http://www.osnews.com/story/686/What_NET_is_and_Why_We_Should_Fear_it_as_Well_as_Embrace_it Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:43:31 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Stop it, Eugenia...you're scaring me... Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://arstechnica.com/paedia/n/net/net-1.html Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yes, we know Max.
I linked that article some days ago, when it was published. But that article is just a (very good) *technical* overview of one of .NET's parts, the .NET Framework. My article is a simplified editorial of what .NET is overall what its goals are.

>Stop it, Eugenia...you're scaring me...

Bwahaha... Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Here's a couple of questions ...

In the Windows world, is the .NET Framework supposed to completely replace the Win32 API, or is it just a wrapper around it? From what I understand, it is just a wrapper for the Win32 API, which itself is a wrapper around several hundred SDK functions written in C (?)

Also, when using XML to describe how applications are supposed to talk to each other (through the web?), how does this relate to the .NET Framework and the CLR?

I'm starting to understand this slowly, but it's hard to put the pieces together Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I always hear Webservice here and Webservice there. Does anyone care that I am at the moment writing two apps in C# using the .NET Framework? And oh, they look like Windows applications, not like a HTML page in IE! Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Something I forgot to metnion ...
If the .NET Framework is inddeed a wrapper for the Win32 API, the how does Mono work? Does that just use the .NET Frameware as a wrapper aound X Windows fucntions ? Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? That's one extremely confident 'prediction' about .NET, so how much does MS pay these days? Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? From what I understand, it is just a wrapper for the Win32 API, which itself is a wrapper around several hundred SDK functions written in C (?)

Win32 is a C API, MFC is the bad wrapper.
I just hope MS finally gets their act together and builds a clean and straightforward API with .NET. Win32, MFC, ATL and COM are a PITA to write on. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The .NET Framework is not really a wrapper for Win32. You can write plain vanilla command-line programs using .Net. The basic framework provides classes for things like strings, I/O objects, networking, XML, etc. This is the first part that they're implementing with Mono. This is also all part of the ECMA standard.

If you want to write a GUI app, then you use the Windows.Forms interface. Now this part *is* a wrapper for Win32. Actually, it's really more of a new API that happens to be implemented in C, using Win32. There's no reason it couldn't be implemented using some other underlying API, for example, GTK on Linux, which is what Ximian has planned.

By the way, the Win32 API is not a wrapper around C functions. Win32 *is* a bunch of C functions. MFC is the C++ wrapper you're thinking of that is a wrapper around Win32. MFC is crap, and should be completely killed off by .Net. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Also, when using XML to describe how applications are supposed to talk to each other (through the web?), how does this relate to the .NET Framework and the CLR?

From the ArsTechnica article:
"One key feature of server application development is Web Services. A Web Services is a component running on a web server that is "consumed" (i.e., used) by a traditional client application, a web-based client application, or another Web Service. Web Services are consumed using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), a remote procedure call mechanism using XML over HTTP, as their access protocol, in conjunction with WSDL (Web Service Description Language). WSDL is used to describe the interface(s) published on the web, so that consumers of the service know how to use it. SOAP is used during the actual execution of the consumer. The .NET library provides a number of classes to make this easy."

Do not misinterpret that the .NET applications are web pages, they are real applications. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? By the way, if you're curious (whether you think .Net is good or bad), you can download the SDK for free. The IDE and GUI builder are not included, but the command-line compiler and lots of documentation are. Educate yourself!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/downloads/samp... Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Where do I go to learn more about Corel's port of .Net to FreeBSD? Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Lots of information and articles here. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This is all well and nice, but unfortunately we are now in areas that go beyond 'merely' CompSci arenas. The realm of technology, computer technology, specifically, is much further reaching than in the past. It is hinted at in the article but then left for dead, perhaps appropriately concerning the basic thrust of the article. It boils down to this, however: Regardless of the viability of .NET as a platform, do we not owe it to ourselves and End Users in general to actively seek out alternatives to M$, who have proven themselves, time and time again, to be untrustworthy as a company? You will find few companies less trusted to "do the right thing" than M$. Do you now want to committ to their 'new' technologies and lock yourself into the same current predicament of M$ technological monopolies? Seems to me, and to a lot of us, that M$ should be avoided as a rule of thumb, viable technical alternatives are ALWAYS available or will be developed. Crush the monolith. They, make no mistake, would crush you if they had to. Look to it. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thank you for your oppertunism, Eugenia. It all seems too good to be true. It is indeed the next step in evolution. But I still see a very strong need for an operating system. How are we going to interact with these applications? Mind melt?

What I'm afraid for is:
a) .NET will enable apps to talk to each other, but there is such a large misfit in all these libraries, objects and such that it will become one big soup that will happily digest your yesteryear's undies.

I had my share of experience letting apps talke togheter. I did it in Arena, Access and VBA (Arena is simulation software) with OLE and RMI in Java. I can say one thing: interapp communication sucks so far: undocumented functions that don't work properly, crashing apps etc. Don't pull open the MFC hell.

People have been talking about re-use of code for years, component based development yada yada. That was the previous programming 'heaven'. And the reasons CBD hasn't become heaven, isn't because you couldn't 'talk' to other libraries. It has more todo with reasons of trust ("not invented here" syndrome) and the fit between your demands and the other libraries or applications capabilities. I see it as the previous step in the evolution, and it was (is) slow and painful. I don't see how .NET can change this fundamentally.

b) Having had experience with Microsoft, it will propably take another 3 releases (and years) before anything exciting will come up (that works).This has been a trademark of Microsoft: at first it doesn't seem that bad at all, but once you dig deaper, you fall into the trenches. I'm totally technology wise speaking, not business wise! I don't have any programming experience in .NET, so flame me if I'm wrong here. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've been looking at .NET for quite soon time now and, although I haven't started any serious projects with it, I am firmly of the view that bits of it are a good thing - certainly from the point of view of a Windows developer mixing C, C++ and VB code.

For years I've looked on at Java and Borland VCL developers with envy because of the consistency, quality and richness of their class libraries. Unfortunately my company is very much a Microsoft shop and that has limited my choice of development environment and consequently has limited me to poor development libraries like the Win32 API (too big and too much legacy baggage - do I call function, functionEx or functionEx2?), MFC (just plain nasty, full stop) and ATL (now where did I leave my class factory?) From what I've seen of Windows Forms, admittedly only a small part of .NET but possibly one of the most important for existing Windows developers, developers using Microsoft tools have the same quality of class library as other developers have had for years. I'm not certain, yet, what to make of Web Services nor can I forsee an immediate need in my business. Then again, as a desktop applications developer, perhaps I ought to look at the rest of .NET very carefully and see what else I can get from this library. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think Apple's approach to .NET makes alot of sense at this point. particularly in light of the still open ended conclusion that .NET will dominate development on Windows.

The truth is that I believe there will be a balance. The CLR is still a runtime, and therefore will be slower than native code. At the same time, WebServices will quickly replace COM/COM+. This is a good thing. And since WebServices are now standards based. An application written in Java or Objective C, using SOAP could attach and use a web server, giving you the advantage of native code or the JVM, while still allowing you to leverage the Windows world.

Apples's best bet today would be to make certain the they have integration code in place, and worry about implementing a native .NET framework only as needed.

Besides, if MS continues to bring Office to the Mac, chances are that MS will do the bulk of the work for Apple. Combined with the work that Corel is doing to build a BSD version of the .NET framework, Apple looks to get 80-90% of the way there without expending a dime.

Sounds like sound business planning to me. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> The CLR is still a runtime, and therefore will be slower than native code.

From tests I've done comparing VB & VB.NET and C/C++ with C#/C++.NET this isn't true. The initial startup of an app. is slower but then, depending on the operation (i.e. whether you stick within the .NET Framework or not) the performances are comparable.

>> At the same time, WebServices will quickly replace COM/COM+.

Not really, most people use COM/COM+ in an internal environment and Microsoft have been fairly honest that Web
Services will *not* out perform these technologies in such cases. Web Services are aimed firmly at outmoding technologies like CORBA; widely distributed RPC. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ok the accusation was a bit much, but your article has given .NET a big boost in the eyes of readers here, while we have the choice in ignoring it or going with something like the Amiga DE instead, you've practically stated as fact that it's going to be the standard and we'd be wasting our time with anything else.. I wouldn't be surprised if for some you've removed any uncertainty in regard to .NET's future and any hope for its competitors. This industry is all about what others are doing or where others are moving and so little about what's best, articles like this can really make an impact and you know MS doesn't need any help. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Actually, with .NET server and XP, you can expose COM+ objects via SOAP without any code changes. I didn't make that eminently clear, but it basically takes the .NET infrastructure and applies it to the legacy COM+ platform.

As to the performance, your results are markedly different from mine. In comparing the same objects in VB6, VC(ATL), and C#.NET, I found that VC was noticable faster and scaled better than C#, and C# was roughly equal to VB6. For the sake of the test, I used a simple object, the ran did both raw processing and DB reads via OLEDB.

I still feel that there is no compelling reason for Apple to develop a .NET implementation in house though. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> with .NET server and XP, you can expose COM+ objects via SOAP without any code changes.

Which is ideal for widely distributed applications, but the performance impact within an internal system is too high.

>> In comparing the same objects in VB6, VC(ATL), and C#.NET, I found that VC was noticable faster and scaled better than C#, and C# was roughly equal to VB6.

Perhaps I should have signed off with "your mileage may vary". As with anything related to performance there are too many variables to directly relate one set of performance figures with another. Regardless of specifics I think it's still fair to say that the CLR outperforms Java, which is important so as to sell this technology to developers. Obviously I'm drawing no distinction between the massive differences between .NET and Java and their respective aims (cross-language versus cross-platform).

>> I still feel that there is no compelling reason for Apple to develop a .NET implementation in house though.

I completely agree. Why should Apple jump onto a potentially unstable bandwagon? If Microsoft want .NET on OS X then let them do the hard work, as they did when they ported MFC to Mac OS. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Very technically thorough, but you can't elude the point of naively ignoring Microsoft's bad will trade signature by simply stating a very basic logical fallacy.

It's good to learn of everyone's code but leave it there. If you embrace forget fear, you already belong to Microsoft. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Ok the accusation was a bit much,

Sure it was...

> but your article has given .NET a big boost in the eyes of readers here,

That was the idea. .NET is not to be taken lightly. 95% of the people who visited OSNews had no clue what .NET is. In fact, there is a big confusion found on the internet from people who do not really understand the concept. OSNews is here to write in simple words what is what. I don't want to have readers who do not know all these things.

>while we have the choice in ignoring it

No, you don't!! That was the point of my last paragraph.

>or going with something like the Amiga DE instead,

Yes, you could go. For the next 2-3 years. And then? Microsoft will have taken the market by then. I do not think you got the point of the article:
There is no reason to fight OS Wars anymore. There is no point. And in the future, it will be UNTHINKABLE to have applications or platforms that do not run transparently on all devices. If AmigaDE or JavaONE will not play nice with the 95% of the market, they will simply dissappear. Business is a jungle my friend. The stronger will survive. And in this case, Microsoft is the strongest. They have even deploy .NET, where AmigaDE and JavaONE are still way behind.

> you've practically stated as fact that it's going to be the standard and we'd be wasting our time with anything else..

This article is an editorial. And that is my personal opinion indeed. This is also the opinion of Miguel deIcaza and IDC's VP of Software, as I quote them in the article. And it is also the opinion of lots of analysts and other industry's people.

> This industry is all about what others are doing or where others are moving and so little about what's best, articles like this can really make an impact and you know MS doesn't need any help.

Hah! You did not freaking understood anything from the article. Did you not read what I wrote??

Technology is NOT evil by default, people are.

If you still think that this article was Pro-Microsoft, you are more dumb than I thought. Get your facts straight, I do not freaking care IF the future will be with .NET or JavaONE technologies. The FACT is that the future WILL utilize such a technology, NO MATTER if it comes from Microsoft or Sun. Re-read the article. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I noticed the earlier posts, but what the hell...

Darius:Also, when using XML to describe how applications are supposed to talk to each other (through the web?), how does this relate to the .NET Framework and the CLR?
.NET as a platform (the CLR) has nothing to do with XML Web Services. ASP.NET is the provider of the services themselves. Creation of a .asmx web service allows you to surface methods which can be accessed using SOAP (XML), and does a bunch of the underlying communications work for you. This is taken care of largely in the Framework classes. If you want to know more, check out this web servicestechnical artical and this System.Web.Services.WebService object refrence.
Darius:If the .NET Framework is inddeed a wrapper for the Win32 API, the how does Mono work? Does that just use the .NET Frameware as a wrapper aound X Windows fucntions ?
In Windows, some parts of the .NET Framework wrap GDI, as the Graphics Device Interface is the way Windows paints pixels on the screen. The CLR has nothing to do with GDI though, and .NET Framework implementations on other platforms (i.e. FreeBSD, MacOSX) will decidedly not use GDI to draw. To be clear: *any* code which creates a window on a windows box calls GDI at some point. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia and other BeOS users here know that denial is not healthy. How long did we hang onto Be, Inc. and BeOS? Did we know it was hopeless? Not at the time, but from our experience you may find former BeOS lovers the most realistic about Microsoft.NET. It will win the market.

Eugenia, take a look at some of the anti-.NET headlines at www.javalobby.com. It sounds like the Desktop vs. Internet Appliance days at BeNews.com. Java developers will be the group to resist .NET the longest. I doubt it will do them any good. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The idea that the .Net byte code is "JIT" converted into native byte code once and remembers it for future use, sounds good to me as oppose to Java JIT-ing every time.

But I'm use to writing software for a specific CPU/OS combo. Does this mean that I can't optimize .Net apps to be CPU specific in order to get the best performance? And what about inline assembly? I mix assembly code with my C++ code in many areas, and it will be hard to give it up to switch to .Net Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? According to Microsoft, The JIT in .Net could (can?) automatically detect the processor it is runnimg on and just in time compile and optimize at loading time for that specific processor. If it is actually implemented, it means that instead of choosing at design/compilation time the processor you want to favor, you let the JIT decide at loading time. Every machine gets the best performance. Pretty powerfull... if it actually works (don't know, I did not test it).
Mixing assembly and .Net code. Well I don't think it is the idea but I do not really now. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia and other BeOS users here know that denial is not healthy. How long did we hang onto Be, Inc. and BeOS? Did we know it was hopeless? Not at the time, but from our experience you may find former BeOS lovers the most realistic about Microsoft.NET. It will win the market.I doubt that it's realism. Many BeOS programmers that I know have moved to the biggest fish out of fear of it ever happening again.

I don't think Microsoft is good for the health of the industry, and I don't like Java (too much take it or leave it). Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There will always be a need to write code for specific devices. And these devices will always need stable, robust OSes. Just because the programs that run on these devices want to exchange data via XML, they don't have to use the .NET framework. In fact, they won't, because the .NET framework is just M$'s attempt to fix their horribly b0rked API.

I can write a PHP app that will allow RPC via SOAP very easily; likewise with C, LISP, or whatever other programming language I choose. And it has nothing to do with .NET, or whatever stupid name M$ has decided to call RPC this week.

If exchanging data via XML is the future, so be it - but don't get your panties all in a bundle over this silly article. The .NET framework is an attempt to simplify the ridiculous amount of spaghetti code Windoze developers have to deal with..NET My Services is RPC via SOAP, and nothing more.

Oh but wait, we can't resist it - didn't you read the article?

Don't listen to Eugenia's FUD. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thank you, Roger

Code re-use!! This is exactly the problem with all of this stuff. I know there is all this talk about how it will make development simpler, but how is it simpler if I as a developer am now expected to know how to interface with ten thousand mismatched libraries from around the world? So you can trade objects and methods around; big deal. Will this make my life better as a developer? I tend to doubt it. Sounds more like a developer's nightmare. How do you know exactly what that remote class is going to do to your application, or when it will be changed? Developers: expect a lot more late-night phone calls from clients about this or that feature suddenly bieng broken. (It was working this morning, what did you do?)

Evolution?:
Object-Oriented programming was supposed to make development simpler: all you had to do was know the API of a certain class and you could interact with it, without knowing what goes on inside. But honestly, once you start really working with this, it seems like you can take one of two roads: 1) yes, use O-O stuff, but spend the time to look inside every class you work with, so you can optimize usage, and know exactly what is going on, or 2) Just use 'what-you-understand' of each class, and extend the classes with all kinds of garbage, or load more different classes than you really need, because you only understand this or that little piece of each. (I seem to see that second scenario happening a lot with Java).

So, in the end, with O-O you don't see a true revolution in simplicity. In fact, sometimes it's the opposite. To write nice, tight code, you still have to practice most of the same things you did with procedural code, otherwise, it becomes a mess. I predict this will be even worse with .NET!! There will be a proliferation of garbage code such as the world has never seen. One kind of developer will write applications which assemble collections of mismatched crap from all over the world, hoping that 'code reuse' is all they need, with a wizard-driven thin few lines of their own code to tie these together, while other developers will pretty much work the same way as always: they will experiment with the new things they can do with .NET, and will sparingly apply them where they make sense.

I intend to be the latter. This will not require a carte-blanche giving in to Microsoft dominance.

I know the businesspeople involved are drooling over the idea of a "plug-n-play" universe of code, which will turn applications into rental cash-registers instead of shrink-wrapped disks which get traded around by friends. But the plug-n-play aspect promises to make Quality Assurance a nightmare. Oh, and welcome to a whole new world of viruses that can just "plug in" to that place where your application is expecting a remote module.

And why the confusion: is it evolution or revolution? The two are not the same. This will be a revolution in operating systems, while .NET is merely an evolutionary step? No, the operating system will not become just an incidental. It will just be sharing mind-space with one more level between the bare hardware and the user.

As far as the evolutionary part, most of those things are possible RIGHT NOW, without bothering to 'give in' to Microsoft's vision.

"Web Services eliminate the huge IT workload that needs to be carried out to make a company or a number of companies exchange data via databases. Services can be summed up as Remote Procedure Calls which can be invoked by posting a blob of XML over HTTP."

Duh... and it requires the fatherly hand of .NET to accomplish this? NO. XML-RPC, SOAP, can be done without giving any mindshare to Microsoft.

And finally... Oh yes, it's great that now Word software will be able to load a function from just about any other piece of software on the planet. How much functionality do we need our software to have? Most users don't even use 1% of what their existing software is capable of already. If anything, we should be reducing the feature set of software, and making it run better and more securely.

The real problem that .NET will open up is this: we will still have the same brains, with the same personal bandwidth limitations. Users--now your software can do anything--great, but you still don't know what most of the features are, or what they can do, or why I would want them. Developers-- you will now be able to interface with 2 million modules. Great, now you only have to dig through 400 million pages of specifications, if you want to actually understand what your software is doing. Wed, 20 Feb 2002 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia,
It seems like most of those Google links are just articles from June'ish 2001 time-frame. I went to the FreeBSD/projects page, Microsoft's .Net page, Google searches...Hellllloooooooo, Microsoft, FreeBSD, Corel...anybody home????

THe only thing even remotely interesting that I saw was that "early beta copies should be available in the first half of 2002, with delivery in the second half." Well folks June is not that far away, and "the second half" of 2002 is just around the corner (sorry to break the news).

Doesn't it seem kind of odd that a project of this magnitude isn't showing up on the FreeBSD projects page?

??? Wed, 20 Feb 2002 23:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sure this is all just a plot to own everyone's computer thats why I use this http://tinfoilhat.cultists.net/ lol Wed, 20 Feb 2002 23:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I liked the article. it summed up nicely all that I've been reading lately about .NET but the fighting is a little too heated for me. I stopped reading slashdot as much as before because I got tired of all the bashing without reading or sincerely trying to understand the point of view of the writer. Anyway, a couple of points that I like to add my opinion to that of Eugenia.

* OSes will become unimportant if the dominant office suite, mp3/cd player and picture software run in .NET because you can run the same app everywhere, (hopefully) looking and working the same way. Therefore, to the ordinary user there will be no difference if you run it in Windows/Linux/MacOSX/etc. Just imagine if M$ Office, Winamp and Photoshop ran on a fast JVM today, what OS would you be running at work? Would it really matter?

* Which brings me to the next point, how will M$ make money? It might loose some money in Windows sales if what I mentioned before holds true but it would make tons on Windows Server sales, Passport/transaction fees and the works. And as Eugenia pointed out, the one who holds the information is the king.

I'm just a college student that is trying to figure out where the chips will fall after I graduate. If .NET is the way to go is still to see but if it is I certainly hope that Mono/dotGNU can deliver the goods. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > I don't want to have readers
> who do not know all these things.

Sounds rather patronising, doesn't it? Textbook Eugenia, I would say.


>>while we have the choice in ignoring it

> No, you don't!! That was the point
> of my last paragraph.

What? That is absolute crap, and neither you nor anybody else on this planet knows for sure that .net will succeed. For all its success, it won't be the first time MS failed in a big project. Presenting .net as a fait accompli is putting the cart before the horse, and with editorials like this, any person with half-a-brain will loose confidence in anything you write.


>> And then? Microsoft will
> have taken the market by then.

Same way they took the ISP market, just by having 95% of the desktop, right? Will they write all the code? Don't they need developer support? Think again.

> There is no reason to
> fight OS Wars anymore.

That's what they said about the PC a years ago. In my opinion, this is arguable, and probably false. I love my privacy, and like the pc, personal OSes would be for a looong time.

> Business is a jungle my friend.
> The stronger will survive. And
> in this case, Microsoft is the
> strongest.

Yeah, substitute microsoft with Nortel, or Enron. Nothing is certain my friend. Not even everlasting life for abusive, bulling monopolies.


> If you still think that this
> article was Pro-Microsoft, you
> are more dumb than I thought.

Count me in as another dumb one, typical Eugenia style. If this article is not pro-microsoft, I have no clue what is. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think what we are seeing here isn't an evolution of computing in general, but the evolution of specific computing paradigms and the continuation of a potential paradigm shift.

What I mean is that there is more than one way to solve a given problem and there are more than one set of basic beliefs.

One of these is that people's data/programs should be stored in "a central location" vs the idea that people's data/programs should be stored on their "hard drive".

This would be like... Say... Riding a "bus" (or subway) vs using your own "car". And all of asudden those buses became quite a bit faster or more convienent or what have you.

No matter how much faster and more popular those buses might become some situations will still probably call for your "car" and some people may still prefer to use their "car".

Also... In a few years... The "cars" might become quite a bit faster and may all of asudden become the prefered form of transportation. And... Some people will still prefer the "bus".

Also... It should be noted that even if "buses" or "cars" get faster it may or may not change what most people prefer. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? linux_baby wrote: "What? That is absolute crap, and neither you nor anybody else on this planet knows for sure that .net will succeed. For all its success, it won't be the first time MS failed in a big project. Presenting .net as a fait accompli is putting the cart before the horse, and with editorials like this, any person with half-a-brain will loose confidence in anything you write."

The fact of the matter is, Microsoft is putting EVERYTHING, all of its poker chips, into the .NET poker hand. If .NET does not succeed, Microsoft will not succeed, because everything produced by Microsoft will be running on .NET.

Before you know it, .NET will be as obiquitous and trivial as operating systems are becoming, as TCP/IP is now. Something else will come along that will be much more important, perhaps AI or something greater, which will be the next big challenge.

It's not so much a matter of "winning" as it is progressing and keeping ahead of the curve, a matter of surviving and setting standards so that society can move on to the next level in an ever-changing, more demanding marketplace for technology.

If Microsoft stuck to just making operating systems and Office, they would not be very forward-thinking now would they? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sorry, I've just gotta jump in here. I think that the term "evolution" is a big misfit. IIRC, evolution is a _random_ process by which things mutate, and once in a very very long time turn out to be better. Development might just be a better work than evolution.....or would it? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? We're fucked...plain and simple. M$ is stepping into uncharted territory. How long did it take M$ to get windows to a semi-stable release. Until win2k/XP came along, the rest of M$ operating systems were crap! I should know...I have used them all. How long and how bad do we have to suffer before M$ get this .NET thing right? Will we be forever tied to M$ and their whims? M$ owns the desktops and now they want to dominate gaming (ie. Xbox) and the internet with their .NET.Unfortunately, we will have to deal with .NET in some form even if decide to not embrace it because it will be shove down our throats. For example, how many times does XP ask you if you want to sign up for a M$ passport account?
IMHO, SECURITY and PRIVACY is out the fucking door. If an .NET account is compromise, everthing...I mean EVERYTHING...that is tied to that account are at risk. Since everything is tied to that account, M$ will be able to harvest info. about the users like never before. Scary, huh?!? Already, M$ have started harvesting with the WPA for win XP.
Personally, I'm trying to wean myself away from M$. Win XP's required activation broked the camel's back. Enough is enough. Like most, I still dual boot with linux and win2k, but I'm starting to use linux more and more. I can't wait for the day that I can dump windows altogether. As for gaming, I think the Sony PS2 is just as good. Now, if only I can find a good substitute for .NET. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article is not pro-Microsoft. It's pro .NET. The difference being that .NET are the technologies and software paradigm, and Microsoft just happens to be bringing it to market at warp speed.

Eugenia seems to be very critical of Microsoft as the guardian and caretaker of these technologies because of their dirty business practices and monopolistic tendencies (A computer on every desktop, Windows .NET on every computer). I mean, the STANDARD portions of .NET simply amount to some useful tools. Microsoft still OWNS many other parts, most notably the Passport/Hailstorm gatekeeping data storage whatever which will be the FIRST .NET enabled thingie of its kind to market.

I don't want Microsoft in charge of my information.

So, I say we can't entirely ignore .NET, we just need to find a way to weaken Microsoft's power over it...

--JM Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I just downloaded the .Net SDK and played around with it. The only thing I liked about it is the programs get JIT once, the first time you run it. The next time you run it, it's at native speed. I haven't seen all of .Net yet, but everything I've seen so far looks exactly like Java. For those of you who know Java syntax and a little C# syntax, I caught myself using the "import" keyword instead of the "using" keyword.

If and when .Net takes over the Windows OS platform, I would have long since switched to a different platform where my already built up programming skills would be appreciated. If .Net takes over the world, I will quit programming and sell shoes or something. I will resist .Net and I will be happy. I don't like .Net at all. Different people have different ways of thinking. The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? There are some MS doomsayers here that are just being blind to dogmatic reasoning. Just because it comes from MS doesn't make it bad. If you look at what .NET is, it is a *very* good idea. For the person that talked about php being a way to communicate cross platform, that's all good and fine, except .NET does that to programs. Every program that has a .NET runtime, no matter what OS no matter what processor, it will run at near C speed. No recompiling for the end user ever again which is a big step over what some OSs can provide. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 02:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ponz: IMHO, SECURITY and PRIVACY is out the fucking door. If an .NET account is compromise, everthing...I mean EVERYTHING...that is tied to that account are at risk. Since everything is tied to that account, M$ will be able to harvest info.

Sure, not at all like me knowing the combination of your SSN, mother's maiden name, and date of birth. Give me a break. You think your personal holdings are secure today? Think again. When was the last time you threw away a credit card reciept? You *know* those have your account number on them, right?

It would be *obviously* illegal for Microsoft to look at your personal information without your consent. The company has no intention of looking at your personal data, and has made a good faith attempt at making this clear to you through their partnership with external security enforcement firms.

Win XP's required activation broked the camel's back.

Activation of WinXP is a painless proceedure for those of you who can connect to the Internet. The only reason I can think of for someone to be upset by it is that they are no longer able to steal property that doesn't belong to them [as easily].

If you are a zealot who believes "Microsoft is evil" then you are no better than George Bush with his "Axis of Evil". Microsoft is made up of people, just like you. Microsoft employs thousands of families, and not just tech workers. Microsoft puts food on the table for thousands of construction workers, bus drivers, janitors, movers, and grounds keepers' families just to name a few.

Like most, I still dual boot with linux and win2k, but I'm starting to use linux more and more. I can't wait for the day that I can dump windows altogether.

I have an imensely difficult time believing that you cannot find a non-Microsoft platform (have you looked at OSX?) which works for you. Microsoft does the following better than any other OS platform:
- Localization, into 34 locales at last count
- Accessibility, both keyboard and visual
- Gaming
If you have needs which aren't represented in these areas, I'm sure there is a platform which meets them.

As for gaming, I think the Sony PS2 is just as good.

Have you *played* Halo? Project Gotham? There is nothing even remotely close to the quality of these games on PS2. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've read all 38 comments posted so far on this article, some seem reasonable, some are just reactions in frustration. When I first read this article, it didn't strike me as pro-Microsoft. Re-reading it, I see how one might spot the sentiment, but don't think Eugenia intended it to be that way. Either way, my opinion is solidifying - the more I dislike Microsoft, the more I appreciate them. Yes, I hate Passport. I hate product activation. I hate IIS security. But I love Windows 2000/XP and I love the GUI everything and I love Internet Explorer.

Microsoft KNOWS that we're all fed up with upgrading. They know that every company worth a damn has investigated Linux, Solaris, or if they're really smart - the BSDs. They know that Windows is at the END of its lifecycle because they've done all they can do with it. So you have to hand it to them, as the industry leader, they are pioneering new standards and guidelines (and while they're at it, they're writing a nice portable programming language, new APIs, moving to XML-based solutions, etc) not only to bring computing to the next level capability-wise, but to segue into new business areas and, incidentally, force another enterprise-wide upgrade. Geniuses, they are.

The thing is, those who think .NET is a bad thing are probably letting their anti-Microsoft spirit sink in. Trust me - I'm sold on the Be/Bootloader controversy, I have reason to want to leave Microsoft behind, but I don't see it happening for about 7 years while Linux and FreeBSD are still so far behind on the desktop. Sure, I run lots of OSes at home, but can you guess what's on my primary PC? Give you a hint - it has a registry and rhymes with Bindows.

I certainly hate to stand on a soapbox and preach, but I fail to see why .NET is causing all of this panic. The more I read, the more it appears that the "M$ crowd," or those who despise Microsoft, would sooner see personal computing be less productive than see it be advanced by Microsoft.

You take down your enemies with honor and respect if you want honor and respect yourself. Those who bitch and moan about .NET and how it is the end of the world should spend less time being generally cranky and more time developing apps for open-source Microsoft competitors. Then, maybe, there would be a legitimate competitor on the desktop. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? see one more person use the letters M$ again, it'll be too soon. Because i'm bored i started counting, but i got bored with that too, so i stopped at 70. Using "M$" does not put you into the "in" crowd, so stop it.

I thought the article was good. I wouldn't say it was pro-microsoft, but actually more an agreement that the idea is good. I mean, come on.. she did mention other alternatives. How is it her fault that .NET is the only one that's actually making waves and people are interested in. Whether people like it the idea, or not like the idea doesn't matter. They'll still be talking about it. It served as a good Cliff's Notes(tm by cliff i guess). Nothing was said of the dirty little details, which will make or break it.. but then again, unless your a software developer, do you care right now and if so WHY? And if you're not a software developer, hold onto your world very tight and cherish it. As us developers are the ones on the roller coaster first who get shot off on the broken tracks.

dr. sneed Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Microsoft is made up of people, just like you. Microsoft employs thousands of families, and not just tech workers. Microsoft puts food on the table for thousands of construction workers, bus drivers, janitors, movers, and grounds keepers' families just to name a few."

A very good point. Let's also remember that the nazis employed (directly or indirectly) most of germany a few decades ago. Just because they "put food on the table" doesn't make them good. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I hate Microsoft to the deepest corner of my soul, my entire being is against it. I hate their philosophy, I hate their business practices and I even hate all their softwares. But I have to admit it, .NET is an awesome move.

I see one major problem, and I think the government should step in and force the hand over open-standard distributed login/information with Passport/Hailstorm.

.NET will take over the computing world, and I'm afraid to see that if I don't have a Microsoft-signed passport I won't be able to view 95% of the websites. There should be a possibility to get access to a site using any Passport/Hailstorm compliant password server. Sure you couldn't send mail with hotmail if you don't have your account created there, but you can at least be recognized on msnbc.com.

this could all be done by having a central server generating 128bit user id, sequentially assigned or even randomly assigned from a pool. Make that even 2048 bit id if you want, it's not the password,just the user id, comparable to your email address or whatever. It could even become your Netizen ID.

This Netizen ID would be working on any Passport/Hailstorm and could be registered to work with your own selected server.

Come on ppl, put pressure on the gov or even Microsoft themselves, we need an open infrastructure for login info, I don't want to be forced to register an account with a ms-site, I'd rather shoot myself first, or blow up with the bomb I'll place next to their offices. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 03:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? for those that wonder how this could all work, just think of how DNS works at the moment, you have a couple of root servers that redirect the requests to secondary servers, which then process the requests and pass it down.

Similarly NetizenID could be located by a similar set of servers, with your final NetizenID pointing to the server of your choice. This way if one server get compromized not the entire planet's security info is, only the users on this server. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 04:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Man if you were burnt by MS the amount of times and the ways some of us have, you wouldn't even consider the possibility of Bill Gates asking you the time without an ulterior motive.

You just go ahead and develop in the more .NET friendly C# and have fun porting those apps to the platforms MS choses not to support, then see what happens to competition in the PDA and console markets when MS is control of what new platforms has access to all the software in the world..

It drives me nuts to hear people praising MS after all the harm they've done. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 05:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft Program Tracks User Info
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020220/ap_o... Thu, 21 Feb 2002 05:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? For the person that talked about php being a way to communicate cross platform, that's all good and fine, except .NET does that to programs.

Yeah, as I said, C, LISP, hell use Scheme or Haskell if you want. Just make it communicate via SOAP.

I don't have anything against SOAP or RPC. But its just ridiculous the way .NET is being covered in the media (including this article). You guys make it sound as if I'm not using Microsoft's terrible APIs, I can't communicate with any other programs.

Every program that has a .NET runtime, no matter what OS no matter what processor, it will run at near C speed. No recompiling for the end user ever again which is a big step over what some OSs can provide.

Yay! Developers are locked into a closed API, running only on Windows. If you think your Windows Forms apps are ever going to run unmodified on OS X or Linux, you're fooling yourself. And I'm sure cell phone & PDA users will be easily able to use those same apps...not.

Different platforms have different requirements; that's what makes them unique. OS X has cool GUI features that users love - sheets, drawers, etc. There are also cool innovations in some of the Linux desktop environments...I don't think that the .NET Framework will somehow automagically use these features. And it won't seamlessly scale down desktop UIs for the handheld market without any code modification.

The more I read, the more it appears that the "M$ crowd," or those who despise Microsoft, would sooner see personal computing be less productive than see it be advanced by Microsoft.

To hear Eugenia and Adam tell it, we should give up our customized platforms. Their unique features which causes us to choose them are holding back productivity. Hell, we all should have switched to Windows years ago. It'd be a lot easier than staying in denial, and holding on to a dead platform. It's just evolution, after all. Huzzah! Thu, 21 Feb 2002 06:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? A very informative article about a confusing issue. Thanks very much and please write some follow-ups. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 06:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have a lot of doubts about .NET sweeping over the face of the earth.

One thing I am certain of: if .NET is widely deployed, it will be a huge source of upgrade revenue for AMD and Intel. The sheer number of cpu cycles required to to accomplish even the simplest thing inside a .NET application is simply mind boggling.

As a stockholder in AMD and Intel, I say Bring It On, baby.

As a computer user, I'll keep my Linux boxes for writing code, my wife and kids boxes running Win98SE, and my gaming rig running Win2K for a long, long time. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 06:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft Bob.NET Thu, 21 Feb 2002 07:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Eugenia has written a fine article. I don't agree with her conclusions, but the article is still fine and helps to rein in a lot of pieces about .NET that I've been trying to bring together.

Frankly, I highly doubt that Microsoft's bullish attempt at it will be anywhere near the high quality speculated by the Microsoft-sympathizers posting in this forum here.

I imagine that no matter how "amazing" and "world changing" .NET is supposed to be that there will remain better alternatives--and perhaps a new and significantly more legal leader on the horizon--to Microsoft and its shameless intentions and shitty products. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 07:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I saw some comments with respect to Apple which made me laugh.

Apple still hasn't gotten Cocoa and Carbon apps to behave the same. I doubt adding another is going to help an OS which already has acute schizophrenia. It's bad enough that Sun is promoting Swing as an API which allows programmers to build mac apps. Yea right Sun, tell me another one...

Let's not destroy the one advantage MacOS has always had, HI uniformity. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 08:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've read most of the posts in this forum, and it's kinda clear to me that people here are discussing .NET without adequete knowledge of it.

You can't really tell how something works/performs without working with it.

I for one decided that i wanted more information about .NET, so i just went out and bought some books (i can recommend .NET Framework Essentials as its a really good allround tour of .NET)

My advice would be to buy a book and download .NET and get a feel for it.

Also, i would like to comment on the "microsoft for world domination"-thread also taking please in this discussion.

I don't think we have to feer .NET as the tool wich will give microsoft more power, as .NET can run on multiple platforms. A .NET program will even be able to run on most *NIX when mona is completed.
So the framework may even be more power to the other os'es as these will all be able to run .NET apps. (just like java)

What i do think we have to feer is the My Services/Hailstorm/Passport services that they are building.

I know it's possible for anybody to build a simmilar or even better (please..) service then what microsoft will offer, but, i think those alternative services will be what linux and Mac is today.

They will never be able to get the same hold of the marked.

Hope i am getting my points trough... it's very early and i am just in the beginning of 3 hours of Calculus...

/oliver Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why would .NET be an OS killer? Java is the only real platform independent language. The .NET Framework is a language independent and partial platform independent platform. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? .NET is very interesting and your article is a good read. But when you
start making comparisons to Java I must respond.

> The new APIs are highly object-oriented, and the objects used are
> accessible by any supported language (VB.NET, ASP.NET, C/C++/C# and
> recently, even Java). This is a pretty revolutionary feature, having
> objects accessible by any language. In the past, there was not a
> unified and universal way where a C++ program could access Java
> objects or Python objects.

It's not revolutionary. Java has made this possible for years. Just
take a look at some of languages available for the JVM:

http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de/~tolk/vmlanguages.html

Also the .NET runtime does only support a subset of the complete C++
standard, which means you cant use some important features in
C++. Basicly there's not much better support for multiple languages
in .NET than in the JVM. Look at this article for an analysis of the
CLR:

http://www.javalobby.org/clr.html

> With .NET you can have a series of different languages talk to the
> same objects, while with Java, only Java could access its own objects.

See above.

> However, unlike Java, .NET code does not run in a "virtual
> machine". The code is actually JIT'd to the native code of the host
> platform at runtime. Of course Java has this capability too, but what
> .NET does differently is keep track of which modules have already been
> compiled to native code, and not bother re-compiling them from the
> intermediary language a second time. The runtime is smart enough to
> figure out when an intermediary language module has been modified, and
> re-JIT it at runtime only when that has occured. What does this mean?
> It means that .NET code runs just like Java running JIT'd the first
> time you run the code. The second time though, .NET code runs closer
> to the speed of C++ (with the added overhead of garbage collection).

Saving the JIT compiled code does not improve performance. Java
doesn't save the JIT compiled code because there's no advantage in
doing this. Java and .NET should be about equally fast. About 90% of
the program code takes 10% of the execution time, so there's no gain
in compiling this code to machine code. JIT compiling the rest of the
code is done very fast.

> Microsoft loves to have its .NET ported everywhere.

I seriously doubt this. It would mean that M$ can sell any more copies
of Windows and would loose the dominance on the desktop market. Do you
have any grounds for this statement? Has M$ stated that it wants .NET
ported to all platforms? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Even if the .Net concept is the best solution in many fields of computing, the fact that the initiative comes from Microsoft, makes me very suspicious.
And I ask my self why?
For users good? Maybe.
For Microsoft good? Yes (and it's OK with me as far as they work by the "live and let live.")

But as we know Microsoft works by " If you are not with us- you against us".
Instead of making less products but make them well, they trying to take as much as possible and crash the opposition and finally they bring us innovations. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > Microsoft does the following better than any other OS
> platform:
> - Localization, into 34 locales at last count

Oh *please*, this is a joke, yes? AmigaOS did that better in 1987, without the need to provide different *binaries* for each locale. (For those who don't know / remember, by providing a .catalog file in addition to the binary. It was even possible to add new locales without having the source code of the binaries.)

It might not matter to you, but it gives me stampeding madness when the latest bug in Windows is fixed in the US version, "fixes for other locales coming soon". That's stupid to the extremes.

Check your mileage, it varies from reality. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I'm sorry, I've just gotta jump in here. I think that the term
"evolution" is a big misfit. which things mutate, and once in a very
very long time turn out to be
better."

I think you need to read a book on evolution. It isn't a random
process but an optimisation process. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Maybe it's a random optimisation process? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Excuse me Don, but from the pile of books read to date, from the kindergarden to the University postgrade, strikes me somehow funny that we shall call "optimization" a mutation we can't explain. Isn't that what Charles Lutwidge Dodgson once called "a calm assumption"? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >> I don't want to have readers
>> who do not know all these things.

>Sounds rather patronising, doesn't it? Textbook Eugenia, I >would say.

I think what this means is that OSnews wants to post articles so that readers will know all these things. That's not patronising, it's good sense.


>>>while we have the choice in ignoring it

>> No, you don't!! That was the point
>> of my last paragraph.

>What? That is absolute crap, and neither you nor anybody >else on this planet knows for sure that .net will succeed. >For all its success, it won't be the first time MS failed >in a big project. Presenting .net as a fait accompli is >putting the cart before the horse, and with editorials >like this, any person with half-a-brain will loose >confidence in anything you write.

RTFA - .NET will become the dominant API for development in Windows, if only because the previous APIs are so bad. Windows developers (and there are *lots* of them) will adopt .NET with enthusiasm (with the possible exception of VB users, because VB.NET is radically different from VB). We would be fools to ignore this trend. And we would be fools not to look at the .NET API and see whether it has any advantages for us.

Whether anyone except Microsoft will want to use .NET My Services is another question. One way that the Open Source/Free Software community can take advantage of .NET, and at the same time hinder the unwelcome intrusion of My Services, is to continue to provide software and operating systems with perpetual licences, that don't necessarily need to load components over the network, that won't switch themselves off if the user doesn't pay a subscription, or if the user makes too many hardware upgrades.

>> And then? Microsoft will
>> have taken the market by then.

>Same way they took the ISP market, just by having 95% of >the desktop, right? Will they write all the code? Don't >they need developer support? Think again.

*nix servers were interoperable with desktop internet client applications. Make no mistake, if *nix servers are not interoperable with .NET, Windows will displace *nix in the internet server market.

>> There is no reason to
>> fight OS Wars anymore.

>That's what they said about the PC a years ago. In my >opinion, this is arguable, and probably false. I love my >privacy, and like the pc, personal OSes would be for a >looong time.

Here I disagree with Eugenia. OS Wars will continue, but the battlefield will be different. Can Windows beat other OS's on price, security, reliability, privacy... I don't think so.

>> Business is a jungle my friend.
>> The stronger will survive. And
>> in this case, Microsoft is the
>> strongest.

>Yeah, substitute microsoft with Nortel, or Enron. Nothing >is certain my friend. Not even everlasting life for >abusive, bulling monopolies.

Enron cooked its books to hide huge liabilities. Nortel thought it could become the next Cisco by spending lots of money. In contrast, Microsoft has a huge cash mountain, it's already number one in its markets: indeed it has the very favourable position of being a convicted monopolist but with no legal redress. I hate its business practices, but unlike Nortel and Enron, it's only Microsoft's customers who suffer, the company is smart enough not to do the same as Enron or Nortel.

>> If you still think that this
>> article was Pro-Microsoft, you
>> are more dumb than I thought.

> Count me in as another dumb one, typical Eugenia style.
> If this article is not pro-microsoft, I have no clue what
> is.

Let's have more articles like this one, telling it like it is, warning us what's on the horizon, especially on topics like MSDN that we don't habitually read. And let's have some lively debate about these articles. Readers who can't engage their brains before they type, or who cannot be courteous, should go back to Slashdot. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >"Microsoft is made up of people, just like you. Microsoft
>employs thousands of families, and not just tech workers.
>Microsoft puts food on the table for thousands of
>construction workers, bus drivers, janitors, movers, and
>grounds keepers' families just to name a few."
>
>A very good point. Let's also remember that the nazis
>employed (directly or indirectly) most of germany a few
>decades ago. Just because they "put food on the table"
>doesn't make them good.

Degenerates like you will be gassed in the Microsoft New Order.

Heil Bill Gates! Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? > Degenerates like you will be gassed in the Microsoft
> New Order.

This ain't funny, like the Taliban prision camps. Let's keep politics (unrelated to CS) out of here, shall we? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In innovated by Microsoft gas chamber

I wouldn't go so far. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Microsoft Domination is a political issue you like it or not, and not a funny one either. Odds are with MS .NET (lets put the MS before so they don't take possesion of another generic term, what a fixation!) we are going `ENTARTETE` (degenerated) again under Microsoft New Order for itself to "innovate" alone, gasification fits there.

If you don't want to talk about `other` politics, start by not mentioning them. I applaude the Taliban prision camps, the ones that have them in of course. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Nice article, well written and to the point.

Putting the users shoes on for a mo, if i'm in the middle of some work, sorry, i just do'nt want to go searching anywhere for anything - i just want it there.

I like surfing the web, because it is the web. I just do'nt want anything like that in an app.

bit of a turn-off. Thanks for giving it to me though....

heino Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've yet to read anything that doesn't convince me that .NET is better than freaking OpenStep or Cocoa as it is called on Apple's OS. XML, check. RPC, check (hell, AppleScript does this!). Vended objects to other apps? Check (they're called "Services" and they've got their own system-wide menu... not to mention AppleScript, which people have used for YEARS to make apps do all sorts of stuff together).

.NET? I've been using it for years. I've been using a Mac. :-P Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree that Microsoft *is* a political issue. I disagree that the terms used for emphasis are appropriate. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think the comparison someone drew in comments to Be users 'warring' on BeNews about the desktop versus internet appliances was right on the money... but probably not in the way he'd meant it. It was "obvious" that IAs were the way of the future and that us skeptics were willfully ignorant luddites who just didn't get it. Well, pardon me, but it seems that between the IAs and us luddites, we're the ones still standing.

Look, this isn't even the first time Microsoft spent amazing resources on new technologies. Anyone here heard of Cairo, the fully object-oriented operating system that was supposed to be NT 5? It kicked butt, at least on paper. But the interest in the technologies just wasn't strong enough from developers and users. And on a more whimsical note, Microsoft Bob sure took the world by storm, didn't it?

I have no doubt that Microsoft is going to be delivering a version of Windows that uses .NET as its native API, with development tools and their own applications. And if it delivers significant performance advantages for their applications developers will start using it. As anyone watching the whole "Carbon or Cocoa" debate on OS X should know, though, that's a big "if."

--but wait, you say! Cross platform virtual machine distributed computing blah blah buzzword! Right. News flash: The business case for making Adobe Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Final Cut Pro and, yes, even Quake IV (you know it'll happen eventually) run on a VM as opposed to writing portable code and tweaking each one for a specific platform is very shaky. Performance on the desktop is more important than the ability to do nonlinear video editing on your cell phone.

Bigger companies are going to be taking a "wait and see" attitude to .NET development because it's suicidal for them to do anything else. Unless their users demand something .NET gives them (and if there's even a hint of performance degradation, don't expect them to be beating down the doors for it), they're not going to be motivated to switch any time soon. And don't think for a second that old Windows APIs are going away by 2003, or 2005, or even 2010. It took fifteen years for the DOS API to go away, folks, and there's a much bigger Windows user base.

If this sounds like an "I'll believe it when I see it," so be it. This isn't revolutionary stuff. Even in the best possible light, it's moving the API to an abstracted level--nothing less, but nothing more. The rationale for "alternative" operating systems doesn't go away with .NET... unless you believe that .NET's API and performance will be so amazing that nobody will ever say, in any context, for any reason, that it could be improved.

Do you really believe that? Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks for the article Eugenia, may we have another?

BeOS was way ahead of its time, and tried to get in Microsoft's way, and went the way of the dodo. .NET will succeed in time, because Microsoft has the the $$ to make it happen, so the most Apple, Sun, et. al can hope for is a breathing spell! Techies will cling to the old ways, and I will continue to create with Gobe on my BeOS 5 box, but (to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke) "I remember Babylon... "

Is .NET inevitable? Yes! Will it be secure? No! Will the average user care? Only when (not if!) their insurance is cancelled, their credit limit is lowered, and/or their car is repossessed following unlawful access by anyone (read, everyone!) who wants to know about them and chooses to disclose that information to a third party with a vested $$ interest...

Farfetched? No! We can pretty much agree that if technology can do it, people will abuse it!

I think REM summed it up best: "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine... "

BB Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Ok the accusation was a bit much

What do you mean, a bit much... Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm sorry, I've just gotta jump in here. I think that the term "evolution" is a big misfit. IIRC, evolution is a _random_ process by which things mutate, and once in a very very long time turn out to be better. Development might just be a better work than evolution.....or would it?

It depends on your definition of evolution. Do you mean Darwin's theroy of evolution by natural selection (i am assuming you do)?... Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Congratulations on a good editorial. It provides a fair description of .NET.

However, I think it's worth pointing out that .NET applications don't necessarily make any use of web services or central storage of components. Thus, I think the privacy concerns need not necessarily apply.

.NET can just as well be used for regular desktop applications running locally. The biggest immediate benefit is for the developer, used to Win32 and MFC (absolutely horrible!) who can be much more productive with .NET as underlying class library. (.NET development in Visual Studio .NET makes programming fun again, I kid you not!)

Deployment is vastly simplified as Microsoft have taken great care to get rid of the ugly problem which they themselves describe as "DLL Hell". .NET applications are typically just placed in the location of your choice, after which installation will already be complete. To uninstall, just remove the program (and folder, if any). Instant Amiga/MacOS/BeOS type install/uninstall.

Personally, I think .NET is the most exciting thing to have happened in several years. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I agree that Microsoft *is* a political issue. I disagree
>that the terms used for emphasis are appropriate.

Actually that's the point I was trying to make. The post I was following up too contained this -

"Let's also remember that the nazis employed (directly or
indirectly) most of germany a few decades ago. Just because
they "put food on the table" doesn't make them good"

Way to Godwin dude!

Now Microsoft have enough outrageous things* that I consider them an abusive monopoly, but comparing them to the Nazis is unbelievably offensive. Also the technology behind .Net seems to me to be very interesting, and it may just end up backfiring on them.

* like buying up Halo so I either need to buy an XBox or wait a year for it to come out on the PC, the bastards. Or for that matter the AARD code that stopped Windows running on DrDOS. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 15:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just a small correction: AmigaOS wasn't localized until in version 2.1, which was released in 1992 and not 1987.

Speaking of localization, .NET handles this fairly nicely and makes it very easy for the user to store language files as separate resources. In Visual Studio .NET this is handled seamlessly and transparently. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 15:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Solar: I agree that Microsoft *is* a political issue. I disagree that the terms used for emphasis are appropriate.

Amen! I value everyone's opinion, but I am personally offended by some of the more krass and violently disgusting comments made above. It is not appropriate to discuss death and torture in this forum.

Phazer: Saving the JIT compiled code does not improve performance. Java
doesn't save the JIT compiled code because there's no advantage in
doing this. Java and .NET should be about equally fast. About 90% of
the program code takes 10% of the execution time, so there's no gain
in compiling this code to machine code. JIT compiling the rest of the
code is done very fast.

I think you should consider downloading the .NET SDK, and building a 'Hello World' windowed app in both Java and .NET before you jump to this conclusion. You'll find that .NET is very much faster than Java.

Solar:
> Microsoft does the following better than any other OS
> platform:
> - Localization, into 34 locales at last count

Oh *please*, this is a joke, yes? AmigaOS did that better in 1987,

Oh really? Does AmigaOS support the language of the Nunavut nation?

without the need to provide different *binaries* for each locale.

The *binaries* you're speaking of are DLLs which contain only localizable resources, no code.

It might not matter to you, but it gives me stampeding madness when the latest bug in Windows is fixed in the US version, "fixes for other locales coming soon". That's stupid to the extremes.

This delay is caused by testing time. Believe it or not Microsoft has quite rigorous testing processes in place, and every feature in every language has to be re-tested after a change has been made (even to the localized resources).

LeftOfCentre: Speaking of localization, .NET handles this fairly nicely and makes it very easy for the user to store language files as separate resources. In Visual Studio .NET this is handled seamlessly and transparently.

I can vouche for this. The next version of Office [PR interjected word] *may* be full of .NET code. Windows Office is the bread and butter of Microsoft, accounting for 51% of the company's revenue. You can be sure that the company would not bet such a large amount of revenue on a technology which didn't meet the localization requirements necessary to be deployed at BMW gmbh. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 16:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://bbspot.com/News/2002/02/bunny.html Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What are talking about?? It's not a nation, it's part of Canada. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If OS'es and the internet as we know it disappear by 2005 and .NET (and thus Microsoft) is the only way to go for ANY form of communication, I can assure you that I'll throw my PC in a trashcan and start my own sheepfarm somewhere deep Down Under, far-far away from what is until now known as "civilisation". Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Excellent article.

Of course I don't agree with the conclusion though, where the author (Eugenia Loli-Queru) writes: "You will, however, have to find who will be your spanking master: Microsoft or Sun? Take your pick, because you simply can't get away with none."

DotGNU is the project of those who will accept neither Sun nor Microsoft as "spanking master". There are enough freedom-loving developers in the world that DotGNU can beat .NET similar to how GNU/Linux and other free OSes are in the process of driving the proprietary Unix versions out of the market one by one.

BTW we're not endorsing C# and CLR over Java and JVM. We want to support both, using GPL'd and GPL-compatible Free Software only.

For more information on DotGNU, see http://www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/

Greetings, Norbert. (One of the founders of the DotGNU project.) Thu, 21 Feb 2002 20:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? for .NET to take over, amazon.com & every other e-commerce site must tell my browser "I will not accept your CC info as payment, you must use .NET/Passport/Liberty Alliance." I am not yet convinced that's inevitable. If it happens I'll just support my local bookstore/library more. I just don't want to give M$ or Sun or IBM all my data. I think some people will continue to trust M$ with their personal data & bank account (as they do now) & some won't (as they... I mean we... don't now). I also see XML Web Services as vulnerable to a sort of variant on Ockham's razor: I believe a simpler API can accomplish the equivalent, and hence inevitably will be developed (& not by M$). By definition, M$ does not have simplicity, but rather M$ controllability, so to speak, as a design goal. That is their Achilles heel, because software that does not have "M$ can control me" as one of its features can always be made superior to software that does. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? .NET sounds just like AmigaDE/Tao, which is what I thought when I first heard about it. I don't know if MS had the idea longer than Amiga/Tao but I remember reading about it from Amiga first. Plus they have working code. The JIT feature sounds *exactly* the same.

Now, if someone could write an article/editorial about Passport or whatever. That's something I don't really understand. Thu, 21 Feb 2002 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I do not see any point in comparing Java and .Net

Java is here for years and is far ahead of the "Will be perfect " .net. here is my point:

Java is a very widely accpeted platform. You can have java code deployedon virtualy any OS/ CPU/ System on earth. You can deploy on Phones, PDA's, Huge servers (non MS, or MS), and even on PlayStation 2.

I get mad when people say ".net will be a revolution, because you will be able to run your software on other platforms. " No Way!

Can anyone explain me why Microsoft would ever consider pushing .net to "any" platform while it is making most of its money by controlling the OS market. MS had always used Windows to promote its products, and you are saying that they will leave that behind? Come on , it just makes no sense.

And for second thing, as a Java developer, sky is the limit for me. Java had become a fully blown product range. I can develop virtaully any type of application with it:

If I want to use media capabilites , I use Java Media Framework.

If I want 3D programming, I use java 3D (It is accelerated via DirectX or OpenGL).

And so on.. I can do all these with full platform independence and portability. There is no other platform / language providing this sort of capability and no, .net will never be capable of doing these.

After all, .net is a MS product, it will never give you freedom to choose, it will only take it from you... Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think one of the main reason why internet is so successful is that it evolved around open standard and MS was no way involved in its evolution. Now that MS is trying to control future of web services god only knows what kind of problem we would face. As MS entered desktop arena we started having problems like crash,virus etc. So if .NET like environment is the future then we should have open standard for such services, rather than some greedy company controlling it. Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Couldn't resist putting my 2 bobs worth in.

the principles of .NET may be ok, but how will the API's pan out? My experience with M$ API's has never been good - they are always bulky and baroque. Why will .NET be any different?

The next big thing in computing is not going to be .NET. We're locked into this browser/desktop/network paradigm and it's hard for us to break our thinking. The internet was not revolutionary, it was just the evolution of networking that had built up over 20 years or so, and finally made it's way out onto the desktop. And languages? Hah, they're just souped up extensions of what emerged in the 60's & 70's.

All .NET is doing is to level the playing field by making processors, operating systems and networking ubiquitous, and trying to nail down the bits of the whole operating evironment that keep falling over. It may be an enabler for new applications that we haven't heard of, but ultimately the applications developed will be constrained to the evolutionary pattern that .NET will apply. One size fits all might be the American way, but others in the rest of the world revel in variety. Just see .NET as a variety killer.

I don't know what the next big thing is going to be and if I did, I would be keeping my cards close to my chest anyway. We need to invent new ways to program computers & I think AI and adaptive programming might be the way to go.

There, I've said my piece. Doesn't mean I'll not have to confront .NET in the near future though.

P Sun, 24 Feb 2002 04:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I think you had a hefty daydream. For me its a nightmare. I will not support it anyway. Lets see if it prevails. Extrapoliting can be misleading. Who knows if there is a monopoly called M$ in 2012? People have proven many times to be dumb, not only by using M$ software. But they are not dumb enough to give away control over their lives. That's what I think today. Perhaps I'm wrong, we'll see. But not with me. I will stick to open source and never support this tyranny.

ok, now you can laugh on me, I don't mind cause I believe your time is running out. Thu, 28 Feb 2002 04:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi...

I've read much about how VS.Net is going to revolutionalize how we write our software... and how our software will work in the futre....

I'm just wondering whether if Visual Studio.Net can still be used to write stand-alone applications like Visual Studio 6 did?? or will that not be possible anymore with the .net version?

thanks. Fri, 01 Mar 2002 10:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments