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WTF.NET? Explain to my puny brain!

KosmoKosmo
edited January 2006 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
I have heard it couple times, but not once, has it been explained to me in simple terms. Can anyone explain the .NET to me so that I can grasp it? I know it is a framework, but that is as far as it goes, I even tried to read the Wikipedia article, but the damned thing is full of acronyms.
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Comments

  • BergamotBergamot
    edited January 2006
    .NET is a marketing term used to describe half a dozen mostly unrelated technologies that Microsoft was working on at about the same time.

    An excellent (if a bit technical and somewhat outdated) article on the subject can be found here. I'd be glad to clarify further if necessary
  • ronincyberpunkronincyberpunk
    .Net is like Microsoft's version of Java. You code in .Net and no matter the platform, so long as it has the .Net framework it'll run your code.
  • KosmoKosmo
    What all platforms have .NET than just the Microsoft platforms?
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    .NET can be used to make desktop or web apps .NET can be programmed with many different languages like c#, vb.net, etc .NET can drive a man insane .NET is an intermediate framework between the operating system and your programming code. You program something using whichever language you choose, and then you compile it to the .NET runtime so that the .NET interpretter can execute the code -- which is why you need the framework or it just won't work. As far as I know, it is only microsoft platforms that currently support the .NET framework. I heard tell of a linux flavour of the framework, but I don't know if it was good or just another chili-asp.
  • ithcyithcy New
    mono (the open-source .NET clone) is definitely no chili-asp.
  • BergamotBergamot
    And for all that they don't hype it much, mono has an excellent ASP.NET server, which can be used on it's own or as an apache module.
  • KosmoKosmo
    So bascally... it's just a bunch of steaming shit? I'm just curious, since I'm going to apply to a school on a programming line and I'm looking over the "study plan" to work out what they offer to me, and one of the possible courses ( you can choose your own courses) is .NET course. So I think I can safely pass that :P I think that it's not even needed to say that I'm choosing all the courses that will be beneficial on web application and game programming.
  • BergamotBergamot
    So bascally... it's just a bunch of steaming shit?
    Oh, not at all; there's some really good stuff in there. C# in particular is an amazingly elegant and powerful language, and Microsoft has made it clear that managed code is the future of Windows desktop development.
    I'm just curious, since I'm going to apply to a school on a programming line and I'm looking over the "study plan" to work out what they offer to me, and one of the possible courses ( you can choose your own courses) is .NET course. So I think I can safely pass that :P
    It could be a really useful course, or a really useless course; I have no way of telling just from the name. One of the most useful programming courses I ever took was graph theory, which is only barely related to coding.
    I think that it's not even needed to say that I'm choosing all the courses that will be beneficial on web application and game programming.
    A not-insignificant amount of web development is being done on ASP.NET...
  • lechlech ✭
    Kosmo, if you want a better way to think about it, think of it as Java. Without an interpretter installed, you can't execute anything. Depending on what you do, .net can be fairly powerful if used correctly to interact with servers and services over the internet. In many of the little tools and toys I have seen most have been good. While others have been pretty shit. Personally, I'm not a fan of the .net framework, because each time I installed it, it just seemed to bluescreen after reboot a few times and always caused more problems than anything. So I tend to avoid it like it's a plague.
  • BergamotBergamot
    lech: that sounds strange.
  • lechlech ✭
    what? the analogy or the fact that I bluescreen if I install the .net framework?
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    I use .net almost every day for my clients. I've found that with my methods and libraries, I can develop sites extremely fast with it. But it definitely took some getting used to.
  • KosmoKosmo
    Mark, the getting used to something isn't that big of a problem to me, since I don't have anything from to get used to something that is so much different :D But obviously, the .NET crowd is much sliced from the center to two different groups, equally loud. I would like to hear more.
  • BergamotBergamot
    lech: the bluescreens; I've never heard of that happening before.

    Do you remember if it was 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0? Basic runtime or SDK?
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    .NET can make monotonous tasks of development vanish. And at the same time, it can take very simple tasks and complicate them to the Nth degree. There are trade-offs in every language or framework. I don't subsribe to any particular one exclusively. They're just tools and I use different ones to achieve different ends.
  • jesusphreakjesusphreak
    C# is pretty neat.

    Its a pretty clean langauge and you can learn it pretty quickly. Some groups have done some cool things with it. RunUO used it to create a server emulator for Ultima Online that can host 8000 people at once.

    It'll be even better as it slowly starts to expand across other platforms.
  • lechlech ✭
    Bergamot, It was before the 2.0 framework, each time I installed it over the course of 2 years, it would lead to random BSoD's after installations and reboots which would pretty much hose all settings and random other installations at the point when I set it. Since then I just haven't touched the stuff as I only needed it for a couple things which I no longer have to deal with (thank god). The applications built on it also don't seem to crash as gracefully as any other applications that don't run under .net, that's another kind of turn-off for me.
  • KosmoKosmo
    I have heard good things about C# and as my first language that I learned was C I have certain interest to it (can you tell why :D). I'm just trying to understand the options and trade-offs of every language and framework, since that is essential to "get the job done". BTW Mark, how many languages you master or could write a fairly complex program with?
  • MarkMark Vanilla Staff
    Oh, I don't know. I've been handed a lot of projects over the years and I never seemed to get the same language consecutively. Eventually I just got to the point where if someone would ask me if I knew X language, I'd say yes even if I'd never seen it (Well, except for ASSEMBLY, which terrifies me). I'd be pretty confident in just about any language at this point.
  • jesusphreakjesusphreak
    mark, Lisp even?
This discussion has been closed.