Opinions on Micro$oft'$ .NET

[paulsjv]

Here's the scoop. The company I work for just got bought out by a larger company. The lager company uses .NET from Micro$oft. I of course use all open source stuff for our sites (6 in all) and now the new company wants to come in and pretty much blow away everything I have done and use their .NET crap.

Here's the deal. On September 3rd they are coming to visit me face to face and I need ammo. So from now until the third I need to find out everything I can about .NET.

Anyone have any opinions on it, links about it, how it works, what's so special about it, anything and everything would be great!

Please help a guy out!! :)

[Jedi Legend]

It's actually great! Very reliable and fast.

I'm kidding, I actaully have no idea... but it is Micro$oft..

[laserlight]

I dont really know much about .NET

For one side of the story, just go to various open source advocacy websites and look up the arguments presented.

For starters, there is opensource.org

Then there is the cost of developing replacement programs and scripts for existing open source programs/scripts.

Depending on the license used, this could be a problem, so it might be better to leave it open source.

[ahundiak]

I'd suggest spending a few weeks learning at least the basics of .Net. You can download enough to get started for free.

Many of the advocacy posts are extremely biased in one direction or another. You really need to see for yourself what it will take to convert your particular sites to .NET.

And then, if a major road block appears, you will have a valid argument against the conversion.

[mystrymaster]

cost effectiveness. I had this same argument and I needed to go no further then the cost of developing with the .Net platform

[piersk]

Originally posted by mystrymaster
cost effectiveness. I had this same argument and I needed to go no further then the cost of developing with the .Net platform

Thats going to be of no use to paulsjv, since this larger already uses .NET and therefore can and will afford to splash out on it.

[mystrymaster]

actually it will be as the incurred cost of adding new developer seats and the cost of new development tools.

Plus when preparing this argument do not think now think long term cost as the money will really start to add up.

[piersk]

Rather than saying that you can't do .NET stuff, why not learn it. It'll add another string to your bow, wont it?

[Bunkermaster]

.NET framework is very appealing, i myself have a copy of architect studio (never installed it).

.NET is great for websites but ASP still is that crappy slow language that i wouldn't use for anything really performance oriented (I know I am a load testing expert after all and i have been spending the last 3 month crashing IIS runnig great .NET components...)

[piersk]

Paul, just found this link (copy and paste whats in the quote bit):

http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v2|2fec|0|0|%2a|f;5723054;2-0;0;8170758;4252-336|280;2954861|2963947|1;;%3fhttp://msdn.protier.com/admin/skins/vsdemo/freetrial.aspx?source=vsnet_04

click on that and it takes you (eventually) to a hosted terminal services version of windows server 2003 where you can try out visual studio.net for free (but only for 3 hours).

Why not give it a go and find out for yourself...

[Weedpacket]

I'm looking at learning a bit of .NET; at least it would look good on my CV. But it's more fun to be reactionary: why change just for the sake of changing?

Thanks to a recent post on another subject (http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10249677): http://www.sitepoint.com/article/870
And, to be fair,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/phpvsaspnet.asp.

[Jeb.]

I tried out that online hosted session of VS.NET (painfully slow under 56k, but that's not the issue...). It's quite a nice suite on first impressions, but as I have next to no knowledge on .NET, I can't really say more than that.

I've got a 120-day trial of VS.NET sitting here on DVD-ROM....I think I might install it and give it a fair run down...

[Weedpacket]

One of the things about .NET compared to PHP is that .NET is a software development framework for building Windows software.

PHP isn't.

But anything .NET can do on the web PHP could do as well (and more "openly" than .NET).

So if your company is developing Windows application software in general, then it would be a little silly to use .NET for everything except web sites if .NET could do the latter as well.