.NET Rocks Doesn't It?

My opinion on .NET

[Xylem]

I have been using ASP.NET and VB.NET (without VS.NET) for about 3 months now, and I keep stumbling on to amazing things I can do.

I used to use ASP and well after understanding some basics of .net ways; I will cringe if I have to write another thing in ASP.

.NET is sweet

Does anyone know of a good book that they use as their bible?

How bout a good class reflection tool? The one I use is great, but there may be better out there...

Also I signed up for Microsofts free test run of VS.NET and thought that was awesome. The one thing that I wish I had more than anything else was 'Intellisense'(sp?) - you know where when writing code it shows all the methods and properties of the object your working with..

Is there any open source (notepad type) program out there that I can get that has an intellisense type feature?

If not, are there plans of creating such an app?

What do you think of .NET?

:)

[txbakers]

Regarding intellisense, several java tools do this. I use Eclipse and once you type a class name and the dot, it will bring up a list of methods available, with their argument types as well. Sweet.

I got turned off to .Net early, when I thought I had a great book and started working the examples and a major example didn't compile correctly, and the author wouldn't help me. I couldn't proceed further with the tutorials, so I left it.

I've been working in JSP now and am very happy with it.

[sharbel]

Yes .NET is fantastic. C# is a great language to work in, Ive enjoyed programming so much more since I started working in C#.

VS.NET is a great tool, and yeah Intellisense is very cool.. cant imagine programming without it anymore.

[garann]

I'm working in .NET now, but I miss working in Java. It's a big improvement over ASP, but so was JSP. My favorite things they've added are try/catch and real honest-to-goodness OO classes.

I don't use a book, I just use the class libraries. And when the class library documentation is poorly written (often), I use discussion forums and .NET247. That combination's been pretty successful.

Ultimately, I don't dislike it - my concern is that MS had to copy an existing language to create a decent language of their own. It makes me wonder how relevant .NET can remain as it ages, if MS is dependent on others to come up with innovations. Do I have to wait for Java 1.5 before I'll be able to programmatically resize a GIF in .NET without it turning to garbage?

g.

[Clark]

Can someone explain what this .net is? I used to be surrounded by techies who only knew unix and I showed them how good NT can be and cost effective in certain situations. But eventually I learned Unix and gave up on developing with any MS tools. So .net is a mystery to me.

Is it analogous to php? To Visual Basic? A RAD? A web program? Any examples of websites using .net?

[SlowMove]

Here it is:
[microsoft.com...]

[Xylem]

I have heard and read from others that Microsoft .NET is very much like java.

Is this true with both VB.NET and C#?

I have never programmed using JSP or Java previous to learning .NET

Is .NET a rip of Java?

Is there a lot of anomosity out there for .NET?

Is there a future for .NET?

I personally have enjoyed learning and using .NET so far, and I cant see Microsoft canning the project this far into it.

:)

[sharbel]

Yes, C# is a LOT like Java... is it a rip off? Hmm I wouldnt go that far, but I can certainly see where people would say it, espeically if they dont like MS. I consider it a lot like C++ and Java, for the most part.

I personally just chuckle at the geeks who whine and moan about how MS is the devil and all that jazz. I have developed in all the languages, I personally like C#. Its clean, and it just makes sense to me.. it doesnt mean Java is crap, or VB sucks.. use what makes sense to you. Some people just dont 'get' C based languages.. maybe they do better in VB.. Others, like me, get an upset stomach when I have to read VB code :) hehe

Again, it really is your preference. JSP is great, PHP is great, .NET is great.. its usually the programmer who makes or breaks the project.

[Xylem]

sharbel: very good set of points. I agree the programmer must be the ultimate factor in terms of project success.

Does anyone use VS.NET?

Was it worth the cost?

Thanks for all the feedback!

-Xylem :)

[Bentler]

I'm in an asp.net/visual studio training class now, and I like it a lot-- it's very powerful. I'm green with object oriented programming & am applying C# so it's a steep learning curve for me-- but visual studio tools & its intellisense & class documentation is really helpful.

One of the biggest advantages of .net is that developers can use a number of languages-- mainly VB.net and C sharp but other languages such as pascal, fortran & cobol have or are being ported to the platform. The architecture works like java in that it uses a virtual machine, with all languages compiling to a single intermediate language (IL) that runs on the VM.

It's also easy to develop Web services in .net, so Web servers can process & stream data for other Web or data servers to use & offer by proxy. Very nice.

[txbakers]

I think that .NET IS indeed a ripoff of JSP.

JSP allows the developer to run compiled java classes on the server, allowing for a much more robust set of features than PhP or plain ASP can offer.

C# is almost an exact duplicate of Java, and ASP.NET allows the developer to run compiled classes on the server, allowing for a more robust set of features.

The HYPE surrounding .NET involves the application of "web services" - a simple(!) way of transferring data between two different platforms using XML.

This has been done for years with CORBA and other technologies, but this is the first standardized method to do it over the internet (specifically HTTP - port 80) using standard, open source tools to do it.

It's not a bad technology, but it is limited to running only on MS servers. JSP can run anywhere, even on MS servers.

[Clark]

Not really understanding what it is.

What I'd really like is a link to an independent app created by and independent .net developer to understand what is possible practically speaking.

Like if I were to give an example of what java can do I'd point to popcap.com. Is a .net app look like java or have tools with menus like an activex type app? Does it work on all browsers or IE only? Does it just look like an html page but w/ database stuff done on the backend? What is the file extension for a .net app?

[txbakers]

Is a .net app look like java or have tools with menus like an activex type app?

A .NET web pages looks like any other web page. It can be customized to look however the designer designs it. The ".NET" portion takes place on the server. What does java look like? The C# language sometimes used in .NET looks like java.

Does it work on all browsers or IE only?

Works in all browsers, only runs on IIS servers with the .NET framework installed.

Does it just look like an html page but w/ database stuff done on the backend?

Doesn't have to have a database on the back end. It looks like a real html page.

What is the file extension for a .net app?

.aspx

Go to www.dotnetjunkies.com or aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com for more information.

[Clark]

Thank you!

[markus007]

I love .net it takes away about 90% of my database access because i can cache database queries in ram, or whole sections of webpages..

[Xylem]

love .net it takes away about 90% of my database access because i can cache database queries in ram, or whole sections of webpages..

Do you use a system.data.datatable to achieve this?

[markus007]

Dim dsn As String = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("connectionString")

Dim Source As DataView

' try to retrieve item from cache
' if it's not there, add it

Source = Cache("OnlineUsers")

If Source Is Nothing

Dim MyConnection As SqlConnection
Dim MyCommand As SqlDataAdapter

MyConnection = New SqlConnection(dsn)
MyCommand = New SqlDataAdapter("Exec selectonehundredonlineusers", MyConnection)
Dim ds As New DataSet
myCommand.Fill(ds, "OnlineUsers")
Source = New DataView(ds.Tables("OnlineUsers"))
Cache.Insert("OnlineUsers", Source, nothing,DateTime.Now.addminutes(5), TimeSpan.Zero)

' CacheMsg.Text = "Dataset created explicitly"
Else
' cacheMsg.Text = "Dataset retrieved from cache"
End If

[chrisv]

Hi there. I'm new to this forum.

I just launched a website that was written in .NET, and it was a great programming experience. Data Access is the best new feature. Having come from ASP, there was a moderate learning curve to the new ways of accessing data, but now I can see why MS did things the way they did.

In ASP you send a query, get back a "Recordset", and scroll the cursor through it to retrieve the data (or use GetRows). .NET has something called a DataAdapter that makes the connection to the data source (usually a database) and then you can scroll through as before using a DataReader, or you can dump the whole thing to a DataSet, which is what I usually do. A DataSet is basically a class wrapped around an XML document, but it is detached from a database (like a detached ADODB.Recordset) and it too supports custom filtering and sorting.

The nicest thing about DataSets is that you can create them on the fly, and they are hierarchical, so you can support both master and detail data in the same set. But the most amazing thing to me is that you can make a bunch of changes to the data (deletes updates and inserts) and then pass the modified dataset _back_ to the DataAdapter, and it will automagically execute all the inserts, updates and deletes on the database in one step. Now tell me this isn't cool!

I do have some gripes about .NET though. .NET "web forms" (data-entry pages) have a hidden INPUT called __VIEWSTATE that persists the state of the "controls" (FORM elements) in an encrypted format. If you have a heavy duty form, this adds a lot of extra byteage to the POST request and subsequent page requests. I have one form in particular that takes a long time to load because of this. I'm actually thinking about going back and optimizing this page using some client JavaScript and cutting out some of the "web form" baggage.

The less form-intensive pages work great though. I still feel the need to gripe about C#. I like the language for the most part, but it lacks the "with" keyword. I think this should be mandatory for any OO language. Sigh, I guess I'll just have to do "with"out it.

Chris