.NET erzeugt unfähige Programmierer, fähige werden geschädigt

[kikakater]

Eine kleine wahre Geschichte:

.NET development and deployment are supposed to be
easy, and because I was writing an article about some
fairly new technology just making its way into the Windows
world, errors about application failures did not cause me to
first suspect a corrupted runtime. I tried to make sure my
new technology was correct. This failed. I then checked
some old applications I knew worked. When they failed,
I deduced the root of the problem: a corrupt runtime.
After roughly eight hours of chasing my tail and checking
the obvious, I finally downloaded the latest runtime from
Microsoft.
Working on the assumption that Microsoft knows their
business, and believing the Web page included with the
.NET runtime that says this should fix any problems, I was
disheartened when my problems persisted, albeit with a
new error message.
At this point I was strongly contemplating abandoning
the project. Since I was already logged in under the
administrative account, I decided to make sure my system
was up to date and went to Windows Update. Imagine
my surprise when I discovered that my automatic updates
weren’t. I found several critical patches which weren’t
downloaded and installed, including Service Pack 2 and a
critical .NET runtime patch. By the time this was complete I
had two more hours invested. This made ten.
Finally, my problems were solved and I was ready to start
debugging my program. Even at my most charitable rates,
this was a few hundred dollars of time I couldn’t bill for.
Let’s compare this with the exact same project on UNIX.
I had just turned in an article about this technology to
another publication. Because the target audience was
different, the sample application was (a) written on UNIX,
(b) more complex, and (c) written in C.
Now, .NET programming is supposed to be easier than C
programming. Almost everything is supposed to be easier
than C programming on UNIX with vi and a command line.
No slick IDEs, no automatic memory allocation or garbage
collection. And the C interface library I was using was more
complex than the typical .NET data provider. Amazingly, I
spent less time writing and debugging this application, and
spent almost no time compiling and installing the database
system. Total system administration time: less than half an
hour.
As a business decision the choice was very clear. I couldn’t
afford to use .NET. Most Windows developers I know cross
themselves and try to locate the exits when the topic of C
development comes up, especially for web applications.
When that route becomes faster and easier than
Microsoft’s current preferred solution, I have to suspect that
this preferred solution could be a final solution.
I’m not, by the way, suggesting that UNIX computing is
trouble free. But, in general, I don’t have to fight the system
every time I want to do some development work. Since
development is what pays my bills, the choice of operating
systems and tools is pretty clear to me.
If you’re a manager or own a business, this story should be
important to you. Things are not as rosy in the land of .NET
as the man behind the curtain would have you believe. The
wizard doesn’t have a magic solution that will solve all your
problems. Like Dorothy, my solution lay in the real world I
was familiar with, not the Technicolor dreamland.
I won’t try to fool you into thinking that C development
isn’t a skilled activity. C is a language that demands
developers know what they’re doing. That knowledge does
not come for free. I was fortunate to have tough but skilled
teachers in the Systems Programming group at Michigan
State University. They made sure I was a much better
programmer when I left than when I first came to them.
So what’s the answer for your own work? You have to
answer that question yourself. It was easy to follow the
yellow brick road to the bright shining city that is .NET.
Really getting what I wanted meant traveling the dusty back
road of C programming. Like any good traveler, I tend to
prefer the road that gets me where I’m going with the least
hassle.