

Zombie Operating Systems and ASP.NET MVC - wmorein
http://blog.bitquabit.com/2009/06/12/zombie-operating-systems-and-aspnet-mvc/

======
hugothefrog
Interesting write up, and a nice style.

The filename limitation isn't the only problem. There's also a limit of 260
characters in the URL.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/265251/asp-net-url-
maxpat...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/265251/asp-net-url-maxpath-
limit)

Boo-sucks if you suddenly run into that without expecting it!

------
smhinsey
> But ASP.NET MVC was based on ASP.NET. Which checks for the existence of a
> file before running any scripts.

This is not correct. When you configure an ISAPI filter in IIS, such as
ASP.NET or PHP, you can choose whether or not to verify the presence of files.
You can also do this via configuration for .NET HTTP handlers. Parts of
ASP.NET itself rely on this feature, such as the trace.axd handler and the web
resource handlers.

I don't have the option to verify that you can't create those routes, but if
you can't, it's not related to that particular feature.

~~~
gecko
You can create these routes via ISAPI, but not via ASP.NET (i.e., writing your
own .asxd and observe the same borked behavior)--hence why I know the bug's
somewhere in ASP.NET proper. You're correct that my post as-written is off,
though. I initially thought ASP.NET was hitting files even though I'd told it
not to. After more investigation, I think it's blocking those routes as a
security feature to protect you in case you _at some point_ turn file routing
back on.

~~~
smhinsey
Did you check the source? I have never heard of this feature, which certainly
doesn't rule it out, but I try to keep abreast of issues like that and haven't
heard anything about it.

------
Elepsis
This article (and the comments on it here) is a pretty classic illustration of
the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation Microsoft (and any other
company that at least attempts to preserve backwards compatibility) inevitably
ends up in.

------
kingsley_20
Reminded me of this Snopes piece about the width of space shuttle parts being
determined by the size of a horse' butt.
<http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp>

Technology may not be immune from the stubbornness of standards that no one
feels inclined to change.

------
rbanffy
I couldn't believe the kludginess of Windows did run that deep - I had to
check it out: [http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/the-unbearable-
kludg...](http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/the-unbearable-kludginess-
of-windows)

And what's the matter with the "all extensions" thing?

/me ducks and says goodbye to karma.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
You say "goodbye to karma" because you say something bad about Windows on
hacker news? That would be surprising.

And with regard to backwards compatibility, I believe, Goedel's incompleteness
theorem holds. It's always either kludgy or incomplete ;-)

~~~
rbanffy
No. I am saying goodbye karma because I am saying something unfavorable to
Windows. You have no idea how many people prefer to disagree by voting you
down than by starting a legitimate discussion.

You have to see what happens when I say Mono is a bad idea...

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Windows isn't exactly popular here to say the least. Anyway, I fully agree
with you on that strange aversion to expressing disagreement with words.

~~~
rbanffy
I find this aversion quite disturbing.

And damaging to my karma ;-)

------
monological
Thank God for *nix based systems

~~~
kingsley_20
for indeed they are free of all historical cruft, hallelujah!

~~~
tdavis
Perhaps not, but they _do_ allow me to arbitrarily name URL routes!
Hallelujah!

~~~
larrywright
You /can/ use arbitrarily named URL routes in Windows; Rails runs fine on
Windows, after all. It's ASP.NET that doesn't allow you to do it.

------
chanux
The legend continues.

------
sarvesh
Honestly the fact that you couldn't user certain filenames in the URL wasn't
as big a problem, it was the fact that you couldn't do URL rewriting unless
you wrote your own httphandler that annoyed me the most. MVC does an awesome
job with regex based URL routing. ASP.Net MVC is by far the best ASP.Net
solution MS has provided to date.

------
justin_vanw
"In 2009, Microsoft released ASP.NET MVC, a thoroughly modern, orthogonal web
framework supporting the most up-to-date understanding of how to architect
well-factored, scalable web applications."

Astroturf should be left for the Jetson's dog to play on.

~~~
rbanffy
It's not astroturf unless the guy is being paid to do a campaign. I have seen
things here and on Digg that can only be explained by active astroturf by the
part of Microsoft - the active downmodding of comments, sometimes every
comment in a given discussion or every comment in the downmoddable range,
after posting something that paints Microsoft or its software in an
unfavorable light.

It doesn't surprise me a bit.

(burn, karma, burn)

