.Mac

[Jake Robb]

[OT disclaimer]
I hesitate to write this message, but I figure that the OW list has been
otherwise pretty quiet since the release of 4.1, and I'm not really hurting
anything.  Furthermore, I would really like to hear what the Omni developers
think of the whole .Mac thing.
[end]

I've had the unfortunate displeasure of working extensively with VB.NET.
I'm also extremely familiar with VB 6, it's most recent predecessor.

I can tell you that, on the spec sheet, VB.NET looks awesome compared to
VB6.  Finally, VB becomes truly object oriented (purists would argue --
let's just say its as OO as Java).  Object inheritance, overriding methods,
and the like -- all there.

Heck, I actually *wanted* to use it.

Until I did.  It's awful.  They convoluted the language.  Things are changed
that shouldn't have been / didn't need to be changed.  The learning curve is
easily ten times steeper than that of VB6.

Personally, I love the fact that MS did this -- it makes it much harder for
the average Joe to write a sloppy program that barely gets the job done, and
leaves it to trained, educated programmers with a higher tendency to
actually write *good* software.  To me, this means more OmniWebs and fewer
IE's in the world.  I like it.  Microsoft is going to force the software
development industry to mature, and it's going to kill VB's prime market:
quick-hack software.

Oh yeah, and they took out my most very favorite feature of the VB IDE:
editing the code while the program is running and having changes take effect
on the fly.

I'd go so far as to liken .NET to communism: works great on paper, but try
it out in the real world and all you get is a dictatorship. ;-)

-Jake



Michael Brewer wrote:

> Unfortunately the new project I'm working on at work will be developed in
> ASP.Net instead of JSP. We're relying on a DLL file for the API and the
> other developers in the group didn't want to go through JNI because (a)
> slower (b) writing wrappers for each function.
> 
> Essentially, the .Net framework is a rip-off of Java 2 Enterprise Edition,
> from what I hear.
> 
> I don't like it, because it's one step closer to eliminating the
> non-commercial programmer and it's another way for MS to extend their
> monopoly. I would love to find a Bondi & White G3 to run my personal
> Website off of so that I could use PostgreSQL, Apache, and JSP instead of
> Access, IIS, and VB.
> 
> On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 06:21 PM, Forrest Corbett wrote:
> 
>> I don't get it. Most people can't even tell me what .NET is. .NET
>> messenger, fka MSN Messenger, doesn't even use ANY .NET technologies.
>> When MS first released .NET no one could really figure out what it was,
>> so they started using the name all over the place to get recognition. Now
>> people are asking me "What's your .NET screenname?" or "Have you used
>> .NET?"
>> 
>> .NET server (seed) is up and running for many on the MSDN... but most
>> people I know have gone from all gaga to "everything has got to be .NET
>> for it to work, and we're not gonna do that." I hear VS .NET is sweet
>> compared to VS 6.
>> 
>> I'm gonna shut up now. I don't like knowing as much as I do about this
>> stuff.
>> 
>> -Forrest