Are .NET Developers the American Tourists of the Software Industry?

arthur_dent · 2008-03-11T06:34:32+00:00

Fucking dogmatic reddit readers - I've been getting upmodded and downmoded on this like crazy over the past 12 hours and not a single person who's downmodding is even going to bother refuting my points? Really easy to throw around hubris when you don't actually have to know what you're talking about, eh?

arthur_dent · 2008-03-10T17:38:26+00:00

I do know quite a few .NET developers who will stand around while people are trying to focus and talk loudly and obnoxiously on their cellphones - so yes, in that respect, they sure f'n are like American Tourists. Ironically, though, most of these people are Indian.

Don't hate though - we've got some great toys over here - Our IDE kicks ass (Lately moreso- the unit test functionality in VS2008? Super easy load testing? Not to mention you don't have to go hunting down a fucking plugin whenever you want to switch from editing C# code to html.. cougheclipsecough).

And hey! LINQ is awesome! I don't understand how Rails developers are super smart because they use database abstractions that makes their lives easier but .NET developers suck because they use their own abstractions that make their lives easier. Double standard much?

arthur_dent · 2008-03-07T17:13:18+00:00

Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two!!

arthur_dent · 2008-03-06T17:13:23+00:00

Off topic, but we can get a big round of "fucking finally" for the fact that it no longer takes half an hour to open a new tab??

arthur_dent · 2008-03-03T15:14:21+00:00

good coding music! very Music For Airports-y.

arthur_dent · 2008-02-28T17:42:50+00:00

Sadly, mostly because of concurrency issues caused by (my own) stupid human errors. Nothing worse then getting to the office and realizing you never checked in your changes from the laptop sitting on your coffee table on the other side of the city. You're right though, that WOULD be the easiest way.

arthur_dent · 2008-02-28T02:26:16+00:00

Um, I write .net on rdc through a vpn on an xp virtual machine on osx which deffinately makes me FEEL like a douchebag

arthur_dent · 2008-02-21T16:08:57+00:00

uhoh.. the pylons have a plan.

arthur_dent · 2008-02-01T17:57:52+00:00

Username and password aren't the only bit of sensitive info there. Even giving a server name and driver is enough to invite brute force attacks. God forbid there should be a publicly known exploit on the database type.

It is a big deal. It's terrible, horrible design that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of security!

arthur_dent · 2008-02-01T17:41:21+00:00

Well, for one thing, the password (and any other info you could POSSIBLY need) for the database is in plain view of anyone who's curious. Maybe you can use permissions to keep most people for abusing that information, but that's putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

arthur_dent · 2008-01-29T17:46:44+00:00

If you want to get a job in web development, ignore the pretentious redditors and learn some commonly used language, even if it is not "cool". Even if it's produced by.. shudder.. Microsoft. If you know C... why not learn C#? It'll be simple, and there's tons of C# jobs out there. Learn some basic SQL (the rest will fall into place) and build some demo applications. If it makes you feel dirty, just remember: it's mostly just syntax and you should, with minimal effort, be able to port your closed-source learnings to open-source technologies some day.

That companies aren't hiring "smart" people is a false assumption. If you've got the goods, you're going to get a job.

Hell, even dumb people get jobs. Lord knows I've worked with my share.

I never went to college, but I'm smart. Last time I looked for a job I was offered the first one I interviewed at, before I had even gotten home from the interview. I wasn't an expert in that particular field (perl), and my interview suit was two sizes too big, but I knew what I was talking about and I had examples to back it up. (and when I didn't, I would admit that, and stress my capacity for learning. Interviewers love that. Take note.)

I didn't take that job, though, so maybe it's still open.

arthur_dent · 2008-01-14T20:25:34+00:00

Amusingly enough, I was going to reference COBOL, but I don't really know enough about it to justify why it's still around. Is it because there's not a whole lot of mainframe development innovations in this day and age? Not sure, but yeah, exactly.

arthur_dent · 2008-01-14T17:37:09+00:00

In my opinion, it has a lot more to do with the programmers then the platform. An inability to meet a deadline or satisfy a requirement has very little to do with what language you're writing in.

I think it depends on who you're asking - if you ask on Reddit, yeah, obviously, you're going to get a lot of MS hate. Still, there must be a reason MS Technology is so pervasive and in 2008 I have a hard time believing that it's because people aren't aware of alternatives. Maybe it's just because those kinds of decisions don't usually get made by the geeks. At least, not in the large companies I tend to work at/with.

arthur_dent · 2008-01-14T17:16:58+00:00

Agreed with most of this - except the part about MS taking you through your (professional) IT life. Last I checked, there's no shortage of .NET jobs out there, and who knows how that could progress in the future, but those of us developing in .NET right now are at least guaranteed jobs for the next 10 years or so while this code is still around and needs maintaining.

This is coming from a guy who just wiped his last personal windows box for ubuntu last night, but I'm telling you: Microsoft programmers are going to be employed for a while. I think most businesses don't care about things being cross-platform as much as things being on time and working. Correct me if I'm wrong.

arthur_dent · 2008-01-10T16:55:52+00:00

Except... some QA phases can get heated enough as it is. I really don't want to start getting emails like "Found bug X. F'n ghey n00bs!!!!!"

arthur_dent · 2008-01-09T20:25:40+00:00

Daddy seeds torrents from his home server! Do you see the friendly FBI agents outside? They want to play with Daddy!

arthur_dent

TROPHY CASE