back to article Early bird access to .NET Framework 4.8? Microsoft, you spoil us

Not to be outdone by its upstart open-source sibling, .NET Core, the team behind the venerable .NET Framework has put out an Early Access version of version 4.8 with toys aplenty for developers. While .NET Core often captures the limelight, and the new Microsoft would point you at it for your cross-platform or lightweight …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Despite coding in it ...

    I never really understood wtf .NET was meant to achieve.

    When it was first floated, it was definitely touted as having a Linux version - meaning you should have been able to code for Windows and Linux - as long as the frameworks matched. I thought MS had hit upon a way to exploit Linux.

    Then it's actually delivered, and all talk of Linux disappeared.

    I know I didn't imagine it - it was discussed in the MSDN

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: Despite coding in it ...

      "I never really understood wtf .NET was meant to achieve."

      Back in history to the 'dot-bomb' era of the early 21st century... around 2002-ish as I recall.

      Ballmer announced this ".Net" (aka '.Not') initiative, in which this web server backend would be magically developed, and everybody would use IIS on a Windows server instead of Apache with PHP on Linux, just to get this new wonderful "new, shiny" thing. Hop on the bandwagon, because THEN you'll have:

      a) Microsoft 'Passport' - a one-login for the ENTIRE internet! [didn't happen, still not even with Win-10-nic's cloudy login]. In truth Amazon and others refused to pay the 'Microsoft tax' and wouldn't use it. DOA.

      b) pre-made back-end services and that new programming lingo, "C#" (aka 'C-pound'). I have yet to see it go above 10% on the TIOBE index. Seriously, it's as bad as NodeJS and people are using NodeJS instead, from what I can tell.

      c) and the implied lock-in to MICROSOFT PLATFORMS as "solutions". 'take over the world'.

      well, it was probably an improvement over IIS in a lot of ways, except IIS was coded in NATIVE INSTRUCTIONS and didn't require some stupid P-code or interpreter. Later on, that part diminished.

      After this, some "dim bulb" at Micro-shaft "decided" that ".Not" should be on DESKTOPS, too. And so it was expanded (read: bloated) to include ALL KINDS of 'GUI things' for C-pound's benefit.

      THEN some independent people invented 'mono' and got "the blessings" of Micro-shaft, which culminated into the release of (you guessed it) ".Net Core". All of this over a period of more than 15 years in which as much bloat as you can imagine (and then a whole lot more) was injected into ".Not" until it became the monolithic cluster-pile of FAIL that it is TODAY.

      Meanwhle, REAL developers of Windows and cross-platform software are either using C, C++, or Java to do so. C-pound is a *WANNABE* at best. I've seen attempts at writing Mono cross-platform applications in the past. Usually C-pound only gets the least common denominator of support on "anything that isn't Windows running the latest new, shiny version of '.Not'".

      And so, I hope, there's more understanding of ".Not" now... and I really would NOT recommend tying YOUR success into one of Micro-shaft's control mechanisms.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Despite coding in it ...

        What an absolute cretin you’ve made yourself out to be, you must use linix and or java, its the kind of drivel those people out come out with, clueless...

        1. Lee D Silver badge

          Re: Despite coding in it ...

          From a non-developer point of view, it's just a HUMONGOUS library, no different to any other, except that for some reason it takes 30+ minutes to install / update sometimes.

          There are also numerous (and seemingly "not compatible") versions of it that all have to be installed to actually run that tiny little program that does not-very-much (e.g. run https://simplednscrypt.org/ on something that's a fresh machine) and where you have to keep around a copy of all the previous .NET Frameworks (some of which no longer install nicely on modern Windows, some of which are integrated into Windows as a "optional feature" that you have to install, etc.

          And which multiple major software vendors either a) don't upgrade so you have to keep .NET Framework 3.134784374387 around because that's what they base their code on and reinstall it on every machine you want to run the program on or b) have to do a humongous Framework install / Windows Update / etc. every time they change it.

          Then you call all those frameworks the same thing with slightly different numbers (3.0, 3.5, etc.) and hide them on the Microsoft site, and hide the "full installers" even further away so people spend half their life downloading them all.

          Then, at the end of it, you get something approaching an "ordinary" Win32 program that may or may not work depending on whether you go it all right, with no clue as to what was wrong except from the developers who have a "recipe" for installing their particular variant of it in the right order.

          Meanwhile, you've downloaded 5Gb of Framework, wasted hours of your life, churned the disks on the machine for hours while it "searches for previous installs / updates components" and can't push the software that uses it in any sustainable fashion as you can't guarantee that the end machine will have the right version at the right time.

          Honestly, just statically compile the damn thing into the binary because I'm sick of it by this point...

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Despite coding in it ...

        In the age of digital distribution and app stores with one app having several builds targetting different CPU types and OS versions without the user being aware, the most portable way of writing a fast piece of software which doesn't require the user to mess around installing is a probably a compiled language like C and C++.

      3. RyokuMas
        FAIL

        Re: Despite coding in it ...

        "And so, I hope, there's more understanding of ".Not" now... and I really would NOT recommend tying YOUR success into one of Micro-shaft's control mechanisms."

        ... and there, with the persistent use of name-calling, caps and emphasis markers, and obvious personal bias, goes any possible credibility of your argument. If you can't be objective, stay shtum and just link wikipedia instead.

        At least Eadon was funny.

        1. Waseem Alkurdi

          Re: Despite coding in it ...

          ... and there, with the persistent use of name-calling, caps and emphasis markers, and obvious personal bias, goes any possible credibility of your argument.

          So because he uses all that, you believe that he isn't right, even if he was?

          Isn't that personal bias?

          1. RyokuMas
            Facepalm

            Re: Despite coding in it ...

            "So because he uses all that, you believe that he isn't right, even if he was?

            Isn't that personal bias?"

            It would be... had I actually said if I believed he was right or wrong.

    2. Andy Mac

      Re: Despite coding in it ...

      After 15 years or so and with the utmost respect to Mono, they finally achieved cross platform development with Core.

      I have little doubt that the full framework’s failure to go cross platform had a lot to do with Microsoft being... well Microsoft and putting Windows First. And that worked out so well...

    3. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Despite coding in it ...

      Update: Microsoft stakes future on .Net strategy:

      Jun 23, 2000 1:00 AM PT

      The company said .Net will work on Windows and other operating systems, although it didn't specify which ones or when they would be supported.

      You're right, and it's only taken us about two decades to get here, if you're happy with a subset (Core).

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Lets get real

    Say what you like about .NET at least devs don't need to prat about choosing GTK+, Qt, Spring Boot, Django, Pyramid, Ionic, Titanium, ... and hope that the single coder who maintains their chosen framework doesn't clear off leaving them high and dry.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lets get real

      No. We just have WinForms, WPF, or *snigger* UWP...

      No wonder desktop is dead.

      1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Re: Lets get real

        @AC

        I had to log in to upvote that comment. The Windows desktop environment has become a toxic mess. WinForms and WPF have gone the way of the dodo and UWP is unusable.

        Which one is that 'I am very unhappy" icon?

        1. Waseem Alkurdi

          Re: Lets get real

          WinForms and WPF have gone the way of the dodo and UWP is unusable.

          Windows Forms

          Was good, very good. Still is. But then came Windows 8, and later UWP, and M$ started shifting away the limelight. and now Windows Forms applications look out-of-place. At least, I change the b/g color to white on mine to make them look less "old".

          WPF

          Dead on arrival. Too bloated.

    2. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Lets get real

      @J J Carter

      Say what you like about .NET at least devs don't need to prat about choosing GTK+, Qt, Spring Boot, Django, Pyramid, Ionic, Titanium,

      You forgot X Athena and Cairo.

      But on a more serious note, it actually depends on the target. Long term app? You don't pick something like the last four choices you've mentioned. Chances are that the single dev *are* going to abandon them in a year or so. You choose a more "stabe" alternative like GTK+ or Qt.

      However, the *real* problem is that these change very, very often. (GTK+3, I'm looking at you, yeah.)

      But some have matured and little is changing there (GTK+2, Qt4).

  3. chivo243 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    client install!?

    This should add a few hours to windows update installation...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      Re: client install!?

      A drop in the ocean.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi
        Trollface

        Re: client install!?

        An (registered) account called Anonymous Coward? How did they allow you?!

    2. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: client install!?

      @ chivo243

      Not really. It takes just 10 minutes to install.

  4. SimonC

    .NET Core is hard to deploy

    I wouldn't recommend using .NET Core for anything other than enterprise level. It's very hard to deploy it correctly, because they release a new version every other day, and if your assemblies don't match on client and server... kaboom, errors galore.

    I made the mistake of doing an interview tech test in .NET Core and they failed me stating they couldn't get it working. I deployed it to my own server afterwards to investigate, server had a 0.1 difference in the version and that was enough to bugger it up. Updated my local machine, rebuilt, it worked.

    I will stick to .NET, I think... never really saw the advantage of Core anyway. If one more person at work tells me that it's cross-platform then I'm going to lock them in the tape storage room. Our 6 year old .NET application suite isn't going to get ported over to linux, so stop touting it as an advantage.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Megaphone

      Re: .NET Core is hard to deploy

      Our 6 year old .NET application suite isn't going to get ported over to linux, so stop touting it as an advantage.

      Time to replace them maybe with something that has a little more future planning?

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