Miguel De Icaza Announces New Company
Linked by Kroc Camen on Tue 17th May 2011 12:05 UTC
Mono Project Two weeks ago we covered the news that the Mono development team were let go kicked out by the new owners of Novel, Attachmate, apparently to move operations to Germany. Miguel de Icazza, founder of Mono, has taken this opportunity to break off on his own and has started a new company, Xamarin, to bring commercial .NET development products to iOS and Android.
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Meh, who cares
by StaubSaugerNZ on Thu 19th May 2011 08:04 UTC
StaubSaugerNZ
Member since:
2007-07-13

I have to say, I don't care about .NET and it turns out most of the embedded and enterprise folk don't either. If you are doing Desktop development then you are probably targetting Windows, but you are also possibly a species in decline. Most of the action these days is for the Web, and the growth is in Mobile. .NET is a minnow in these areas (sure, I'm sure there are examples, but the majority of folks use either Java in Big Enterprise or Java/Dalvik or Objective on mobile).

I do a lot of Java. One of the best things about it is that I can give code to other coders (who don't have a PhD like me) and they can grok it. This is important on Big projects that take years to complete and have so many staff you are guaranteed not all who start the project will be around when it finishes. Unfortunately the desktop bound, tiny-project VS weenies don't seem to get that "Simpler is Better".

The earlier poster mentioned NetBeans. This is a superb IDE (easily beats Eclipse and Visual Studio). Even better, it works everywhere I need to be. From:
* my MacBook at home (do a bit of LockOn game modding in my spare time)

* to Linux for my big government and big corporate clients

* to Windows for smaller clients (the occasional smaller government department that lacks skills in Linux/Unix that their bigger colleagues have).

This is where .NET falls over. Mono is still missing big chunks and having to choose between Mono's libraries and the Microsoft libraries simply blows chunks.

So, I use Java and it works well for me and my customers, and it works pretty much everywhere (over my recent career I've done Internet scale enterprise with it, desktop, web, embedded systems, hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics, hard-out scientific computing).

You can keep crowing about your new little language features in C# (while ignoring all the cruft that is accumulating as yesterday's 'new' becomes unfashionable - and it is just fashion) that don't matter a whit to productivity in a million-line program (and make it harder for new starters to follow).

Java ain't going anywhere. Mono and .NET will both be long gone before the Sun sets on Java (just as C won't ever be killed for some applications). Want the facts, well check the figures:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Most of the developers in the World are using Java (and C). Far more than C#. This is not because they lack the *skillz* but because they realise to scale you have to *keep it simple*.

Edited 2011-05-19 08:07 UTC

Reply Score: 3

RE: Meh, who cares
by toomuchtatose on Thu 19th May 2011 08:50 in reply to "Meh, who cares"
toomuchtatose Member since:
2011-05-15

I do agree on the KISS philosophy to deploy Java instead of other less-ubiquitous alternatives.

Unless one has the need to use special features of specific platforms, there is little to no net efficiency gains from 'doing something different', considering the change costs and risks involved.

Arguably, this is also one of the reasons why Java is creating inertia for the growth of other platforms. I see Javascript as an important alternative which might gain traction provide Java loses its mind-share on developers and enterprise.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[2]: Meh, who cares
by StaubSaugerNZ on Thu 19th May 2011 09:31 in reply to "RE: Meh, who cares"
StaubSaugerNZ Member since:
2007-07-13

I do agree on the KISS philosophy to deploy Java instead of other less-ubiquitous alternatives.

Unless one has the need to use special features of specific platforms, there is little to no net efficiency gains from 'doing something different', considering the change costs and risks involved.

Arguably, this is also one of the reasons why Java is creating inertia for the growth of other platforms. I see Javascript as an important alternative which might gain traction provide Java loses its mind-share on developers and enterprise.


Interesting points. Although Javascript is not really a general-purpose language, and the variation of Javascript between browsers is a bit painful. Technologies such as Google Web Toolkit allow you to bypass Javascript for the most part, and still work in Java client-side an server-side.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE: Meh, who cares
by segedunum on Thu 19th May 2011 13:00 in reply to "Meh, who cares"
segedunum Member since:
2005-07-06

For me, it's difficult to see why mobile developers would want to buy Visual Studio, a whole bunch of development tools specific to one desktop and the whole .Net juggernaut.

Microsoft seems to think that because most developers have to develop for Windows if they want to create a desktop application then that logic applies everywhere else. It's a fatal mistake IMHO.

Reply Parent Score: 2