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Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 16 Mar 06 10:22 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Is this a reasonable interpretation? Significant?
From an article by Richard Grimes - "Analysis of .NET Use in Longhorn and Vista"
My conclusion is that Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET. They implement very little of their own code using .NET. The framework is provided as part of the operating system, but this is so that code written by third party developers can run on Vista without the large download of the framework. Supplying the .NET runtime for third party developers in this way is similar to Microsoft supplying msvbvm60.dll as part of XP.
http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm#conclusion |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 16 Mar 06 10:41 AM
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I don't agree. We're really talking about different things here completely.
.NET is not meant to be used to build operating systems. It is meant for application development. If you think that MS does not have confidence in .NET for application development you only have to look as far as the new apps coming out from MS. Take a look at the new SQL Server Management Studio for SQL2005. A bit of spelunking with a Spy app will reveal it is .NET. Sure it will have non-managed parts under the hood, but why force the use of .NET just for the sake of using it. When I develop, I use .NET. However, if there is a better use of Delphi or something else then I'd break that out (although since all I develop is "applications" there's seldom a need for that since .NET is well-suited for application development.)
-Ryan |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 21 Mar 06 11:29 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Why don't you ask this question on the WinFX newsgroups? You might give them a good laugh. 
Seriously, Microsoft's utilization of ".NET" as a buzzword has only begun to taste rather old and stale in their mouths, but they have definitely identified key operating system dependencies on .NET. I doubt WinFX will be as stable on Windows XP or Windows 2000 / Windows Server 2003, much the same way as Internet Explorer 4 was less stable on Windows 95 than on Windows 98 which fully integrated IE. Regardless, Microsoft's intent is to make "WinFX" almost as ubiquitous tomorrow as "Win32" is today.
For those who don't know, WinFX is the additional libraries that extend .NET 2.0 and will be fully integrated into Windows Vista but will be downloadable for Windows XP. It is completely dependent on NetFX--that is, the .NET Framework, version 2.0.
You might also have a look at what they are researching for a completely managed codebase as an operating system written entirely in C#.
http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=68302
Incidentally, there are two claims by the referenced web site that are questionable. The claims that "Vista is considered feature-complete and therefore WinFX / .NET dependency and support is not showing" doesn't make sense. "Feature complete" is not necessarily "API-ready". Even if it was, feature complete isn't a promise that new features won't be added. Specifically, there are a lot of isolated technologies that promise to work with Vista that may not be fully integrated in the build yet. The fact that they are out there, though, and they are identified as a part of the Vista solution even if not yet included in the DVD ISO, could potentially be an indication that Microsoft will resolve their integration and consolidation issues by the time the product is released. They are still "feature complete" because the resources are out there.
The claims that WinFX is just a wrapper around Win32 has no merit. Whether or not it utilizes Win32 to get things done is its creators' prerogative; Win32 is there, so they take advantage of it. If Win32 became obsoleted (incidentally, WinFX does not intend to obsolete Win32), the dependencies on Win32 would be replaced with dependencies on something else. Microsoft has always indicated, using diagrams and otherwise, that the .NET Framework and WinFX, as with traditional APIs like MFC and DirectX, are intended in part to be abstractions of lower-level frameworks--making any "wrapping" of core interfaces a good thing--not to mention being powerhouses of productivity by exposing classes and components that the core interfaces simply cannot do on their own. But the fact that they build on core interfaces doesn't mean that they are mere wrappers of them.
Listen to me, I sound like an apologist for Microsoft... |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 22 Mar 06 6:32 AM
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John G.
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 22 Mar 06 1:33 PM
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otc inhaler rite aid otc asthma inhaler uk fiogf49gjkf0d Expanding on this a bit (while I'm waiting for SLX to refresh slowly on someone's Citrix connection) .. I think part of the misunderstanding is how Microsoft very nearly shot themselves in the foot by almost releasing Windows Server 2003 as "Microsoft Windows .NET Server". This confused a lot of people and made a lot of non-technical (or at least technically isolated from .NET) people think that .NET and OS's had more to do with each other than is real. The side-effects of this preemptive action is still being felt today, and this is one example, I think.
However, the reality is that the .NET framework and CLR are indeed a software platform, and Windows is a software platform. They are related in the sense of both being "platforms". .NET is just higher up the chain by way of layered abstraction and intended usage. In theory (strictly theory), IL assemblies should be able to be executed wherever there is a CLR runtime engine, without respect to the operating systems. Windows just happens to be the only working CLR environment that can execute MSIL at the current time. (With respect to Mono, that runtime won't execute MSIL. One must recompile assemblies for Mono. This is very different from, say, Java classes which can be compiled once and run anywhere due to the fact that runtime engines are available on every major platform.)
Of course, Windows and .NET are still incomparable, as with apples and oranges, since Windows manages the lower level functions of a computer system--hardware invocations, threads, memory allocations, etc.--whereas .NET deals with applications, such as business logic or games.
I'll give the critics the benefit of a doubt and admit that Microsoft Windows, despite being called an "operating system", is a whole lot more than a working kernel. It is a kernel, a user experience framework, a file browser, a media player, a web browser, a notepad, a calculator, etc., etc. On the other hand, just because a car comes with a radio doesn't mean it's not a car.
However, despite these "perks", the pre-bundling of .NET Framework 2.0 on Vista suffices, in my mind, to be everything Microsoft should be expected to do to support .NET Framework in Windows. .NET Framework is built on Windows, after all, not Windows on .NET Framework. Somehow, someone got the silly idea that Windows should be running on .NET in order for Microsoft to be taken seriously. That's a bit like building a cement foundation on top of a roof. |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 23 Mar 06 2:00 PM
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lilly coupons for cialis lilly cialis coupons fiogf49gjkf0d Oh yes, don't get me started on "Windows .NET Server". The conversations I had with many trying to explain the differences still ring loudly in my ears.
And SLX v5? "SalesLogix.net" - What a poor choice in name that was, let's not forget that faux pas.  Not only did it just create more confusion, but this was all from a 100% Delphi app that had nothing at all to do wit .NET (yes, the .NET framework wasn't officially released when v5 came out but it was well into beta and the whole SLX.net name seemed to be an attempt to jump on the bandwagon from all the buzz stirring from .NET at the time - even though it had no basis for the claim  ) |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 23 Mar 06 3:45 PM
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fiogf49gjkf0d .NET and the CLR boil down to one thing: a virtual machine.
There is no incentive to have a VM at the OS level any more. Why? Alpha and other platforms were ditched for good ole x86. If there is just one architecture, a VM makes absolutely no sense. Now if you were to try to do Linux, supporting alpha, ppc, and other architectures then .NET would be a good thing at the OS level.
Jeff Atwood gave a good reply to this topic here: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000542.html
Windows Media Center's UI is done ENTIRELY in .NET. From what I hear, Vista is going to have a MCE edition with the same frontend so that won't really change any time in the future. Yes Microsoft isn't "dogfooding" .NET in every single app they write but there are times when you need a mix of managed and unmanaged code to make the app function correctly. Should MS change .NET to keep everything managed? It's possible but at some point you sacrifice speed for the "managed tax" and right now CPUs aren't fast enough that the tax doesn't affect users. Your app loads slow? Blame Microsoft and watch your users switch to something that's faster. Change your app to load faster by using some unmanaged code in places and your app will be golden.
Lastly one thing never mentioned is Microsoft's backwards compatibility stance (except in the case of Xbox360). I personally feel they bend over backwards (no pun intended) with what they're doing. When you make changes some things are going to break but to sacrifice SECURITY for this? UAP instead of Limited User Access is a BIG one that has me royally peeved. Instead of doing the right thing, their answer is "It's okay to be an administrator again but we'll limit what can happen without your knowledge". XP SP2 was supposed to be a similar security enhancement but anyone on my network with admin access is completely trashed by malware. Every single user with limited user access has NO spyware, malware, or viruses. As long as I keep the systems up to date there are no exploits that can render the system useless either. The major annoyance is there are a couple of hoops you have to jump through that I hoped would have been ironed out in Vista but there's no way I'm using UAP if I feel it's a step backwards. I haven't used Vista since beta 1 so I have no clue how that's truly progressing but that's not the only example that has me questioning their sanity at times. I will give it to Microsoft that they do know what they're doing for the most part and any gamble like this usually bites them on the rear, giving me a small amount of kharmatic satisfaction in the process. |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 24 Mar 06 1:31 PM
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I like your stance, I wouldn't go as far as to boil it down to a VM. IMO, .NET and the CLR boil down to a common language runtime (the CLR acronym), a common application memory manager, and a common application API codebase. This differs from, say, a Java VM, whose true purpose of virtualization, as with all common uses of virtualization, is to allow you to take compiled codebases and run it on everything from the Apple Mac to the Sun Solaris to Red Hat Linux. A VM as such yanks out the opportunity to focus on optimizing the performance of the solution on a single targeted operating system.
If Microsoft ever lets .NET and the CLR to be a true VM when running on Windows, then I'll know that they have indeed given up on .NET. I think it's important for the .NET framework and the API that it is to be deeply rooted into the optimized native codebase of the core operating system. (The original confusion being the expectation vice-versa. The core OS should not be rooted in .NET.) And then I'd like to see .NET assemblies executing so fast that you could build real high-performance hardware drivers in C#. And then I'd like it to drive my car, and feed me pizza. But in the mean time, I'm happy with getting Managed DirectX and WinFX.  |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 25 Jul 06 8:54 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d I think you really have to dig deep and see the purpose of .net. Really for OS based functionality (kernal drivers, network stacks, base presentation frameworks) it does not make sense to go .net. Frankly I myself am not willing to wait for the .net runtime to verify every strongnamed assembly stored on the box while loading up the OS. .Net is really great for what it is (Framework and Runtime) for building 2nd Tier applications. I could not see in the immediate future a switch to .net for pure OS development. If you really wanted to rant notice that VS2005 core is not written in .net nor will the new Office 2007. If we wanted to break .net into its sum of parts its the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) , CTS (Common Type System) , BCL (Base Class Library) and the CLR (Common Language Runtime). If you look at the work MS is doing forward around .net there is huge investment happening. .net 3.0 has been announced with WCF, WPF, WF the next generation C# and VB.net languages are already CTP's for individuals to look at. They are tring to tackle the (as they call it) Database to Language impedence mismatch (check out the videos, Podcasts) with LINQ, DLINQ, XLINQ, and now BLINQ for ASP.net. They have introduced ATLAS for ASP.net 2.0 to offer easier AJAX type support. So in a nut shell I do not believe that microsoft has lost faith in .net, just understands its strengths and weeknesses a little bit better then the average reporter.
Mark |
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Re: Microsoft has lost its confidence in .NET
Posted: 01 Aug 06 1:40 AM
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fiogf49gjkf0d Originally posted by Mark Dykun
If you really wanted to rant notice that VS2005 core is not written in .net nor will the new Office 2007. |
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While this doesn't negate your point, there are 7.5 million lines of VS2005 code that execute in the CLR (managed). There are tiny bits of any software base that should remain native. (This does not mean that that tiny bit isn't associated with the CLR.) But the bulk of VS2005 is managed. |
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