Joel hates Microsoft, .NET and kicks puppies.
Not really, but headlines are for attention grabbing. :)
Joel Spolsky brings up a few good points about .NET. I don't necessarily agree with them, but hey it's a free world and without a contrarian point of view, advances can't be made.
I'll agree that the .NET framework is a large download. I'll agree that it might not be as widely distributed as some would like. I'll even agree that you need to really consider these two facts before deciding to write and deploy a commercial application. I won't agree though that .NET is "fatally flawed for consumer, downloaded software".
Because if that were true Java would have been fatally flawed and Visual Basic would have been fatally flawed. Java didn't sweep the nation because it didn't look or feel like your standard applications and it was painfully slow, but Visual Basic was probably one of the most widely successful languages ever created (Please note, I did not say best language. Successful != Best). Everybody and their brother was creating and distributing Visual Basic applications. .NET is seeing a similar destiny. One of the fastest adopted languages (by developers) ever. With SO many developers using it, it is only a matter of time before the .NET framework is installed everywhere.
Right now, .NET might not be the platform of choice for Joel to write software for. That's fair.
Is .NET "fatally flawed"? Of course not.
Will .NET still become ubiquitous? Of course.
Comments
Scott on on 1.29.2004 at 5:50 PM
The VB runtime was teeny small and pretty easy to include in your distribution. So it was "broken" in a much smaller way. The Java runtime started out small, got big REAL QUICK. Big pain in the butt, even with "web start" it's a pain in the butt. The .NET runtime started out big, getting bigger. That means it's great for server side stuff, pain in the butt for client side stuff.
The reason that every is creating .NET applications is because, duh we're not really given any choice. If we want to continue to develop applications for the Windows platform, and we aren't a C++ programmer who can utilize a library like GTK or WxWindows, we better embrace .NET.
Now with the next version of .NET it sounds like they are breaking backwards compatibility in some areas but I'm more concerned with the new features. To take advantage of the new features, all those poor slobs in the enterprise that hae written 1.1 .NET applications have to update all those desktops with the new version of .NET. That's a lot of running around, running windows update, and rebooting.
Richard Hsu on on 1.30.2004 at 3:47 PM
Well, I can see a point there in what Scott says and what Joel says. Sometime back I read somewhere, someone suggested a segmented .net redistributable in that you can bundle small runtimes which will have certain classes only. So if one only used System namespace, one could have say a small few mb download, but I am sure MSFT people have considered this and there must be some blog out there somewhere explaining the rationale of this 20+ mb download.
Whats slightly tedious than just the .net redistributable is that one has to upgrade to IE 5.5 at least (IE6 with SP1 recommened) and also install MDAC for Jet (MS Access).
We must understand that .NET like everything has plus and minus aspects to it, and its a technology for the future. If you feel that the plus is worth it then the minus is not really a big problem. Certainly I have bet my butt on it to be doing everything now on .NET/C# only and I have really enjoyed it so far, and the redistributable and all is a one time only affair, so..
Darrell on on 2.02.2004 at 11:37 PM
While I can see Joel's point, it is completely one-sided (all pros to using a linker). Someone over on Weblogs.asp.net wrote up quite a few cons to using a linker, and guess what? The biggest con was SECURITY. Now I won't be a shock jock and say that Joel is not security-conscious, but his writing has become more one-sided over the past 1.5 years and has noticeably decreased in quality. If you look at the archives, most of his hard-hitting articles were written in 2002 and earlier.
Richard Hsu on on 2.05.2004 at 8:10 AM
Jason Zander (CLR Product Unit Manager) responds to Joel's article :-
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2004/01/31/65653.aspx
Very interesting to read (courtsey : <a href="http://www.simplegeek.com>Chris Anderson's blog</a>). His Security argument made me see the CLR/Runtime thing in a totally different light and it makes a lot of sense. Working Set argument also equally compelling. Must Read!!
http:// on on 6.14.2004 at 11:00 PM
i'm sickofthebastards i hate microsoftbutwhatarethealternatives?
peter.codner@lineone.net