I don't know why people need to always act like viruses. Once they have an epiphany about technology, they think they are right and everyone should follow.

Here is what he is forgetting: Economics. A good chunk of .NET developers are not using the system for the love of hacking. No. These people want to learn marketable skills and get/keep jobs. Whatever MS pushes out is what the market will buy, and hire for. What do you think killed Borland? Certainly not the lack of excellent quality products. Rather, their incompatibility with Microsoft. Even if your engineering is superior to Microsoft's, you can't afford to break rank, since the market will not follow your lead.

His post isn't meaningful, insightful or interesting. It's poisonous. A community is what you make of it, and he's making it worse. We're better off if he leaves.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the negative folks, and it's a big part of the reason I never went along with the Alt.NET folks. The idea of bringing the agile methodology in, embracing SOLID, and bringing Open Source into the .NET community is all good, but not at the expense of the negativity they brought with it. You won't get people to follow with attitudes like that.

We don't need Alt.NET. We need Boost.NET (http://www.boost.org in case that didn't make sense). A group that will lead by example, with professionalism, and leadership that works hard on the diplomacy. A group that embraces open source and corporate alike (I used lowercase for both for a reason).

1 hour ago,Turbodad wrote

An insightful blog post reflecting on Microsoft and .NET community: http://whatupdave.tumblr.com/post/1170718843/leaving-net and related discussion on Hacker News:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719277

It's just standard ranting.

It seems most of it is actually just ranting about Microsoft, the usual stuff. So Webforms suck and yes, Microsoft is an API factory (from a developer's perspective anyway) and yes they don't really get open source because even when they release source, they don't accept patches. But honestly, who cares? Microsoft provide the best language and the best runtime (IMO of course), but if you don't want to use them, use something else, not only do I not care, but I don't see why anyone would care except Microsoft themselves. As the OP points out themselves, there was Monorail before ASP.NET MVC, so clearly Microsoft no focusing on whatever the latest hotness is doesn't hold people back.

The OP brings up "the .NET community" it seems just as a way of comparing the set of people who use .NET to the set of people who use Ruby. But there actually is no valid comparison. Microsoft technologies have thousands of times of the number of developers compared to Ruby. Most of them are work-a-day employees of companies that do increadibly dull stuff and a very large percentage haven't read a single programming book beyond the one that first got them into VB or whatever 15 years ago. Expecting everyone to be blogging and pitching in with open source projects is just fantasy land.

And I'm really fed up with hearing about this or that 'community'. A community is a group of people that are interacting. The ".net community" that the OP berates for not being passionate and not getting together and communicating, by definition is not a community - it doesn't exist. The Ruby community and enthusiasts, fanatics even. The vast bulk of the people who use .NET are just trying to get their job done. That doesn't make .NET bad. It doesn't even say anything about Microsoft in itself except that they are sucessful at getting people to use their stuff. The OP is a 'joiner' - someone who wants to be part of a movement - which is fine, but that's no grounds to be berating everyone else who doesn't feel that way.

If you don't like the community you're in, make it better yourself rather than abandoning it.

Herbie

4 minutes ago,Turbodad wrote

... mediocrity that rules the .NET world.

So we should all run Ruby on Rails then?

OP is arguing that Microsoft instead of creating their own framework, should work with a random medium sized web dev company that created a framework primarily for their own needs. That company does not necessarily have interest in fixing the framework into something which could compete in corporate world with Java, but Microsoft should pursue this path anyway, in order to avoid 'not invented here' accusations?

It's a typical blogspam post by a regular no-one mashing together few poorly defended arguments just controverisal enough that people fall for it.

I still cant wrap my head around how beautifull the Rx framework is! Or MVC

I agree with previous posters that Micorosft is not always infront of the bandwagon, but their partner driver organisation is still, in my opinion, the best way to go.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

9 hours ago,rhm wrote

 

1 hour ago,Turbodad wrote

An insightful blog post reflecting on Microsoft and .NET community: http://whatupdave.tumblr.com/post/1170718843/leaving-net and related discussion on Hacker News:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719277

 

. As the OP points out themselves, there was Monorail before ASP.NET MVC, so clearly Microsoft no focusing on whatever the latest hotness is doesn't hold people back.

Then what is the point of ASP.NET MVC? There is no .NET community because Microsoft takes every effort to kill it. Someone makes some interesting technology ontop of .NET, and Microsoft has to come with their "me too" technology which will in almost all circumstances kill the original technology because "it's from Microsoft" with their salespeople and Channel 9 videos promoting it and what not.

I'm seeing this happen with ORMs (eg: NHibernate and Subsonic) now. Microsoft wants to replace these mature, well designed community ORMs with a garbage salad (Entity Framework). And it will replace them, because "it's from Microsoft".

Maybe Microsoft really hates Ayende or something. But seriously, Microsoft needs to learn to stop competing with their own fucking fanbase sometimes.

Out of the box vs. third party functionality has always been a balancing act. What if companies never chose to enter certain markets because a third party was already there? That's true of every industry, not just software. Throughout history companies have leapfrogged each other, and there are always companies who spring up to service deficiencies in another companies products in a complementary way. A good product is going to contiue to innovate, and isn't going to be intimidated by another product. Instead, they are going to keep pushing the envolope, and find new things to do that keep them ahead of the game.

Does that mean Microsoft is off the hook? No. What they probably need to do more of is have the evangelists engage with these complementary projects and see what they can do to help each other. Maybe Microsoft needs to do some marketing to show people what other products are available if the core Framework libraries don't cut it.

Why can't Microsoft simply adopt an existing community based ORM?  That's what Sun did via the Java Persistence API. Why try to compete with Hibernate, a mature and advanced ORM that was already widely adopted?

Microsoft's stone age build system and dependency management probably contributes to your irrational fear of third party libraries. (Any reason what-so-ever to use EF at this point is irrational.) All I got to do is add one line of markup to my pom.xml to use virtually ANY library in Java. Same difference with Ruby. I notice the author mentioned this.

7 hours ago,Bass wrote

The author put down in writing what I have been thinking all along. As a new Java developer, I'm amazed how big the Java open source community is.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

Bass:

*IF* MS was to publish a full .net Open Source package how many of the Linux/FOSS crowd would even care?

how many would start carrying on that it was an Evil Plot ?

how many would refuse to accept it cause it came from MS ?

You always seem to indicate indicate that .NET users are morons that only choose something because "it is from Microsoft" that simply is not true.

I have used the Linq to SQL ORM, and the EF. If I need something heavier than that I would opt for nHibernate.

A lot of the  passion that the haters have lies in 'minutate', rather than issues that would deny a project progression. Once you have worked on a few big systems, in hetrogenous environments, you soon understand why a standard .NET is the best, rather than the distro way of doing things.

8 hours ago,figuerres wrote

7 hours ago,Bass wrote

The author put down in writing what I have been thinking all along. As a new Java developer, I'm amazed how big the Java open source community is.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

 

Bass:

*IF* MS was to publish a full .net Open Source package how many of the Linux/FOSS crowd would even care?

how many would start carrying on that it was an Evil Plot ?

how many would refuse to accept it cause it came from MS ?

 

Microsoft earned their reputation.

13 minutes ago,Bass wrote

 

8 hours ago,figuerres wrote

7 hours ago,Bass wrote

The author put down in writing what I have been thinking all along. As a new Java developer, I'm amazed how big the Java open source community is.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

 

Bass:

*IF* MS was to publish a full .net Open Source package how many of the Linux/FOSS crowd would even care?

how many would start carrying on that it was an Evil Plot ?

how many would refuse to accept it cause it came from MS ?

 

 

Microsoft earned their reputation.

Everytime I see a public flounce from one language to another (even if it's from Java to C#) I have to wonder how much of it is because the author is trying to convince himself/herself he/she did the right thing.

51 minutes ago,Bass wrote

 

8 hours ago,figuerres wrote

7 hours ago,Bass wrote

The author put down in writing what I have been thinking all along. As a new Java developer, I'm amazed how big the Java open source community is.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

 

Bass:

*IF* MS was to publish a full .net Open Source package how many of the Linux/FOSS crowd would even care?

how many would start carrying on that it was an Evil Plot ?

how many would refuse to accept it cause it came from MS ?

 

 

Microsoft earned their reputation.

so you want MS to spend time and money doing some thing that no one but you wants and has no real benefit to most users of computers ?

who benefits ?

why should MS do it?

( it does not have to  be a direct return to MS profits, just give a decent answer to the question)

shure MS could point to it and say they are doing the right thing, that would be cool.

but after that what's the good it does ?

44 minutes ago,blowdart wrote

 

13 minutes ago,Bass wrote

 

8 hours ago,figuerres wrote

7 hours ago,Bass wrote

The author put down in writing what I have been thinking all along. As a new Java developer, I'm amazed how big the Java open source community is.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the best minds in .NET open source (eg: Miguel de Icaza and the Mono team in general), are too busy reimplementing everything Microsoft has already done. It's a waste of talent really. But there is a demand for cross-platform .NET and that demand WILL be met, if not by Microsoft by the people who run the Mono project. It would be better if Microsoft would open source .NET.

 

Bass:

*IF* MS was to publish a full .net Open Source package how many of the Linux/FOSS crowd would even care?

how many would start carrying on that it was an Evil Plot ?

how many would refuse to accept it cause it came from MS ?

 

 

Microsoft earned their reputation.

And Sun/Oracle have earned theirs, but there's still Java open source.

 

Everytime I see a public flounce from one language to another (even if it's from Java to C#) I have to wonder how much of it is because the author is trying to convince himself/herself he/she did the right thing.

For every .NET programmer that is lost, some vocational school in Central Asia churns out another 1,000. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

20 hours ago,blowdart wrote

 

Everytime I see a public flounce from one language to another (even if it's from Java to C#) I have to wonder how much of it is because the author is trying to convince himself/herself he/she did the right thing.

Every. Single. Time.