Is .NET really a generation ahead of anything else?

[Spacehamster]

First, some background. Our Department is deciding on whether or not to migrate to ASP.NET or JSP over the next few years. We've already developed a major JSP-based application with mixed success. And I've dabbled (painfully) with JSP/Tomcat/Eclipse while creating a prototype web application. Although it really doesn't help when your Team Leader insists on designing all their webpage layouts in Microsoft Paint rather than...say...Macromedia Dreamweaver.

One of my colleagues used .NET in her previous job, and demonstrated it for us. I was really impressed. There are so many things that would take days for a newbie like me to code in JSP (eg. tabs and pagination) that takes less than a day to develop in .NET.

I read this comment in an article :

Much as I hate to say it, a huge chunk of developers have long since moved to the web and refuse to move back. Most .NET developers are ASP.NET developers, developing for Microsoft's web server. ASP.NET is brilliant; I've been working with web development for ten years and it's really just a generation ahead of everything out there. But it's a server technology, so clients can use any kind of desktop they want. And it runs pretty well under Linux using Mono.

My question to other developers with more experience with .NET - Is it really a generation ahead of anything else out there? And (apart from the obvious), what less-obvious benefits will our Department get if they migrate from ASP/VB6 to .NET?

[eSPiYa]

...And it runs pretty well under Linux using Mono

They already implemented .NET1.1 in MONO, while .NET2.0 is in around 80%.
They are planning to implement .NET3.0's features (or a sub group started implement some features of .NET3.0 but still unreliable).

What good in .NET is not the framework itself, just the IDE.
.NET Framework is originally develop for Microsoft products only, MONO developers just hacked it (the .NET) to obtain multi/cross-platform development.
Microsoft's products are very expensive and it is not good in business.

[Merrion]

The .VS 2005 IDE is the best I've ever used from a productivity standpoint and the framework provides nearly all the stuff you need out of the box so you don't spend an agre reinventing the wheel.

If you include the team system stuff in your calculation it is probably the most productive development toolset available so yes, it is a generation ahead of anything else.

[RhinoBull]

They already implemented .NET1.1 in MONO, while .NET2.0 is in around 80%...

Why not just use the NATIVE environment???

...What good in .NET is not the framework itself, just the IDE...

That's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time.

...Microsoft's products are very expensive and it is not good in business.

Sais who?

You don't build your business on some cheap product with questionable support - you build it on reliable and solid foundation. It's very rare (if that happens at all) when [Cheap/Lots of functionalities/Good Support] all come together in one package.
Expensive? Yes, but it's your investments that you plan on making some profit off...

[techgnome]

What good in .NET is not the framework itself, just the IDE.

As RB said, that's the silliest thing I've heard in a long time.

.NET Framework is originally develop for Microsoft products only, MONO developers just hacked it (the .NET) to obtain multi/cross-platform development.

It wasn't "hacked" ... Microsoft gave it up. Seriously. It may not be open source, but the specs are available to anyone who wants to build the .NET Framework for other platforms. It was part of the plan right from the start.

Microsoft's products are very expensive and it is not good in business.

Second silliest thing I've ever heard.

-tg

[CornedBee]

JSF, the Java Server Faces, are an extension to the servlet specification (of which JSP is a part too) that closely mimic the ASP.Net development model, i.e. treating a web application like a normal one.

Now IMO that's a very stupid idea to begin with, but apparently it's productive, so who am I to argue. I've never used ASP.Net or JSF beyond small sample applications, where I didn't like the style at all, so I can't claim that I'm experienced with either.

However, some things occur to me:
1) JSF is a bit younger than ASP.Net, so chances are that they learned from mistakes made in ASP.Net.
2) JSF implementations generally generate better (read: more standards-compliant, more accessible, more cross-browser compatible) client-side code than MS's ASP.Net implementation.
3) There are more JSF implementations (I found four: Sun's reference implementation, Apache's MyFaces, Simplica's ECruiser, and smile, another open-source implementation) than ASP.Net implementations (two: MS's and Mono's). This means less vendor-lock-in. Also, JSF is a public specification, whereas ASP.Net is a proprietary development by MS, and projects like Mono can achieve compatibility only by mimicking behaviour.
4) Wikipedia claims (and I'm inclined to believe) that JSF introduces less coupling between logic and presentation than ASP. It is my experience that this separation is absolutely crucial to any mid- to large-scale project.
5) If you have no experience with JSF, that may be a hindrance, whereas you apparently have at least one experienced ASP developer. On the other hand, most of your developers seem to have Java experience and lack C# experience.
6) A WYSIWYG editor for ASP.Net is readily available. The same thing cannot be said for JSF - although I think there's something available, an Eclipse or NetBeans plugin perhaps, it is definitely not at the same level of maturity. On the other hand, WYSIWYG on the web is an illusion leading to horrible client-side code and browser incompatibilities.

Just my thoughts.

[RhinoBull]

...My question to other developers with more experience with .NET - Is it really a generation ahead of anything else out there? And (apart from the obvious), what less-obvious benefits will our Department get if they migrate from ASP/VB6 to .NET?

Sorry I concentrated on the reply rather than original question earlier...
Anyway, in short what you guys will most definitely gain by "moving" to .NET is

FIRST EVER (AND WORLD CLASS) TRUE ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT

for all you need to do Web based and/or Desktop apps.
I hope your VPs, Execs, Managers are listening so they won't make a mistake.
If they say NO then I suggest you look for another job where .Net is appreciated.

[CornedBee]

FIRST EVER (AND WORLD CLASS) TRUE ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT

What an utterly meaningless phrase. In caps no less.

How on earth do you define "enterprise environment", and how can you say .Net is the first ever when J2EE (arguably an "enterprise environment" too) is older?

[Hack]

If they say NO then I suggest you look for another job where .Net is appreciated.

Unless, of course, you are too old to start all over again.

[RhinoBull]

How on earth do you define "enterprise environment"

Environment to build your enterprise - all in one easy to use "place".
Is that enough for you? If not surf the net for more...

... how can you say .Net is the first ever when J2EE (arguably an "enterprise environment" too) is older?

J2EE never had what I call "enterprise environment" nor it will ever have I'm afraid.
But these sort of arguments are pointless - it's matter of opinion and our obviously differ.

Have a good life and try not to be as brashly self-confident (or arrogant) next time.

[RhinoBull]

Unless, of course, you are too old to start all over again.

Heh... Define old...

[CornedBee]

FIRST EVER (AND WORLD CLASS) TRUE ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT

for all you need to do Web based and/or Desktop apps.
I hope your VPs, Execs, Managers are listening so they won't make a mistake.
If they say NO then I suggest you look for another job where .Net is appreciated.

Have a good life and try not to be as brashly self-confident (or arrogant) next time.

Forgive me while I go have a good laugh.

I surf the net enough to know just how nonsensical and overused the word "enterprise" is.

[Spacehamster]

for all you need to do Web based and/or Desktop apps.
I hope your VPs, Execs, Managers are listening so they won't make a mistake.
If they say NO then I suggest you look for another job where .Net is appreciated.

The Managers also attended that .NET demonstration - in which a simple webpage with several comboboxes and listboxes was created within 10-15 minutes. Naturally, their first question was "How much does it cost?". The second being "And what are the benefits" - a question which you've already answered. They seemed very impressed - both with the GUI (lots of colourful entertaining shiny colors), and with speed of delivery.

The only problem is purely political. The Managers have already informed the Board that "JSP is the way of the future!" a few months ago. So it'd look bad if they changed their minds and went for .NET instead. But it's looking increasingly inevitable that we'll be migrating to .NET - it's just a matter of time.

[RhinoBull]

Back in the mid 90s when Pentiums were already on the market and only moron wouldn't understand the difference between say P200MMX and x486 machine I used work for a major retailer.
One of our excutives made the deal to buy cash registers with x386 processors and many advised against that. But he did anyway only because he already mentioned that to the owners.
Long story short he was fired during the first holiday season which almost ended disastrously (there were endless lines in every store due register poor performance) and they bought new state of the art cash registers...
One of the owners later said that all that guy had to was to admit his mistake before it was too late...

That's all I have to say. Good luck.

[eSPiYa]

If you think that what I'm saying is silly, think about it first.
I admit that the .NET Framework is a great product but just what I said it originally desgned for Microsoft's OS, for other platform; expect the GREAT delay for the implementation of its features.
In the surface, they told us that is was "hacked" but we can see that Microsoft gave it to the creator of MONO, but let's not go beyond what they are "SAYING".

If you are doing business, will you choose an expensive product than a cheaper one (or free) which have same features (or greater)?

[penagate]

To be honest, I hate ASP.NET. Vastly prefer PHP. I don't find much of the .NET framework useful at all. But, the CLR is nice; and it suits what we do at work.

Long story short: Nothing's ever a "generation ahead". It just depends on what exactly you need to do.

Mono is indeed a hack job. Sure, .NET was "designed" to be cross-platform, and in principle it is, but in practice, it's heavily coupled to Windows. Just look at WinForms.

[rory]

in which a simple webpage with several comboboxes and listboxes was created within 10-15 minutes.

you can do that in most if not all WYSIWYG editors ..
i hope they showed them some more stuff ..

PS. I heard ASP.net is much easier to code for than Classic ASP ..
less to learn, etc. is this true?

[tommygrayson]

If you think that what I'm saying is silly, think about it first.
I admit that the .NET Framework is a great product but just what I said it originally desgned for Microsoft's OS, for other platform; expect the GREAT delay for the implementation of its features.
In the surface, they told us that is was "hacked" but we can see that Microsoft gave it to the creator of MONO, but let's not go beyond what they are "SAYING".

If you are doing business, will you choose an expensive product than a cheaper one (or free) which have same features (or greater)?

I would still choose the more expensive product.

It is just marketing bull**it to say that their product is cheap and has more features.

Everybody can say that.

I heard from a IBM Marketing executive a few years back that Lotus Notes is better than Microsoft Outlook because of its security, functionality, etc., etc.

But I have used both and Lotus Notes sucks.

[tommygrayson]

you can do that in most if not all WYSIWYG editors ..
i hope they showed them some more stuff ..

PS. I heard ASP.net is much easier to code for than Classic ASP ..
less to learn, etc. is this true?

Yes it's true but on one condition. You must be very familiar to both VB and ASP languages.

You can also hide the codes from the client using code-behind.

[RhinoBull]

...But I have used both and Lotus Notes sucks.

It surely does... Just shortcuts alone (like CTRL+C that did anything but COPY) draw lots customers away.
Last time I used it was back in 2001 and I just couldn't wait until it was dumped.

[RobDog888]

Only 2 posts by the OP?

No one is going to dethrone Microsoft. They are just too big and have too much of the market share. Whith this, you would expect them to have invaluable resources to stay ahead of the competition. To say that JSP is the wave of the future is unfounded unless you can provide backup of this claim.

They only showed you a simple webpage creation in 10-15 minutes? Thats very slow. Try 1 to 1.5 minutes lol. MS Web Developer 2005 is completely free to use for home or commercial use. I dont see the need to go on about this since many posts/points have already been made.

[rory]

i installed vde2005, but it wants a serial number ;-(

[RobDog888]

Did you register it?

[rory]

no, I dont want to go through that just to test it ..
but I guess Ill have to .. make a fake hotmail address and register from that ..

[Spacehamster]

Only 2 posts by the OP?

The reason for only 2 posts is because I've been reading through the answers of people far more experienced at .NET than I am, and listening to their opinions and advice.

No one is going to dethrone Microsoft. They are just too big and have too much of the market share. Whith this, you would expect them to have invaluable resources to stay ahead of the competition. To say that JSP is the wave of the future is unfounded unless you can provide backup of this claim.

RobDog, my original post was not meant to be an attack on Microsoft or on .NET! I thought I made it very clear in my original and subsequent postings that all of us were very impressed by .NET and what it had to offer -

One of my colleagues used .NET in her previous job, and demonstrated it for us. I was really impressed. There are so many things that would take days for a newbie like me to code in JSP (eg. tabs and pagination) that takes less than a day to develop in .NET.

The only problem is purely political. The Managers have already informed the Board that "JSP is the way of the future!" a few months ago. So it'd look bad if they changed their minds and went for .NET instead. But it's looking increasingly inevitable that we'll be migrating to .NET - it's just a matter of time.

I did not claim that JSP was the wave of the future - it was my managers that made this statement, as I thought I made very clear in my original post! I also made it quite clear in my original post that I found JSP difficult to develop in. And please, no flames from JSP fanatics - I've had enough unjustified attacks from people today.

We've already developed a major JSP-based application with mixed success. And I've dabbled (painfully) with JSP/Tomcat/Eclipse while creating a prototype web application.

They only showed you a simple webpage creation in 10-15 minutes? Thats very slow. Try 1 to 1.5 minutes lol. MS Web Developer 2005 is completely free to use for home or commercial use. I dont see the need to take this any farther because it sounds like you are biased towards jsp?

The reason for 10-15 minutes is because my colleague was answering questions from others, as well as explaining the layout and controls. Otherwise she would've been able to do it in that time. She was demonstrating the advantages of .NET in a business presentation - a sentiment that I thought that you would appreciate.

This site is, I feel, one of the best resources on the web for information on VB6/ASP, not to mention .NET.

The reason for my original posting was to gain advice from others on whether or not .NET was a next-generation platform. It was meant to be a (hopefullY) non-controversial question from which I could hopefully gain some insight and advice from other experienced developers. It was never meant to be a bash against Microsoft or .NET.

[RobDog888]

Hopefully I have clarified my point spacehampster

I would say that as a developer you wil have to get on the .NET bandwagon as its here to stay for many more years and its still growing in popularity too. Better it be sooner then later that your software is supportive of it or it may be harder later on to make the migration.

[Spacehamster]

Hopefully I have clarified my point spacehampster

Yes, you have. I will repeat - again - that in no way did I mean to imply that .NET was an inferior platform!!! Good grief! The reason why I originally posted was to share my frustration as to why we hadn't adopted .NET yet.

I would say that as a developer you wil have to get on the .NET bandwagon as its here to stay for many more years and its still growing in popularity too. Better it be sooner then later that your software is supportive of it or it may be harder later on to make the migration.

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to persuade management to adopt the .NET platform more quickly, but I do heartily agree with that sentiment.

[RobDog888]

Hopefully I have clarified my point spacehampster

I was talking about the PM I sent you too with that statement. Again, I thought it was cleared up?

[Spacehamster]

I was talking about the PM I sent you too with that statement. Again, I thought it was cleared up?

Just read your PM, and yes it's cleared up. Thank you for clarifying your post, it was very much appreciated.