Ask HN: What startups here are focusing on developing on top of .NET?
69 comments
i was tempted to blog about this a while back. i've gone from java (back in the 'ole days), to c#/net only, to the view that platforms don't matter. or rather platform boundaries don't matter. i spent the last few months developing out a .net mvc framework for my dayjob. when it came time for us to build http://friendsell.com, that's what i and the guys knew best, so that's what we built on. but we wanted to use CouchDB as the backend... and so we did.
there are subtle implications to the platform decisions you make, but on the scale of most startups, the extra $40 bucks a month you'll pay for that windows ec2 ami isn't gonna make a difference. what will make a difference is you building on top of the stack you're most proficient with. for us that meant building on .net and couch. for someone else that'll be RoR and mysql.
there are subtle implications to the platform decisions you make, but on the scale of most startups, the extra $40 bucks a month you'll pay for that windows ec2 ami isn't gonna make a difference. what will make a difference is you building on top of the stack you're most proficient with. for us that meant building on .net and couch. for someone else that'll be RoR and mysql.
The start-up I work for (http://www.theport.com) uses .NET 3.5 / C# / SQL Server 2005. We've incorporated some open source projects (most notably SOLR, NHibernate, and SharedCache) and use a wide range of open source tools for day-to-day management of our team (SVN, Trac, CC.NET). We've found great success in getting .NET to scale and in rapid development.
I've been developing w/ Microsoft since the VB6 days and I will be the first to admit that there's no right answer to which is the "best stack". There's great advantages to LAMP, Java, and Microsoft. I think it all depends on where your comfortability lies. My honest opinion is that trying to answer this question is like to trying to figure out which is the "best religion". It's totally subjective.
I've been developing w/ Microsoft since the VB6 days and I will be the first to admit that there's no right answer to which is the "best stack". There's great advantages to LAMP, Java, and Microsoft. I think it all depends on where your comfortability lies. My honest opinion is that trying to answer this question is like to trying to figure out which is the "best religion". It's totally subjective.
I am using .NET for my startup app (nowhere near done yet so no link) which is a CRM/scheduler for service businesses. I was going to use Ruby on Rails like the other cool kids but I have more experience with .NET, my area is all .NET and I like a lot of the new things out (e.g. ASP.NET MVC), plus I am enrolled in Bizspark. I also had a fair number of issues fighting the Rails mentality (or rather, trying to shoehorn my thoughts into Rails) so I switched to .NET
[deleted]
Not my startup, but I believe that Startuply (http://startuply.com/) was built using .NET.
I'm using part of the .NET stack for my webapp.
I really like .NET the language (the CLR, the libraries) and really could care less for all the overblown frameworks, like ASP.NET or WPF
I really like .NET the language (the CLR, the libraries) and really could care less for all the overblown frameworks, like ASP.NET or WPF
Out of curiosity, how are you using .NET for your webapp without using ASP.NET?
Empty aspx forms returning JSON to a client. I guess you could call that very lightweight ASP.NET, but in principle the fact the pipeline is called is not important.
I could have done the same thing with CGI, and I anticipate it being easy to move to other platforms without much or any rework.
I could have done the same thing with CGI, and I anticipate it being easy to move to other platforms without much or any rework.
Have you tried ASP.Net MVC? It's fairly decent and it isn't as heavy has webforms.
I've played around with it, and it looks good. .NET does struts. If/when I lead another greenfield commercial team that's probably what I'd use. I really like what they've done.
But I decided to go html/jsonp/F#/SQL-server this time. It lets me completely separate my layout from my business layer, and with a few bits of auto-code-gen my data access layer is always up-to-date. So it really just leaves me a few hundred lines of F# code to write a full-fledged application. I'm also looking to move to mono and perhaps MySQL, and this architecture is probably the most amenable to that move further down the road. Plus by writing functional code in F# with immutable data structures my code is automatically parallelizable and ready for moving up to super performance using things like MPI if I want :)
But I decided to go html/jsonp/F#/SQL-server this time. It lets me completely separate my layout from my business layer, and with a few bits of auto-code-gen my data access layer is always up-to-date. So it really just leaves me a few hundred lines of F# code to write a full-fledged application. I'm also looking to move to mono and perhaps MySQL, and this architecture is probably the most amenable to that move further down the road. Plus by writing functional code in F# with immutable data structures my code is automatically parallelizable and ready for moving up to super performance using things like MPI if I want :)
I was a .NET developer before launching our startup (http://agilezen.com/), so it was natural for us to use .NET.
It's actually a very good technology stack if you lean on the available open source options instead of just using everything Microsoft suggests. C# is a good language, ASP.NET is very efficient and scalable, NHibernate is a passably good ORM, and ASP.NET MVC is a solid foundation to build webapps on.
It hurts to have to pay license fees for hosting, but we're enrolled in BizSpark, which gives us free licenses for 3 years, and you can always look into running your app on Mono. (We are.)
Not sure what you're looking to find out, but feel free to ask anything. :)
It's actually a very good technology stack if you lean on the available open source options instead of just using everything Microsoft suggests. C# is a good language, ASP.NET is very efficient and scalable, NHibernate is a passably good ORM, and ASP.NET MVC is a solid foundation to build webapps on.
It hurts to have to pay license fees for hosting, but we're enrolled in BizSpark, which gives us free licenses for 3 years, and you can always look into running your app on Mono. (We are.)
Not sure what you're looking to find out, but feel free to ask anything. :)
"Not sure what you're looking to find out"
I am a very curious person. I never know what I am going to find out until I do. The other way to read this is that I never know what I am after until it's too late... ;-)
I am a very curious person. I never know what I am going to find out until I do. The other way to read this is that I never know what I am after until it's too late... ;-)
I'm using C# and .Net 4.0 at the moment. I'm using SQL Server 2008 Express for the fairly light database load I have (it's an installable product not a public web app). I'm using Linq to interact with it. It's been a great experience for me so far. The Linq integration with SQL Server has saved me a ton of time. I've had to write a few stored procedures so far and that's it.
I know C# better than any other language so it was an obvious choice for me. The option of at least offering a Linux product on Mono has crossed my mind a few times so that's a plus too.
I know C# better than any other language so it was an obvious choice for me. The option of at least offering a Linux product on Mono has crossed my mind a few times so that's a plus too.
Linq is my favorite ORM, by far.
Mostly the fact that I can "query" any data source (an array, a file, etc) in the same way I query a table. Lovely.
DataMapper is great. Doctrine is good. Linq is my fave.
Mostly the fact that I can "query" any data source (an array, a file, etc) in the same way I query a table. Lovely.
DataMapper is great. Doctrine is good. Linq is my fave.
One of my pet peeves (and it is Microsoft's fault for such a terrible naming scheme) is how people use LINQ interchangeably with LINQ to SQL. LINQ is a language feature used by other frameworks (LINQ to XML, LINQ to Objects, etc). LINQ to SQL is an ORM.
I'm building two startups on .NET. Mine is http://snapleague.com a freemium recreational sports league web site builder. For my day job I'm working on http://screenfeed.com which is all .NET on the backend (the main APIs are ASP.NET MVC). I've got another product in the works that's ASP.NET MVC as well.
I ended up here starting back when I got VB3 for a birthday present in high school (actually if you go back further, I started programming with BASIC on an Apple in middle school). When the web came around that translated in to ASP/VBScript and then around the time .NET 2.0 came out I switched to C# and haven't really looked back. So far, the framework hasn't limited what I want to accomplish. That may not always be the case, but for now I'm satisfied with it.
I'll echo what nkohari said about licensing. BizSpark helps a lot, and you can easily use MySql and the like if you don't want to pay for MS SQL Server. SQL Azure might relieve some of the pricing pressure for SQL too.
Speaking of Azure, I really like it. It's completely intuitive if you've done any ASP.NET development. The only problem is that it is trailing about 6-12 months behind the other cloud app hosting options in features. And since SQL Azure was announced there's been far less emphasis on Azure Table Storage which is a shame. The querying capabilities for table storage are ABYSMAL. It needs to be on par with SimpleDB before I could see myself using it (and I really, really want to use it).
I was contemplating jumping ship before ASP.NET MVC came out since the previous versions of ASP.NET (known as Webforms) really hindered more complex web app development. MVC is awesome though. Almost every part of the framework is swappable so if you have a specific need, you can quickly swap in your own or an OSS implementation. ASP.NET MVC + Spark View Engine is pure hotness.
There's been a shift going on inside Microsoft's DevDiv too. ASP.NET MVC is open source, jQuery is shipped with Visual Studio, MS employees are active bloggers and twitterers, etc. And speaking of Twitter, there's a strong .NET community there.
I ended up here starting back when I got VB3 for a birthday present in high school (actually if you go back further, I started programming with BASIC on an Apple in middle school). When the web came around that translated in to ASP/VBScript and then around the time .NET 2.0 came out I switched to C# and haven't really looked back. So far, the framework hasn't limited what I want to accomplish. That may not always be the case, but for now I'm satisfied with it.
I'll echo what nkohari said about licensing. BizSpark helps a lot, and you can easily use MySql and the like if you don't want to pay for MS SQL Server. SQL Azure might relieve some of the pricing pressure for SQL too.
Speaking of Azure, I really like it. It's completely intuitive if you've done any ASP.NET development. The only problem is that it is trailing about 6-12 months behind the other cloud app hosting options in features. And since SQL Azure was announced there's been far less emphasis on Azure Table Storage which is a shame. The querying capabilities for table storage are ABYSMAL. It needs to be on par with SimpleDB before I could see myself using it (and I really, really want to use it).
I was contemplating jumping ship before ASP.NET MVC came out since the previous versions of ASP.NET (known as Webforms) really hindered more complex web app development. MVC is awesome though. Almost every part of the framework is swappable so if you have a specific need, you can quickly swap in your own or an OSS implementation. ASP.NET MVC + Spark View Engine is pure hotness.
There's been a shift going on inside Microsoft's DevDiv too. ASP.NET MVC is open source, jQuery is shipped with Visual Studio, MS employees are active bloggers and twitterers, etc. And speaking of Twitter, there's a strong .NET community there.
The danger with Azure (especially Azure Table Storage) is that you are now locked in to their platform (the same danger in using GAE or Amazon SDS).
This is particularly dangerous since MS has shown in the past they don't have a problem totally killing off platforms (look what happened in SDS before it even launched).
This is particularly dangerous since MS has shown in the past they don't have a problem totally killing off platforms (look what happened in SDS before it even launched).
Can you tell me a little more about what makes SparkView the hotness? As opposed to just using the default stack?
1. <p if="condition">Foo</p>
2. HTML encoded by default
3. <li each="var foo in bar">${foo.Name}</li>
4. Client-side rendering: http://odetocode.com/blogs/scott/archive/2009/03/12/client-r...
5. conditional attributes (kludgy syntax, but better than Webforms VE)
6. Content "spooling". You can create a partial that registers a script tag/script specific to the partial, but only if it hasn't been registered already. Partials can also spool content to any other content area.
6a. <script src="...">
The video quality of this is a little rough, but here's a good overview by the guy that started Spark, Louis Dejardin: http://whereslou.com/2009/06/24/spark-releas-and-presentatio...
2. HTML encoded by default
3. <li each="var foo in bar">${foo.Name}</li>
4. Client-side rendering: http://odetocode.com/blogs/scott/archive/2009/03/12/client-r...
5. conditional attributes (kludgy syntax, but better than Webforms VE)
6. Content "spooling". You can create a partial that registers a script tag/script specific to the partial, but only if it hasn't been registered already. Partials can also spool content to any other content area.
6a. <script src="...">
The video quality of this is a little rough, but here's a good overview by the guy that started Spark, Louis Dejardin: http://whereslou.com/2009/06/24/spark-releas-and-presentatio...
Interesting. Reminds me of Zope Page Templates. I wish more platforms used it.
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/...
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/...
I've written more C# than probably any other language, but I've never seriously considered it for anything outside of my day job. I like the language and the tools are nice, but for pure web applications I feel that there are far nicer options out there.
Deploying applications on Windows is pretty easy, but there are far fewer hosting options for Windows; and the options that are out there will either give you a very locked down environment or require you to have a dedicated box.
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available. It's just not a big deal to make single file changes in Perl, Python or Ruby because most people don't use a full-featured IDE to edit that code and as a result files are often structured differently (which is to say generally broken up into smaller chunks).
If you're thinking about starting up on the .Net stack, there's really no reason not to if that's the stack you prefer to use. Bizspark is a nice program which allows you to delay the purchase of most licenses for 3 years. Microsoft has a long history of providing nice tools for its developers as well.
There are definitely some big sites out there that are using .Net as well (Loopt, Newegg, Woot), and there are tons of developers out there that are familiar with the stack.
I would say if that's what you are the strongest with, and you like it, there's no real reason not to use .Net - as long as you don't mind using a proprietary stack. I haven't used Mono seriously, but I've heard good things about it. However, it's still a second-class citizen when compared to the canonical .Net stack.
Deploying applications on Windows is pretty easy, but there are far fewer hosting options for Windows; and the options that are out there will either give you a very locked down environment or require you to have a dedicated box.
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available. It's just not a big deal to make single file changes in Perl, Python or Ruby because most people don't use a full-featured IDE to edit that code and as a result files are often structured differently (which is to say generally broken up into smaller chunks).
If you're thinking about starting up on the .Net stack, there's really no reason not to if that's the stack you prefer to use. Bizspark is a nice program which allows you to delay the purchase of most licenses for 3 years. Microsoft has a long history of providing nice tools for its developers as well.
There are definitely some big sites out there that are using .Net as well (Loopt, Newegg, Woot), and there are tons of developers out there that are familiar with the stack.
I would say if that's what you are the strongest with, and you like it, there's no real reason not to use .Net - as long as you don't mind using a proprietary stack. I haven't used Mono seriously, but I've heard good things about it. However, it's still a second-class citizen when compared to the canonical .Net stack.
Mono does lag behind the main .NET stack, but the gap is getting smaller because MS is opening things up. For example, MS released the ASP.NET MVC source under a license that allowed the Mono folks to basically just drop it in with few modifications so it worked with Mono on the day it was released to the public.
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available.
If this is a priority for you, you can use ASP.NET Web site projects and edit live versions without recompiling/redeploying (for the most part). Web site projects are Webforms-only though, no MVC. However, I think not having the ability to make ad-hoc changes to production code is a feature ;)
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available.
If this is a priority for you, you can use ASP.NET Web site projects and edit live versions without recompiling/redeploying (for the most part). Web site projects are Webforms-only though, no MVC. However, I think not having the ability to make ad-hoc changes to production code is a feature ;)
I think not having the ability to make ad-hoc changes to production code is a feature
True, but in my defense we are a continuous integration / almost continuous deployment shop ;). As soon as commits are made our tests get run, the product gets built and configured and automatically staged. Usually what happens is I get a phone call that there's a problem, fix it and then let someone test it and push the big red "RELEASE" button.
True, but in my defense we are a continuous integration / almost continuous deployment shop ;). As soon as commits are made our tests get run, the product gets built and configured and automatically staged. Usually what happens is I get a phone call that there's a problem, fix it and then let someone test it and push the big red "RELEASE" button.
Deploying applications on Windows is pretty easy, but there are far fewer hosting options for Windows; and the options that are out there will either give you a very locked down environment or require you to have a dedicated box.
I'm using a Windows/Apache/Django/Postgres back end for http://newsley.com. It's all running on an EC2 Server 2003 instance. I've used their Windows slices for about a year, and I've been really really happy with them. It's a bit more expensive than a Linux VPS @ $80 a month, but I think it's worth it.
I would really like Amazon to support Server 2008 on EC2, especially to make PowerShell Remoting not such a hack. You can get it to work, but it's a little dicey.
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available.
Granted, I'm developing using Python on Windows 7, but I have a full dev setup on a $300 Netbook that I installed Windows 7 on. I've been building Newsley while traveling 50k miles the past 4 months, and I haven't really had any problems.
I can run Win 7 Ultimate and my dev setup on a netbook pretty seamlessly. Would there be a reason that Visual Studio wouldn't run on a Netbook with 2GB ram?
I'm using a Windows/Apache/Django/Postgres back end for http://newsley.com. It's all running on an EC2 Server 2003 instance. I've used their Windows slices for about a year, and I've been really really happy with them. It's a bit more expensive than a Linux VPS @ $80 a month, but I think it's worth it.
I would really like Amazon to support Server 2008 on EC2, especially to make PowerShell Remoting not such a hack. You can get it to work, but it's a little dicey.
Beyond that, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do a quick edit of a file to fix something when you're on the road if you don't have all of your tools available.
Granted, I'm developing using Python on Windows 7, but I have a full dev setup on a $300 Netbook that I installed Windows 7 on. I've been building Newsley while traveling 50k miles the past 4 months, and I haven't really had any problems.
I can run Win 7 Ultimate and my dev setup on a netbook pretty seamlessly. Would there be a reason that Visual Studio wouldn't run on a Netbook with 2GB ram?
You can run Server 2008 on EC2: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/12/amazon_ec2_windows_server...
I totally forgot that EC2 has Windows support; that pretty well removes my argument regarding hosting needing a dedicated box.
You make a good point about tossing Visual Studio on a netbook, I can't think of a reason it wouldn't run, but it's still got the requirement of carrying my own gear with me.
Honestly, it's not a big deal in the end, I just remote in to my main machine on the rare occasion that I have to make a fix while I'm on the road; I would just prefer to be able to do it anywhere regardless of what machine I've got handy.
You make a good point about tossing Visual Studio on a netbook, I can't think of a reason it wouldn't run, but it's still got the requirement of carrying my own gear with me.
Honestly, it's not a big deal in the end, I just remote in to my main machine on the rare occasion that I have to make a fix while I'm on the road; I would just prefer to be able to do it anywhere regardless of what machine I've got handy.
The majority of Loopt's back-end runs in Windows Server 2003/2008, .Net 3.5 and SQL Server 2008. We have some Ubuntu, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Ruby, etc. as well.
I really enjoy the tooling, the documentation, and the libraries. There is exactly one time we've run into an issue with the built in libraries: The documentation didn't match what really happened, but Microsoft confirmed this for free and fixed the docs.
Visual Studio is rather polarizing. I'd say the developers at Loopt fall into three camps: Like it, miss Eclipse, and still use Emacs. You don't have to use it. I can't type more than 20 WPM; Intellisense is so good I haven't felt the need to learn to type properly.
Cost wise it's really not a problem. There's BizSpark which is great for three years, but after that you can get into their SPLA licensing program. It lets you pay per month for only what you use. See http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/default....
Loopt started before BizSpark, so we know what it costs. Here's a hint: we paid more per month for Office and Exchange than we did for the software running our service. All in it was less than hiring an intern.
If you're super strapped for cash, just get an MSDN subscription, and use it for everything. It's not legal, but Microsoft knows there's more money to be made by letting you become successful (at which point you pay real money for licensing) than there is in going after your initial few counts of infringement.
If you like getting into the guts of things you might not like .Net, even though they've released many of the symbols and source code. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b8ttk8zy(lightweight... That said, you can't edit it. I'm ok with this though because in my experience it just works. I'd rather focus on developing my product than fixing the tools and runtime I'm using.
The open source .Net scene is a little touch and go. There are some great projects out there, many by Microsoft itself, but it's simply not as robust and vibrant as the Linux open source community. This seems to be changing (slowly), but as I said earlier we've found compelling reasons to have a mixed environment.
I'm not saying it's all good. ASP.Net is a valiant attempt to solve the wrong problem. Drag and Drop doesn't work for the web. .Net MVC is much better. Despite that, our website is written in Rails, and communicates with our back-end using Thrift. It works great.
If you want to know more let me know. Maybe I'll write a blog post.
Edit: Grammar
I really enjoy the tooling, the documentation, and the libraries. There is exactly one time we've run into an issue with the built in libraries: The documentation didn't match what really happened, but Microsoft confirmed this for free and fixed the docs.
Visual Studio is rather polarizing. I'd say the developers at Loopt fall into three camps: Like it, miss Eclipse, and still use Emacs. You don't have to use it. I can't type more than 20 WPM; Intellisense is so good I haven't felt the need to learn to type properly.
Cost wise it's really not a problem. There's BizSpark which is great for three years, but after that you can get into their SPLA licensing program. It lets you pay per month for only what you use. See http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/licensing/default....
Loopt started before BizSpark, so we know what it costs. Here's a hint: we paid more per month for Office and Exchange than we did for the software running our service. All in it was less than hiring an intern.
If you're super strapped for cash, just get an MSDN subscription, and use it for everything. It's not legal, but Microsoft knows there's more money to be made by letting you become successful (at which point you pay real money for licensing) than there is in going after your initial few counts of infringement.
If you like getting into the guts of things you might not like .Net, even though they've released many of the symbols and source code. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b8ttk8zy(lightweight... That said, you can't edit it. I'm ok with this though because in my experience it just works. I'd rather focus on developing my product than fixing the tools and runtime I'm using.
The open source .Net scene is a little touch and go. There are some great projects out there, many by Microsoft itself, but it's simply not as robust and vibrant as the Linux open source community. This seems to be changing (slowly), but as I said earlier we've found compelling reasons to have a mixed environment.
I'm not saying it's all good. ASP.Net is a valiant attempt to solve the wrong problem. Drag and Drop doesn't work for the web. .Net MVC is much better. Despite that, our website is written in Rails, and communicates with our back-end using Thrift. It works great.
If you want to know more let me know. Maybe I'll write a blog post.
Edit: Grammar
As jacquesm rightfully pointed out, I was wrong to ever advocate stealing software. It was and is never the right thing to do, and now that Microsoft actively targets startups it's straight up stupid.
Learn more at http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glan...
Microsoft has been a great partner and deserves better from me. If I could still edit my original post I would. For the record, Loopt was and is always compliant with all commercial and OSS licensing.
Learn more at http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glan...
Microsoft has been a great partner and deserves better from me. If I could still edit my original post I would. For the record, Loopt was and is always compliant with all commercial and OSS licensing.
My ability to parse English seems to malfunction, what does this mean:
> # Enrollment is free, just pay a USD $100 program offering fee at program exit.
> # Enrollment is free, just pay a USD $100 program offering fee at program exit.
Seems you pay 100 USD at the end, instead of the start of the program.
I don't get why the payment point makes a difference, it's not free if it costs $100 at the end, so the word 'free' doesn't really belong in that sentence.
That's like saying 'Free car, pay in 36 months'.
That's like saying 'Free car, pay in 36 months'.
It does not state that anything other than the enrollment is free. It specifically states (the first 3 words, no less) "Enrollment is free". The rest of the sentence clarifys that, however free enrollment is, it will cost you 100 USD when you exit the program.
Well suited to a startup, whom are usually looking for minimal outlay from the get go.
Well suited to a startup, whom are usually looking for minimal outlay from the get go.
If you're super strapped for cash, just get an MSDN subscription, and use it for everything. It's not legal, but Microsoft knows there's more money to be made by letting you become successful (at which point you pay real money for licensing) than there is in going after your initial few counts of infringement.
I must disagree with this one point. I cannot see a justification for taking software illicitly like that. In my opinion, VS and SQL Server are well worth their price, but if you disagree the answer is to use open source software not take it like that.
Aside from that, I think you have some very good points. I am primarily a SQL Server DBA and I think that for many applications it is the best RDBMS available. I am also a fan of Visual Studio for certain types of projects (though I also make use of Python).
I must disagree with this one point. I cannot see a justification for taking software illicitly like that. In my opinion, VS and SQL Server are well worth their price, but if you disagree the answer is to use open source software not take it like that.
Aside from that, I think you have some very good points. I am primarily a SQL Server DBA and I think that for many applications it is the best RDBMS available. I am also a fan of Visual Studio for certain types of projects (though I also make use of Python).
Unless the tools/languages are tremendously better than what is available for free/cheaper, I don't particularly understand the value in:
- Risking Microsoft's ire by breaking the licenses
- Locking yourself in to long-term Microsoft licensing
This was a pattern I saw in many, many startups in the 90s -- organizations that relied first on UNIX systems for their servers (often times Solaris, Linux, and in the early-to-mid 90s, IRIX), would eventually adopt Microsoft products for some component of their infrastructure -- usually Exchange, based on heavy political pushes from the growing number of business users.
This always to the same effect -- the Microsoft products spread due to lock-in network effects until it began to near 100% MS on the desktop, e-mail, and corporate servers. Production servers generally remained UNIX due to the costs involved. The IT organization shifted to MS, costs went up as the staffing necessarily increased to support administering Windows systems, expensive political maneuvering arose between engineering and business as they both fought to move to systems that they thought better aligned with business priorities.
At the end of the day, everyone wound up locked to MS with heavily entrenched political interests in keeping the status quo (and the job security that went with it).
Having seen the fall-out from migrations to MS products in corporate IT, I can't imagine voluntarily implementing MS as the primary production and developer system at a startup. You're locking yourself out of alternative solutions, you're signing up for significantly increased capital and operational expenditures, and perhaps most importantly, you're excluding an entire class of software engineers that primarily work on UNIX-based (including Mac OS X and Linux) systems.
- Risking Microsoft's ire by breaking the licenses
- Locking yourself in to long-term Microsoft licensing
This was a pattern I saw in many, many startups in the 90s -- organizations that relied first on UNIX systems for their servers (often times Solaris, Linux, and in the early-to-mid 90s, IRIX), would eventually adopt Microsoft products for some component of their infrastructure -- usually Exchange, based on heavy political pushes from the growing number of business users.
This always to the same effect -- the Microsoft products spread due to lock-in network effects until it began to near 100% MS on the desktop, e-mail, and corporate servers. Production servers generally remained UNIX due to the costs involved. The IT organization shifted to MS, costs went up as the staffing necessarily increased to support administering Windows systems, expensive political maneuvering arose between engineering and business as they both fought to move to systems that they thought better aligned with business priorities.
At the end of the day, everyone wound up locked to MS with heavily entrenched political interests in keeping the status quo (and the job security that went with it).
Having seen the fall-out from migrations to MS products in corporate IT, I can't imagine voluntarily implementing MS as the primary production and developer system at a startup. You're locking yourself out of alternative solutions, you're signing up for significantly increased capital and operational expenditures, and perhaps most importantly, you're excluding an entire class of software engineers that primarily work on UNIX-based (including Mac OS X and Linux) systems.
>Unless the tools/languages are tremendously better than what is available for free/cheaper, I don't particularly understand the value in...
There's tremendous value if it's what you already know. The opportunity cost associated with learning and becoming reasonably competent in a different development stack can be non-trivial, especially if you had 5 to 10 years of experience with a different stack or set of technologies. I've yet to encounter a new framework/API/stack/language which I've been able to move to in only a few weeks and be 80%+ as productive as what I already knew, as there's often lots of useful minutiae, subtleties and new concepts you need to acclimatize over time.
>You're excluding an entire class of software engineers that primarily work on UNIX-based (including Mac OS X and Linux) systems.
The converse also applies. Granted, a competent engineer can learn anything, however you're initially inclined to pass on them because of the associated ramp-up time.
There's tremendous value if it's what you already know. The opportunity cost associated with learning and becoming reasonably competent in a different development stack can be non-trivial, especially if you had 5 to 10 years of experience with a different stack or set of technologies. I've yet to encounter a new framework/API/stack/language which I've been able to move to in only a few weeks and be 80%+ as productive as what I already knew, as there's often lots of useful minutiae, subtleties and new concepts you need to acclimatize over time.
>You're excluding an entire class of software engineers that primarily work on UNIX-based (including Mac OS X and Linux) systems.
The converse also applies. Granted, a competent engineer can learn anything, however you're initially inclined to pass on them because of the associated ramp-up time.
The opportunity cost associated with learning and becoming reasonably competent in a different development stack can be non-trivial, especially if you had 5 to 10 years of experience with a different stack or set of technologies. I've yet to encounter a new framework/API/stack/language which I've been able to move to in only a few weeks and be 80%+ as productive as what I already knew, as there's often lots of useful minutiae, subtleties and new concepts you need to acclimatize over time.
If all you know is Microsoft, then that's all you can do, and the organization's technical direction will almost certainly model that initial decision.
However, if you have the luxury of choice -- and I think most people do -- I'd advise against it. The short and long-term costs of Microsoft lock-in are decidedly "non-trivial". The considerable investment in staff, licenses, and technologies make it very difficult to migrate to a non-Microsoft stack in the future.
The converse also applies. Granted, a competent engineer can learn anything, however you're initially inclined to pass on them because of the associated ramp-up time.
In my experience, you're entirely locking out engineers who use Linux and Mac OS X when you move to a Microsoft stack, but you're not necessarily locking out Windows engineers when you use a cross-platform stack.
If all you know is Microsoft, then that's all you can do, and the organization's technical direction will almost certainly model that initial decision.
However, if you have the luxury of choice -- and I think most people do -- I'd advise against it. The short and long-term costs of Microsoft lock-in are decidedly "non-trivial". The considerable investment in staff, licenses, and technologies make it very difficult to migrate to a non-Microsoft stack in the future.
The converse also applies. Granted, a competent engineer can learn anything, however you're initially inclined to pass on them because of the associated ramp-up time.
In my experience, you're entirely locking out engineers who use Linux and Mac OS X when you move to a Microsoft stack, but you're not necessarily locking out Windows engineers when you use a cross-platform stack.
Everyone has the "luxury of choice," but it inevitably comes with cost.
I speak from personal experience -- I know the .NET stack very well, and am very familiar with the LAMP stack from my days with PHP, but I've only dabbled in Ruby and Python. Before starting work on our startup, I considered writing it in Rails, but the reality is that it would have taken me much longer to get to market. We hit the market at a very opportune time, and were able to ride a nice wave of buzz to sustainability. If we'd waited another couple of months (my guess at the added overhead of learning Rails), we may have missed our window.
The same would naturally apply to someone who already was well-versed in, say, Rails -- it would make no sense to learn .NET unless there was a very compelling reason (say, you were writing a Windows desktop app).
Not to mention that the first app you write using any technology you don't understand well is going to suck. If I'm going to base my livelihood on a product, I want it to be as well-written as possible, so I'm going to go with what I'm best at.
Also, it's absolutely not true that you're locking out Linux and Mac developers when you write .NET. Some of the best .NET developers I know use a MacBook Pro as their primary machine.
I speak from personal experience -- I know the .NET stack very well, and am very familiar with the LAMP stack from my days with PHP, but I've only dabbled in Ruby and Python. Before starting work on our startup, I considered writing it in Rails, but the reality is that it would have taken me much longer to get to market. We hit the market at a very opportune time, and were able to ride a nice wave of buzz to sustainability. If we'd waited another couple of months (my guess at the added overhead of learning Rails), we may have missed our window.
The same would naturally apply to someone who already was well-versed in, say, Rails -- it would make no sense to learn .NET unless there was a very compelling reason (say, you were writing a Windows desktop app).
Not to mention that the first app you write using any technology you don't understand well is going to suck. If I'm going to base my livelihood on a product, I want it to be as well-written as possible, so I'm going to go with what I'm best at.
Also, it's absolutely not true that you're locking out Linux and Mac developers when you write .NET. Some of the best .NET developers I know use a MacBook Pro as their primary machine.
If the cost is too high to bear, then you don't have a luxury of choice.
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In terms of physical servers, we're actually 50-50 Windows / Linux. Starting on Windows did not blind us to Kannel, Rails, PostGIS, Apache, Samba, Erlang, etc. We use tons of open source software where it makes sense.
Sometimes price isn't the only factor when deciding which tools are best for the job. After using C#, switching back to Java or a non-compiled language would be very painful. I'd lose a lot and miss it.
Sometimes price isn't the only factor when deciding which tools are best for the job. After using C#, switching back to Java or a non-compiled language would be very painful. I'd lose a lot and miss it.
In terms of physical servers, we're actually 50-50 Windows / Linux. Starting on Windows did not blind us to Kannel, Rails, PostGIS, Apache, Samba, Erlang, etc. We use tons of open source software where it makes sense.
What do you use for desktops, e-mail, corporate servers, etc?
My goal was elucidate the hefty cost of Windows lock-in and Window's demonstrably strong tendency to pervade your organization in terms of political, staffing, and technological investment.
If it's considered the best tool for the job and these recognized costs are acceptable, then there's no reason to not use it -- but history should also provide some insight into how Microsoft behaves with organizations that become reliant on their technology.
Microsoft isn't being magnanimous with Bizspark -- they're trying to ensure that more startups are locked into their technology stack early, when the perceived immediate advantages may seem most attractive.
What do you use for desktops, e-mail, corporate servers, etc?
My goal was elucidate the hefty cost of Windows lock-in and Window's demonstrably strong tendency to pervade your organization in terms of political, staffing, and technological investment.
If it's considered the best tool for the job and these recognized costs are acceptable, then there's no reason to not use it -- but history should also provide some insight into how Microsoft behaves with organizations that become reliant on their technology.
Microsoft isn't being magnanimous with Bizspark -- they're trying to ensure that more startups are locked into their technology stack early, when the perceived immediate advantages may seem most attractive.
You're conflating IT infrastructure and software product development, and the two are very different topics. There's literally nothing to stop me from writing .NET software using a Mac (via MonoDevelop or virtualization, like VMWare) and deploying it on Linux (via Mono).
There's nothing wrong with Mono, but neither Mono or MonoDevelop are drop-in replacements for C# and VisualStudio.
VMware is not an adequate solution for day-to-day development. There's a performance impact, significant memory overhead, and running Windows inside Linux/Mac OS X is not any more accommodating to users familiar with a UNIX environment than simply running Windows natively.
VMware is not an adequate solution for day-to-day development. There's a performance impact, significant memory overhead, and running Windows inside Linux/Mac OS X is not any more accommodating to users familiar with a UNIX environment than simply running Windows natively.
I took some code recently and ran it on Mono and only encountered one issue, which was a Mono bug that has now been fixed. MonoDevelop isn't a drop-in replacement for VisualStudio which is a good thing since VS is bloated and MonoDevelop isn't.
I have been writing .NET code exclusively in VMware for 5 years now, 2 years on Windows and 3 years on a Mac. The performance impact is there but it isn't a deal-breaker (especially if you have a fast HDD and enough memory (6GB)).
I have been writing .NET code exclusively in VMware for 5 years now, 2 years on Windows and 3 years on a Mac. The performance impact is there but it isn't a deal-breaker (especially if you have a fast HDD and enough memory (6GB)).
I took some code recently and ran it on Mono and only encountered one issue, which was a Mono bug that has now been fixed. MonoDevelop isn't a drop-in replacement for VisualStudio which is a good thing since VS is bloated and MonoDevelop isn't.
Confirming neither is a drop-in replacement, which isn't to say that Mono isn't useful or valuable, but simply that it is necessarily 2nd-tier in a Windows-focused development environment.
Given that you've spend 3 years developing C# in VMware on a Mac, I'd ask why you're not using native Mono/MonoDevelop entirely?
I have been writing .NET code exclusively in VMware for 5 years now, 2 years on Windows and 3 years on a Mac. The performance impact is there but it isn't a deal-breaker (especially if you have a fast HDD and enough memory (6GB)).
What do you see as the significant advantage of .NET that has warranted using non-native tools with an admitted performance impact exclusively for 3 years?
This sounds like individual developer inertia, not a high-level business decision.
Confirming neither is a drop-in replacement, which isn't to say that Mono isn't useful or valuable, but simply that it is necessarily 2nd-tier in a Windows-focused development environment.
Given that you've spend 3 years developing C# in VMware on a Mac, I'd ask why you're not using native Mono/MonoDevelop entirely?
I have been writing .NET code exclusively in VMware for 5 years now, 2 years on Windows and 3 years on a Mac. The performance impact is there but it isn't a deal-breaker (especially if you have a fast HDD and enough memory (6GB)).
What do you see as the significant advantage of .NET that has warranted using non-native tools with an admitted performance impact exclusively for 3 years?
This sounds like individual developer inertia, not a high-level business decision.
I believe in developing on the platform that the application will run on, right now all of my code runs on Windows Servers so it makes sense to develop on Windows in a VM.
In the last 6 months I have been investigating moving my application to Mono and running on Linux servers, when that happens I will use Mono and MonoDevelop exclusively for that project. Of course other client projects I will still use VMWare and Visual Studio since they will be deployed on Windows.
The reason I didn't look at Mono earlier is that I had dedicated Windows boxes and didn't see a benefit in moving, now that I am on EC2 there is a price motivation to move.
Running in a VM is not a big deal, most .NET developers I know do all their client development in a VM even if they are running Windows.
In the last 6 months I have been investigating moving my application to Mono and running on Linux servers, when that happens I will use Mono and MonoDevelop exclusively for that project. Of course other client projects I will still use VMWare and Visual Studio since they will be deployed on Windows.
The reason I didn't look at Mono earlier is that I had dedicated Windows boxes and didn't see a benefit in moving, now that I am on EC2 there is a price motivation to move.
Running in a VM is not a big deal, most .NET developers I know do all their client development in a VM even if they are running Windows.
... why do they do all their client development in a VM?
Up until recently MonoDevelop wasn't really mature enough to be used full-time.
> If you're super strapped for cash, just get an MSDN subscription, and use it for everything.
That's a very bad argument. If you're super strapped for cash what are you doing with closed source software anyway ?
It's not like there aren't plenty of free alternatives.
That's a very bad argument. If you're super strapped for cash what are you doing with closed source software anyway ?
It's not like there aren't plenty of free alternatives.
I guess in this instance strapped for cash and time means closed source. From my limited experience, setting up open source software takes more time.
In my experience it is the exact opposite.
I think that mostly boils down to what your experience is.
But the GGP effectively encourages people to break both their license agreements and the law.
If you're strapped for cash you also don't get a free ride to go and steal stuff.
If the price of being strapped for cash would be to have to learn how to set up open source software then so be it. But given the fact that you could easily make a business turning over a couple of 100 grand annually using just apache and (forgive me) PHP means that if you choose to abuse an MSDN subscription to be able to use closed source proprietary stuff that you are doing so deliberately.
I really have a problem with effectively encouraging people to break the law in a public forum, even if the manufacturer of the product has some hidden gain from this behaviour.
I think that mostly boils down to what your experience is.
But the GGP effectively encourages people to break both their license agreements and the law.
If you're strapped for cash you also don't get a free ride to go and steal stuff.
If the price of being strapped for cash would be to have to learn how to set up open source software then so be it. But given the fact that you could easily make a business turning over a couple of 100 grand annually using just apache and (forgive me) PHP means that if you choose to abuse an MSDN subscription to be able to use closed source proprietary stuff that you are doing so deliberately.
I really have a problem with effectively encouraging people to break the law in a public forum, even if the manufacturer of the product has some hidden gain from this behaviour.
I will second this.
I tried for a few days to use Visual Studio to link some C++ code to a DLL that was supplied by a third-party vendor. I never got it to work. This was literally "hello world" calling a function in a DLL, and I couldn't get it to compile.
After much googling and asking around, I gave up and used gcc instead. It worked the first time.
As someone who has always used free software, I always assume that if someone gives me very expensive proprietary software, it will be problem-free. It hasn't happened yet.
I tried for a few days to use Visual Studio to link some C++ code to a DLL that was supplied by a third-party vendor. I never got it to work. This was literally "hello world" calling a function in a DLL, and I couldn't get it to compile.
After much googling and asking around, I gave up and used gcc instead. It worked the first time.
As someone who has always used free software, I always assume that if someone gives me very expensive proprietary software, it will be problem-free. It hasn't happened yet.
"As someone who has always used free software,"
This is why you haven't success with MS stuff. For people who have always use MS stuff, it's faster and easier to stick on the stack.
This is why you haven't success with MS stuff. For people who have always use MS stuff, it's faster and easier to stick on the stack.
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My sister is building an E-commerce website with Asp.net and I should say it's really pain: A lot complicated and very slow (although her laptop is 1 year old).
+ Hosting are quite expensive, hosting prices for dot net are enough to make you choose PHP.
If you are going for a small project, choose PHP, pyhton or Ruby. If you are building a giant app for a company, you'd better give Asp.net and SQL server a try.
For me, I use .NET to develop Windows application. Right now, I made a barcode software, no more and I should say it's the most advanced and coolest IDE + language (C#)I have ever used. For speed, it's Okay.
If you are going for a small project, choose PHP, pyhton or Ruby. If you are building a giant app for a company, you'd better give Asp.net and SQL server a try.
For me, I use .NET to develop Windows application. Right now, I made a barcode software, no more and I should say it's the most advanced and coolest IDE + language (C#)I have ever used. For speed, it's Okay.
Hosting is available for $5/month for ASP.NET. Granted its probably not great hosting, but neither are the $5/month PHP/Linux solutions. If you want an entry level box on EC2 its about 2x the cost, but still only about $80/month.
.NET speed is about the same as Java, it all depends on your architecture.
.NET speed is about the same as Java, it all depends on your architecture.
I used PHP hosting for €1.50 per month. This is with a 500MB database and 20GB transfer per month. And the datacenter is in my country so the websites are quick. For 99% of the websites this is enough. I just picked the first host I found, so there probably are cheaper options.
"My sister is building an E-commerce website with Asp.net and I should say it's really pain"
I should say this points to inexperience first. ASP.NET has taken huge steps in making development/deployment simple.
I should say this points to inexperience first. ASP.NET has taken huge steps in making development/deployment simple.
The company I work for uses .NET for our hosted CRM solution (www.eSalesTrack.com), and before that I used .NET at the bank I worked for for our online banking application. I use Python/Django for all of my own personal projects, some of which I almost plugged here but since they don't have anything to do with .NET I'll refrain.
My own startup uses C# and the MVC framework. I also have a windows service (.net C# as well) for some data processing. My main reason for choosing it was development speed (it is what I know best) At my day job I work for a consulting firm that does sitecore CMS implementations for large sites. In addition we developed a CMS for displaying data visualizations for data oriented sites. The biggest benefit of .net for me is the tool set. Visual studio is very solid, intelli-sence makes me a productive programmer, and plugins such as Red Gates Profiler make me a fast debugger.
The small-to-midsize companyI work for (http://callcopy.com) use .NET.
Affordit.com, which received funding a few months ago from the Founders Fund, is also built on .NET.
Affordit.com, which received funding a few months ago from the Founders Fund, is also built on .NET.
Current project is built on ASP.Net MVC, Azure and SQL Server 2008.
We are also in the BizSpark program and love it!
I use .NET to run my startup @ http://www.learnitfirst.com/. I was a VB 4-6 guy and moved to .NET in 2000 in betas and loved it. I probably prefer C# to VB but have projects in both. If I'm writing a new app today, it's almost assuredly C#.
I think that there is a lot of stigma around Microsoft based platforms. But imo C# 4.0 is one of the most innovative languages out there right now. With Mono supporting all of C# 4.0 features (ExpressionTrees and all) I would say, if you're not using it give it another look. My ideal .NET stack doesn't have ".NET" in it at all:
C# 4.0 HAML LESS MongoDB
C# 4.0 HAML LESS MongoDB
agreed.
we (http://friendsell.com) are running c#/bistro/ndjango/couchdb
we (http://friendsell.com) are running c#/bistro/ndjango/couchdb
LOL you want to build application on .NET, n00b.
I'm working on several web apps using ASP.NET MVC, either on Mono or W2K8. I have tried to launch startups in the past using ASP.NET WebForms, and I wouldn't recommend that approach to anyone, I can't get those years back. At this point, I believe ASP.NET MVC is a solid choice and I am extremely productive with it. It provides the same "programming is fun again" feeling that other web frameworks have boasted in the past. To be sure, you're still using a static language with C# 3.0/4.0, so there is more code to write in general and more considerations using the ASP.NET pipeline, however it produces solid applications. The open source argument is out of date; ASP.NET MVC itself is open source (MS-PL), you can run it on Mono, and there is plenty of open source projects in .NET at this point that provide either ports of popular Ruby or Java tooling or code specific to reducing development times on the .NET stack. You don't get the conventions of RoR, but there are alternative architectures available.
Anyone wants to tell their story?
Disclaimer: I was a Windows user and did a lot of Windows development up until about 2002. Since about 1999, I have been preferring Unix-like environments and languages such as Perl, Python and Ruby (and, sometimes, Java) for developing and deploying web applications. Sometimes, I am also quite vocal about my personal preferences.