

Write .NET Code? There's a Big Prize For That. - BrandonWatson
http://www.manyniches.com/developers/write-net-code-theres-a-big-prize-for-that/

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SamAtt
I’m not hating (I’m a .Net developer) but I don’t see the point of this. Even
the worst of .Net haters wouldn’t claim you CAN’T do cool things with MS
technology. They’d just say it’s harder and more expensive than doing it with
Open Source :)

I wish MS would put some money into contests the would improve what’s
available to the community like "best open sourced component" or "best video
tutorial"

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BrandonWatson
Sam, you are reading my mind. My only job in life is to think about the
developer on boarding experience. That includes how to get started, what you
can do with it, community support, etc. You are spot on, and it's in the
works.

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oliverkofoed
In my humble opinion, the biggest advantage of .net, is visual studio.

For the on boarding experience, i think it's really worth putting emphasis on
the fact that the free Express versions are really fully functional products
for daily use.

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BrandonWatson
It's a funny thing...when people talk about iPhone development, many times
they remard on the quality of the tools - specifically XCode. IMHO, XCode is
good, but loses out in a comparison to Visual Studio Express. It's a really
great, and free, offering.

When you start from VIM, Emacs or even TextMate, XCode is going to look good.
Starting from the Visual Studio experience makes XCode look less stellar.

~~~
jeremymcanally
Well I think most of its shortcomings are due more to paradigm rather than
quality of the tool. I love Visual Studio and I learned GUI development on
Windows using it, so the general concept "feels" natural to me because that's
how I learned. On the other hand, XCode works well for the way the GUI system
works on OS X (i.e., outlets, actions, etc.).

I think it's a bit of Apples to Oranges, especially since (a) they view the
GUI and code interaction quite differently and (b) .NET is managed whereas
XCode's languages usually aren't, making the toolset behave differently (for
example, the .NET debugger can do a lot more introspection than the XCode
debugger can in some situations).

In any event, I dig VS.NET and use it for any Windows development I do. But I
think your perspective is skewed a bit. I came from VS to these other tools
and love them, but I'm a bit of a simplicity nut so it might just be my
preferred workflow. :)

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clistctrl
its to bad the project i'm most proud of is owned by my old company, and i
don't have the rights to give them a demo.

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TheElder
And it's too bad that I'm not finished with my project to send off :-/

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BrandonWatson
Anyone who has a cool or novel use of .NET can feel free to @reply me on
Twitter or email me. I would love to blog about it.

@BrandonWatson or brwatson [at] microsoft

