Re: Why ASP.NET gets no Respect

[Steve Richter <stephenrichter@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am learning ASP.NET MVC and am finding it incredibly well done. It
is open source. The two books I am working from are very good:

http://www.amazon.com/Pro-ASP-NET-Framework-Steven-Sanderson/dp/1430210079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242760031&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-ASP-NET-MVC-1-0-Conery/dp/0470384611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242760062&sr=1-1

What impresses me most about the MSFT implementation of MVC is the use
of C# language features: anonymous types, lamba expressions, LINQ to
SQL, interfaces to enable modularization and standalone testing of
your code, method attributes ( mark a controller action method as only
called on an HTTP POST ), lots of reflection ( enables URLs to be
parsed and mapped to actual methods in your controller classes. )

My MVC learning experience, seeing how language features enable the
building of great frameworks, confirms my belief that IBM neglects its
own languages and frameworks at its peril.

I would agree with the characterisation of ASP.NET before the MVC
version as cumbersome to work with. The idea of abstracting the
details of HTML and CSS away from the programmer is sound. But in
practice, there are problems of too much backage. I suspect EGL
has/will have the same problems.



On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Rick Strahl is a well known ASP.NET developer, writer, conference speaker, and Web application framework developer  who influence me quite a bit about 10 years ago when I first became interested in developing my own Web application framework.  So it was with some surprise that I came across a blog post where he plays the Devil's advocate and speculates on a number of ASP.NET and Microsoft failings.
>
> http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/453551.aspx
>
> The blog post was an interesting read, and generated 148 additional comments.
>
> His main concern seems to be that ASP.NET has not gained the traction in the market that he expected.  I'm not sure what he expected - perhaps he's disappointed that Microsoft's desktop monopoly hasn't grown to include servers by now.
>
> Playing devil's advocate he points out that:
>
> Free and open-source tools - the LAMP stack in particular (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl/Ruby) seem to be formidable competitors.
>
> ASP.NET is seen as a big and bulky - a huge framework & runtime - requiring large servers, lots of memory etc.
>
> ASP.NET has a steep learning curve.
>
> Most of the criticism leveled against ASP.NET has to do with Web Forms and using Web Forms in it's default drag & drop way.
>
> The energy level at conferences is way down - topics and mood are dull & boring.
>
>
> Microsoft has let ASP.NET stagnate since the release of .NET 2.0.
>
> Microsoft's answer to Ajax is the bulky and clumsy ASP.NET AJAX framework.
>
> People outside of the Microsoft fold have intense loathing of Microsoft - its perception as an evil empire - only out to get your money.
>
> Advertising for ASP.NET tends to be targeted at .NET developers, which is just preaching to the choir.
>
> ---
>
> I've been critical of drag & drop web-forms in the past, so it was refreshing to have that point validated by Rick and other commentators.
>
> Notwithstanding his speculations as a Devil's advocate, he does his best to characterize ASP.NET failings as perceptions, mostly.
>
> Nathan.
>
>
>
>
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