Jeff - with a company like Microsoft it really pays to read what you are getting when you go to purchase it.
That said, I agree with what you are saying. It’s a royal pain. Why even have a “Home Edition”? Why can’t all editions have the same options, but simply do a default install with different configurations?
Okay - I can see why a server shoud be different to a client - they may need different security, different abilities and so on. But beyond “Server” and “Client” I see very little reason there should be any segmentation.
ASP.net MVV has been open sourced by Microsoft and is included in the latest mono release (mono 2.4.2)
However that where it port gets harder.
You could change from microsoft sql server -> MySql which would be non-trivial I’m sure.
Mono does not have LINQ to SQL yet (planned for September release)… which means your database access code would have to be re-written (ouch) or you could wait till September.
Even once the port is complete you would need extensive testing to make sure everything still works (hint it wont). And allow time for fixing all the problems found.
You would have to do a cost benefit analysis estimate on the work required before deciding to embark on that path.
However you are really looking at this to late. When choosing a technology you also need to factor in the exit cost. I.E how much vender lockin does this technology have, If I wanted to change to another technology how much would it cost me to do the switch. Including:
How much would it cost me to get my data out
Would my existing code just work… would I need to do a port… or would I need a complete rewrite.
Would I need to pay to get out of a contract.
Would I need to pay to licence the new technology.
Companies love vender lock-in… why?
Because once you are locked in. They can charge you whatever they like a you will be forced to keep paying. So long as what they are charging is less then the exit cost. Therefore it is in their best interest to make the exit cost a high as possible.
However it is in your best interest to make sure the exit cost is as small as possible. Or at least consider it when making a technology decision and do not proceed unless the exist cost is acceptable.
See you hateful, mouth-foaming, FOSS zealots, this is an example of how you can promote the use of Linux in a positive way. You know, by praising the OS with examples why it’s good, rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks on the users of another perfectly fine OS.
If he’s using LINQ to SQL beyond stored procedure mapping, he’s got bigger problems than licensing fees. I tried pretty hard to use it for a high performance, large DB app, and it proved to be vastly slower than sprocs, or even the good old SqlCommand. The word from folks responsible for it was that DB perf doesn’t matter and I’m in a minority if I want it. Which I thought was insane. So I switched to using it just for sproc access and in memory collections manipulation.
Summary: person makes wrong purchasing decision, blames others for own lack of understanding.
Example: Person buys low end Honda somehow thinking all Hondas are the same. Thinks that because the high end Honda is made of the same materials that the person was ripped off and deserves the high end one for the low end price.
Sad that this is how most programmers think. And then you have the gall to write about it as if it were MS fault that you cannot and did not understand what you get for your purchase.
And the final comment on programmer culture is how many agree with you.
DMB - Normally LINQ to SQL is slower than SqlDataReader, but you can compile the queries so that much of the overhead of using LINQ largely disappears.
Jesus Christ, Mactards are so damn ignorant that they think StackOverflow can be run on a Mac server. Does Mac even have a server? If so, I am sure it is pretty, and I am sure it sucks. Take your stupid asses back to Abercrombie & Fitch, because you don’t belong behind the screen of a computer!
"It seems like I was just talking about this in response to a previous article of Jeff’s. I guess the take away is that Microsoft is not made up of a bunch of dummies. I congratulate them on finding a way to squeeze more money out of people and have them say “Thank You Sir! May I have another?”
Of course, this was probably set up that way to ensure they never had to deal with the megacorps. Today they do not have a pricing scheme per se, instead the negotiate individually with each customer.
@Julian - no it doesn’t. Try it yourself in anything that requires high concurrency and low latency and compare with sprocs. And do yourself a favor - do something more intense than toy examples.
Sprocs will beat LINQ to SQL handily in all cases, oftentimes by quite a margin. That said, my run-in with LINQ was about a year ago. Things might have changed since then.
Jeff,
Thanks for the data point. If you ever get interested enough in evaluating Linux for your webserver, please consider Ubuntu, or if you want a more conservative distro Debian Linux. Debian stable has 20,000+ packages available for installation from any Debian mirror. Debian testing has 25,000+. Since Ubuntu is a downstream distro from Debian, you’ll find it’s repositories are also huge.
If you want to test drive without installing, I would recommend an Ubuntu liveCD. As I’m sure you know you know what a live CD, but I don’t know if your readers do. For those not familiar, a Linux live CD allows you to run a particular Linux distro off a cdrom/dvd without having to install the software onto a hard drive. It’s really nifty.
I think you’ll be very impressed with what you have already available on Ubuntu/Debian. The #1 tool to become familiar with is synaptic, the graphical frontend to the package manager. Do a search by name+description for say web server, or database, or php, or mono,python, java, etc. I’ll think you’ll be stunned at what’s already available and wrapped up to go. Also try search terms like “cluster”, “monitoring”, “load balance”. Play with the search terms. Again, I think you’ll be stunned by what’s already available.
P.s. Based on your description of your home theatre pc entry from a couple of years ago, I finally decided to upgrade my 1GB ram, athlon XP 1150GHz, 160GB IDE HD, box to a 8GB DDR2, Intel Wolfdale Core 2 Duo, 1TB SATA hard drive box. Holy cow!!! Everything runs so much faster. My old box running Debian testing X86 would take about 45 secs from boot up to login prompt. The new box running Debian testing AMD64 about 20 seconds max.
it at least SHIPS third party software like (yes outdated) Java, Apache, PHP, etc. A simple update will suffice
Well, yes. But Sun doesn’t make an official Java version for Apple platform. Apple does. And Apple doesn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to update it when Sun updates theirs, even if this is necessary to address security issues. They should either fully commit to Java or stop shipping it IMO.
All of the above doesn’t change the fact that OS X is a piss poor platform for this application.
Just the ability to use Visual Studio, and especially the Visual Studio debugger,
makes using Windows cheaper in terms of money and stress equity than Linux or Mac,
regardless of licensing costs.
Pssst. There’s this IDE called NetBeans 6.7. It’s pretty good, and it costs $0. Not as full featured as VS, of course, but not that far behind. Has a debugger, too. And a profiler. And code browsing / refactoring. And built in source control. And it runs on all three major platforms (6.7 is gorgeous on a Mac, BTW). And it has a great Scala plugin. Download it and give it a try, it’s free in both senses of the word.
In fact, come to think of it, after working with Visual Studio for more than a decade, I don’t really miss anything other than not being able to “drag” the execution point forward or backward when debugging.
Yeah, or you could instead pay $219 to upgrade from XP to Vista,
and then another $219 to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, and then
pray that it will at least be on par with Tiger this time.
Yeah, and then when your Mac hardware breaks, you can pay $800 to have your motherboard replaced by a “genius.”
You have couched your argument by bemoaning the principle of charging rich people more and the poor less - so do you also bemoan it when applied to taxation? And should Third-Worlders be expected to pay the same for medical care as First-Worlders? I don’t mind if you don’t think so - just so long as we’re consistent here, folks.
Oh and I get Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition for free I am a student and have access to the MSDNAA which gives me all MS sotware for free [Including all MS operating systems and development software like Visual Studio 2008 Professional]
The problem Jeff, is you keeping using Windows.
Use BSD, there’s only 3 versions Open, Net , Free.
Use Solaris, there’s just 2 distros Open, not so Open.
Use Linux, yes, there’ lots of Distros, but just go with one of the top ones, like suse or redhat.
There’s also plenty of OS’s from IBM, and Soracle still have supplanted HP-UX yet.
oh cool, the captcha isn’t coloured orange anymore , well you’re doing one thing right. Slow & steady wind the race.
I am a student and have access to the MSDNAA which gives me all MS sotware for free [Including all MS operating systems and development software like Visual Studio 2008 Professional]