have been available for some time so we are 

no

> longer paying for R&D. For a few years, most peripherals were very 

expensive

> because they were all new! This is not the case anymore. Look at the 

cost of

> harddrives - 6 years ago a 400mb hard drive might have cost you $500.

> Obviously, the price for hard drives has gone down exponentially. This 

is

> not because hard drives are sitting on shelves - it's because of 

advances in

> technology (much of this has to do with advances in production 

technology).

> The same principle can be applied to RAM.

> 

> I'm baffled as to why you feel PC servers will get real expensive real 

fast

> over the next years. What leads you to believe that?

> 

> You seem to think that the future of .NET and Web Services is on IBM 

and Sun

> hardware. Well, neither of them has been on the Web Services hunt as 

long as

> Microsoft has so I hope they start considering Web Services when they 

design

> their hardware. Your statement about scaling with hardware is only 

partially

> correct. You can only add so much RAM and so many CPUs into a single

> machine. Once your single machine can no longer have hardware added you

> begin to add more machines - regardless of machine type....PC Server 

box,

> Sun box, AS400 etc. So, I pose this question to you - Would you rather

> maintain a cluster of PC servers, Sun Solaris machines, or IBM 

mainframes? I

> am pretty sure that if you took all costs into consideration of a task 

as

> big as clustering those machines you would see that it is much cheaper 

to

> maintain the cluster of PC servers. Have you seen Microsoft's 

Application

> Center 2000

> 

(http://www.microsoft.com/applicationcenter/evaluation/overview/default.asp)

> ? Awesome product. Check it out if you are curious about a scalable and

> maintainable Windows clustering solution.

> 

> You mention some rigged test, performance metrics, etc. Do you have any

> links to provide some hard evidence of that?

> 

> We DO know how much it cost to cluster PC servers. People do it all the

> time. E-Commerce sites like http://www.bn.com and http://www.zagat.com 

are

> running on PC server clusters (web server and SQL Server clusters are 

used).

> Want to know how much it costs to cluster PC servers then head on over 

to

> http://www.orcsweb.com (premiere web hosting company) for a free quote. 

For

> a slew of case studies showcasing successful clustering projects check 

out

> http://www.microsoft.com/servers/evaluation/casestudies/default.asp.

> 

> This $60 billion dollars of mainframe sales that you indicate does not

> differentiate between new buyers and those who are upgrading/replacing 

aging

> systems. There is no doubt that a significant number of companies bought

> into mainframe systems 25 years ago. In fact, many companies have so 

much

> money invested in these machines that it is difficult to stomach the 

cost of

> a mainframe to PC server transition. Fortunately, Microsoft has created 

two

> great products to help augment the transition from a mainframe 

environment

> to a PC environment - Host Integration Server

> (http://www.microsoft.com/hiserver/evaluation/overview/default.asp) and

> BizTalk Server

> (http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/overview/default.asp).

> 

> I do think it would be neat to see the .NET environment on many 

platforms

> but I'm not sure it's technically or economically feasible for 

Microsoft to

> undertake such an endeavor. Time will only tell I suppose.

> 

> I think you might be a little off in saying that language 

interoperability

> is *the* main selling point of .NET. I would say that the main selling 

point

> is different for different audiences. Developers are not the target 

audience

> for language interoperability. CIOs and IS managers (people who are

> concerned with technology migrations over time) are probably a more

> convinced audience. Another selling point for CIOs and IS managers are 

web

> services. Your right - developers, on the other hand, are concerned 

with the

> whiz bang features of ADO.NET and the new .NET framework class 

structure -

> that is their selling point.

> 

> C# is very slick. It is much like Java. It will likely be adopted as 

the de

> facto .NET language by many companies. However, I think you are making a

> some unfair statements regarding VB.NET - "VB.NET is just a bizare 

jumble of

> ASCII characters...". This statement is pretty humorous considering the

> number of professional VB developers (estimated 3,000,000 worldwide).

> Significantly higher than any other language available. I think it 

would be

> a mistake to assume that a significant number of those developers *will*

> make the transition to VB.NET. VB.NET is quite different from VB6 but 

it is

> still a great improvement. VB developers have a lot of new concepts to

> learn. Is it unreasonable to ask professional developers to learn new

> concepts? Not as long as you give them the required time to do so. 

Microsoft

> has been saying all along that you should not upgrade your VB projects 

to

> VB.NET unless you have something to gain feature wise. Also, saying that

> VB.NET developers will be creating web interfaces is just a weak slap 

in the

> face of VB developers and really doesn't make any sense. Remember, 

VB.NET is

> no longer a second class citizen. VB.NET has all of the OO capabilities 

it

> once lacked. It also has access to all the .NET Framework just as C# 

does.

> So, we no longer have the C++ and VB6/API woes of the past. It sounds 

like

> you need to do some research on VB.NET before you go bashing it.

> 

> Language interoperability may not be a highly utilized feature of .NET. 

It's

> way to early to say. I can confidently say that (IMHO) it will entice 

some

> non-Windows platform shops to consider .NET. I'm pretty sure that deep 

down

> in the marketing hype you would find that this is one of the big 

reasons for

> language interoperability in the .NET environment.

> 

> My 2 cents....ok my 5 dollars.

> 

> Alex - Asplists.com Moderation Team

> http://www.aspalliance.com/aldotnet

> http://www.asp-grandrapids.net

> 

Daniel, inline:



-----Original Message-----

From: Daniel Walker [mailto:danielw@w...]

Sent: Montag, 6. August 2001 13:57

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?



<...>

What I don't see, however, is a future for the home PC. The problem with



the home PC is that it's too clunky. It needs it's own room, for

goodness



*** I have heard this 5 years ago, and I think I will hear this in 5

years - and nothing will change. Sorry. A lot of people use the PC for

WORK or LEARNING, and then they really want it in a "worklike" setup. I

can not imagine a PC in "the tv", sorry. Maybe I will get an Xbox, but

that's another case.



sake! There's a desk and chair rendered useless by this big chunk of

beige stuff. I currently own a PC, but it's a bit like having your own

mainframe, isn't it? It takes up a lot of space, it's untidy and its



*** Maybe it will change? TFT displays, and integrating the PC with the

monitor can really redule the size, you know. It will, though, still be

a PC.



ugly. If I could replace it with a smaller gadget I would, because the

only work I do at home needs nothing more than a browser. I suspect a

lot

of home users are thinking that way. They've bought a computer and

discovered that they don't need one - they only need what it can do.



Most home PC users need:

A browser

A mail client

Maybe a word processor

Perhaps spreadsheets



*** And you forget the number one: A powerful computer for playing

games.



If they're retired, they probably don't need the last two.



*** No, but the games.



Anything else - like games - is better delivered off a dedicated

console,

hand-held, small gadget, whatever - I think .NET in the small gadget



*** No. Sorry. It has been prven by now that console and computer gamers

are two different markets.



Thomas Tomiczek

THONA Consulting Ltd.

Paul,



Read Mark's email again. At no point does he say that the reason .NET is

currently being produced is for the UI/front end/designers. He is simply

saying that your view on application development is rather narrow minded.

Mark was saying that both parts are important to the end user - one without

the other is failure.



Also, saying that "The whole point to ASP.NET is that the interface is

seperated from the code...." is a misnomer. That is *one* point to be made.

On top of that, Microsoft has publicly said that there are no performance

gains of any kind to using the code behind technique. Microsoft is saying it

is simply a "personal preference". There are at least five major points to

ASP.NET that are greater than code behind techniques - to me. Remember that

we don't ALL do the exact same work. One person's favorite feature is not

always the next guys.



ALL software development is as much about the interface as it is about the

back end data access layer, business logic layer, etc. They go hand in hand

and as I said earlier, one without the other is a failure.



Alex - Asplists.com Moderation Team

http://www.aspalliance.com/aldotnet

http://www.asp-grandrapids.net



----- Original Message -----

From: "Paul Birch" <paulbirch@b...>

To: "ASP+" <aspx@p...>

Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 8:14 PM

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





Mark,



You're at the wrong end of the diatribe...  The whole reason that .NET is

currently being produced, the whole reason that there is a need for .NET to

exist is to ensure that the middle and back end tiers work in a scalable

fashion that doesn't break with every version change, and are able to exist

and implement with modern technologies and hardware easier.



The whole point to ASP.NET is that the interface is seperated from the code

allowing designers to go off and do their thing, and me to implement my

stuff without messing up all the fancy graphics.



I'm a developer, thats what I do,  I don't even pretend to be able to

produce a polished interface that would be presentable to a user (I probably

couldnt get two text-boxes and a button on a form to look professional).

Thats why we have designers, thats why I don't give a "rats ass" about the

interface, it's not the domain I need to provide an interest about it, I

worry about the data and validation instead...



And if you think .NET is about the interface, think again... there are much

better tools out there that provide the designer with easier and faster

means of producing the pretty graphics and links.  Flash, Dreamweaver, hell

even Front Page. Go on, ask a designer what tools they prefer.



The user doesn't care about anything but one tier, I agree, but if the 

other tiers are developed crudely then all of a sudden that first tier 

doesn't seem to have it's sparkle or professionalism anymore.  Thats 

what .NET is for,  you dont use SOAP directly from the UI, ADO.NET doesnt 

sit there, WEB services are not UI based.  The middle two tiers are 

predominantly the domain of .NET.



The UI?  you might as well have continued with Interdev, that had about the

same functionality that you see  currently in VisualStudio.NET



The only concrete thing going for .NET on the UI front at the moment is the

proposed inter browser compatibility,  and guess what, to make that work

properly with anything but the base microsoft components you will need

someone like me, a developer.







-----Original Message-----

From: Mark A. Struck [mailto:struckm@a...]

Sent: 05 August 2001 23:20

To: ASP+

Subject: [aspx] Re: Which direction to go in?





Paul,



Cute interfaces? I have to say that your not much of a developer if you

don't care about interfaces. The whole point of any application is that it

is easy to use for the end user and that they can get done whatever it is 

in the shortest amount of time, its called productivity. The whole reason 

why we develop applications is that users can get information they need or

accomplish some task that took them longer in the past. The user doesn't

give a rats ass that you created some n-tier application that does this and

that. All they care about is making their job easier.



Sorry about the rant but some of the e-mails from this list-serv have really irked me.



Mark A. Struck