Hacker News Reader

Comment by jawngee | Hacker News Reader

Tons of reasons:

- The write/build/test compile cycle is slow as f-ck

- C# isn't really all that supported outside of Windows, which sucks for server centric apps. Yeah, you can use mono, but why?

- C# is grossly verbose in contrast to ruby/php/python

- PHP is instant gratification. Change, reload browser, lather, rinse, repeat.

- Lack of open source libraries + libraries you have to pay for = suckage

Really, though, C# and .NET are the frontier of lowest common denominator developers. The kind of dudes that wear teva sandals with socks and tucked in short sleeve shirts. You can also call them copy and paste developers, because that's essentially what they are. Most of the innovation in the last 5 years has come from the open source camp, not the corporate drone MS army.

I used to be a .NET developer, btw. Wouldn't touch that shit with a 10 foot pole these days. Not a chance in hell.

View on HN

  The write/build/test compile cycle is slow as f-ck

I work on a million LOC project that takes 3 or 4 minutes to build. If that feels too slow, you can selectively build projects. I'm not sure what your definition of "slow as f-ck" is, but it doesn't match mine. In exchange for compilation you get significantly better performance than you would with Ruby, Perl or Python.

  C# isn't really all that supported outside of Windows, 
  which sucks for server centric apps. 
  Yeah, you can use mono, but why?

Why not mono? It works well, runs everywhere, it's fast, and there are a lot of people working on it to keep it up to date.

  C# is grossly verbose in contrast to ruby/php/python

Patently untrue with the addition of the dynamic keyword

  PHP is instant gratification. Change, reload browser, lather, rinse, repeat.

ASP.Net mostly works that way in .net 3.5.

  Lack of open source libraries + libraries you have to pay for = suckage

This is hit or miss, and the open source library story is not remotely as nice as Ruby, Python, Perl, Common Lisp, or Smalltalk.

Are you serious? 3 to 4 minutes is a lifetime.

yep. this is the same reason most JEE development sucks - constant restarting of your app servers during development.

why not "hot deploy"?

hot deploy doesn't work when you're working with other developers who are violating the JEE spec (mainly by starting their own threads.)

pain in the ass. for web dev , rails/php are better choices. for a beginner, they are really simple.

3 to 4 minutes to recompile over a million lines of code is a lifetime? What size code base do you work with? If you write in a dynamic language, how long does it take all of your tests to pass?

Now I have to wonder if you're being serious.

When was the last time you did some C# development? Things have changed and for the good. Web development on C# is quite a pleasant experience now with ASP.NET MVC. Lack of open source libraries? Almost all of my .NET development stack is open source libraries. Nothing comes close to Visual Studio as an IDE. To the OP, I would say C# is a solid language, worth diving into. Also, people who think C# is not free need to check out ECMA-334.

You have basically just thrown your biased opinion, making a lot of generalisations.

"The kind of dudes that wear teva sandals with socks and tucked in short sleeve shirts. You can also call them copy and paste developers, because that's essentially what they are"

I am shocked to see you get upvoted after making the kind of a statements that you did in your post. I expected better of HN.

still the same, man. the fact is it's hard to make it run on my mac and hard to find cheap asp.net hosting just prevent me and some other ppl loving it.

asp.net is a nice platform, i admit but i will still recommend php/rails for beginner.

How about next time, you refute me instead of voting me down. I will pit my 9+ years (since .NET 1.0 Beta 1) of experience with C# versus whatever you would like to bring to the table for discussion.

I'm not sure why you were downvoted either, but I suspect it's because you weren't very nice in your (very true) presentation of the pitfalls of using C# as a general purpose, learning language. Many people on HN don't respond well to anything that sounds angry, I've found (through being thoroughly downvoted myself).

I upvoted you, but cussing on HN is a serious turnoff to me. Usually, that would get a downvote from me.

I thought that you brought up accurate and true statements, even though they seem more like an argument against compiled languages as a whole.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com