Why pay for VS.NET when JAVA is Free?

[Mike Cox]

I've been a long time Windows developer until recently. Why should any
company pay for developer tools when they could be had for free? My last
Visual Studio product was Visual Studio 6.0. I then moved over to linux
and GCC because web services were still in its infancy and no one was
really using it. Therefore GCC, CORBA(ACE/TAO) and Linux were good enough
compared to VC++ 7.0 and ATL 7.0.

While Linux and GCC were good, Microsoft's IDE still rocked, and had a
value. Linux developers needed to be smart because Emacs LISP is tough to
wrap your head around in order to create the same functionality as MS VS.
Furthermore, Emacs is uglier, and debugging is similar although less
intuitive than VS. I was smart enough and a cheap enough to learn
Emacs, so that VS was irrelevant unless eye candy counted.

But lately, Web Services have started to mature. I was faced with a choice,
go with .NET and VS.NET or move to JAVA. I looked at the costs associated
with Microsoft versus JAVA / SUN and found SUN to be the low cost leader.
StarOffice is cheaper than MS office. Solaris 10 will be completely free
and include DTrace and other goodies. When I visited SUN's website, I saw
free this and free that!

But the best thing that was free IMHO was JAVA. Why should anyone pay $2500
USD for VS.NET Enterprise Edition when one can just click to SUN.com and
download J2EE and get exactly the same functionality for free!? Plus on
top of that you will soon get a free Solaris 10 with DTrace and a new
filesystem that can hold incredible amounts of data. When Solaris 10 comes
out, my Linux and Windows boxes will head to the trash can.

Why am I posting this? Well, to say that Microsoft is losing its developer
base because competitively, they are more expensive than SUN now. SUN is
the low cost leader. If MS made VS.NET enterprise free I might consider
coming back, but only if they made MS Office more competitive with Open
Office and reduced prices on their Server products. If Sun Solaris 10 is
free robust and virus free, why pay through the nose for Windows then?
Microsoft made its fortune on being the high volume low cost provider, but
now it is more expensive than SUN. How ironic!

 

[Mike Cox]

"Sylvain Lafontaine" <sylvain aei ca (fill the blanks, no spam please)>
wrote:

If you think that you will do a project with Java in less time that with
VS.NET, then go ahead with Java; it's the best decision that you can make
and, hopefully, a good one. However, if you think that it will take you
more time with Java but you make the decision of sticking with it because
it's free, then you know what someone might say about such a decision.

Well, I would think that it takes the same amount of time to develop in
either .NET or JAVA. They are quite similar. So in that case, free is a
very good price.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

Simply because the costs of the software is only a part of the whole
equation. You may say that Java is free, but if it take a programmer 6
months with Java instead of 3 with .NET to develop a piece of code; then the
real cost to the company who pay him is much, much higher than 0$.

I won't enter into the discussion to know if doing a project with Java will
really double the required time or not. You can even argue that it will
take less time doing it with Java instead; I don't care here. The real
point is not to know which one is more productive but to know that the
decision of using a product instead of another can have consequences far
more distant than simply the cost of buying the product.

If you think that you will do a project with Java in less time that with
VS.NET, then go ahead with Java; it's the best decision that you can make
and, hopefully, a good one. However, if you think that it will take you
more time with Java but you make the decision of sticking with it because
it's free, then you know what someone might say about such a decision.

S. L.

 

[AlexKay]

Simply because the costs of the software is only a part of the whole
equation. You may say that Java is free, but if it take a programmer 6
months with Java instead of 3 with .NET to develop a piece of code; then the
real cost to the company who pay him is much, much higher than 0$.

I agree the 2.5K is neither here not there in the bigger picture.

You're example of 3 months versus 6 months however, is extraordinary, a 100%
difference. I'm interested, is this a real example? If not do you have any
real examples?

OTOH, there is plenty of evidence to show Windows boxes require a lot more
support than Solaris boxes so what you may or may not gain in developer time
you certainly loose in recurrent operational costs, year in year out.

Regards
Alex

 

[jeffc]

If Sun Solaris 10 is
free robust and virus free, why pay through the nose for Windows then?
Microsoft made its fortune on being the high volume low cost provider, but
now it is more expensive than SUN. How ironic!

Not really - standard business Anyway, just wanted to point out that the
reason Sun is relatively virus free is specifically because hardly anyone uses
it compared to Windows. Hackers will always target the biggest base they can
get.

 

[Rich Teer]

Not really - standard business Anyway, just wanted to point out that the
reason Sun is relatively virus free is specifically because hardly anyone uses

Absolute nonesense. Solaris (or any other UNIX or UNIX-like OS) is
"relatively virus free" because of its more secure design. There's
no way I, as a normal, unprovileged user, can affect other people's
or system files. Other things, like the system's philosophy, and the
general "clueness" of the users, also help.

But I guess this explains your lack of knowledge:

X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409

Congratulations: you're using one of the biggest virus spreaders
known to man.

it compared to Windows. Hackers will always target the biggest base they can
get.

ITYM "crackers".

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, author of "Solaris Systems Programming"

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

 

[Michael Borgwardt]

ITYM "crackers".

ITYM "script kiddies". A real malicious hacker will target whatever he *wants*
to target.

 

[Chris Smith]

I agree the 2.5K is neither here not there in the bigger picture.

Without knowing the situation of the person speaking, it's impossible to
reasonably agree or disagree. It's often the case that labor is far
more available than capital. You may work for an established business,
but much software is written outside of that kind of environment.

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way To Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation

 

[Steve Sobol]

Simply because the costs of the software is only a part of the whole
equation. You may say that Java is free, but if it take a programmer 6
months with Java instead of 3 with .NET to develop a piece of code; then the
real cost to the company who pay him is much, much higher than 0$.

I won't enter into the discussion to know if doing a project with Java will
really double the required time or not.

It's not something that can be answered without figuring out who will do the
work. There are plenty of competent Java programmers out there, as well as
plenty of competent .NET programmers, so if you're using someone who knows what
he or she is doing, there shouldn't be that much difference in development
time... regardless of development platform.

 

[Tim Tyler]

Sylvain Lafontaine wrote:


It's not something that can be answered without figuring out who will do the
work. There are plenty of competent Java programmers out there, as well as
plenty of competent .NET programmers, so if you're using someone who
knows what he or she is doing, there shouldn't be that much difference
in development time... regardless of development platform.

The chances of the software you need to write already existing beneath
the 9-year old Java platform are of course much higher - so the chances
are much bigger that little or no work will need to be performed in the
first place.

 

[Mark Preston]

AlexKay wrote:

[snip]

You're example of 3 months versus 6 months however, is extraordinary, a 100%
difference. I'm interested, is this a real example? If not do you have any
real examples?

In a recent survey by Computer Weekly in the UK, the development time
was rather the other way around - it was found to be up to (and I stress
the UP TO) twice as quick to develop software (for internet use) with
J2EE rather than with .NET

The results of the survey may well still be on the Computer Weekly
website and are worth looking at. One thing it also pointed out was that
for stand-alone software development for Windows-specific systems (not
networked) development was significantly faster with .NET

What I found particularly interesting was that very clear development
hurdle that Microsoft still seems to have when it looks at the networked
world. Of course, that is very much what .NET was originally supposed to
address and it appears to fail at that even though it clearly succeeds
as a stand-alone devlopment method.

 

[David Segall]

But the best thing that was free IMHO was JAVA. Why should anyone pay $2500
USD for VS.NET Enterprise Edition when one can just click to SUN.com and
download J2EE and get exactly the same functionality for free!?

J2EE does not include any development tools. In particular there is no
IDE. The comparable Sun product is Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 which
costs $US1895.00 and only supports Java.

It is true that you can assemble a set of high quality Java software
development tools at no cost but it requires some expertise and there
is no one to blame if the tools don't work together.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

It was not my intention to demonstrate that the .NET framework is a better
(or not) development plaftorm than Java or that there are no competent Java
programmers around here.

My statement was only about the fact that taking only the price of a piece
of software (any software) into consideration when choosing a development
solution is a rather limited and misleading point of view and that making
the statement (or decision) that *free* softwares are the ultimate solution
for everybody - only because it's free - can lead to serious damages. In
fact, in my opinion, most of the times this aspect should be treated only as
a relatively minor point to take into consideration.

However, you have also a good point by stating that Java is 9-year old. I
remember the first time I've tried 5-6 years ago, with other people in a big
company, to install a multi-users Java platform development system. Java
was then at about the same age as the .NET platform is now; however, only
the simple fact of making it run correctly, without to much problems,
required a lot of discussion, research time and testing of various versions
running on different platforms and operating systems. And this - more or
less - successfull installation was only the beginning of our problems.

S. L.