Why no serious MS Application in .NET yet ??

[Herr Lucifer]

As the founder of .NET framework, Microsoft claims that it invention will be
the next best platform for programming in a near future. Now it is 2005,
..NET is 5 years old, and can talk and walk for himself with some help of his
mum.
However, we see the same native office applications are coming out again,
and many other tools in SP2 of XP which could be in managed code....but are
not. So, as the inventor of .NET , why doesn't Microsoft itself use "DOTNET"
in its applications? Is there any concern over the baby's runnung
performance inside Microsoft itself, or they gonna teach the baby how to run
like a C kinda guy in future, so that they'll be able to use it for
themselves?

 

[Scott M.]

As the founder of .NET framework, Microsoft claims that it invention will
be
the next best platform for programming in a near future. Now it is 2005,
.NET is 5 years old, and can talk and walk for himself with some help of
his
mum.

The first public release of .NET was in 2/02. That makes .NET 3 years old,
not 5.

However, we see the same native office applications are coming out again,
and many other tools in SP2 of XP which could be in managed code....but
are
not. So, as the inventor of .NET , why doesn't Microsoft itself use
"DOTNET"
in its applications? Is there any concern over the baby's runnung
performance inside Microsoft itself, or they gonna teach the baby how to
run
like a C kinda guy in future, so that they'll be able to use it for
themselves?

I can't speak about babies, but my guess is that you won't see widespread
applications written in .NET until the .NET Framework is "baked in" to the
OS itself (Longhorn). Right now, the .NET Framework is only installed if
WinXP is updated with SP's or if the user manually added it themselves.

 

[Bob Grommes]

It is certainly possible to include the .NET runtime with an install. Even
after Longhorn is released it will be a long time before XP and W2K (or for
that matter, ME or 98) go away. Certainly as the number and maturity of
"baked in" managed interfaces increases, it will become easier to write and
distribute large commercial applications in .NET, but it is nevertheless
feasible today.

I would say that a much more significant reason is simply that the cost of
completely rewriting the entire codebase of a massive product like Office is
probably way too much to overcome even the benefits of .NET. What is
already starting to happen is that interfacing .NET applications to Office
is being supported via Primary Interop Assemblies. In future releases, I'd
expect managed interfaces to Office functionality will be "baked in" to
Office, and at that point, parts of Office (especially new ones) will begin
to be written as managed code. At some point, a few years down the road
when a complete rework is indicated for business reasons, I suspect that
individual office apps will one by one be rewritten mostly in managed code,
probably a combination of managed C++ and C#. And I suspect there will
always be a smattering of assembler hiding in there.

Microsoft is certainly willing to eat its own dog food, but you must never
forget that it takes time for the marketplace to absorb any new technology,
no matter how motivated people are and how good the technology may be.

--Bob

 

[Alvin Bruney [Microsoft MVP]]

So, as the inventor of .NET , why doesn't Microsoft >itself use "DOTNET" in

its applications?

valid question. At this point, I don't know the answer to that question.

--
Regards
Alvin Bruney
[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
available at www.lulu.com/owc

 

[Joerg Jooss]

As the founder of .NET framework, Microsoft claims that it invention
will be the next best platform for programming in a near future. Now
it is 2005, .NET is 5 years old, and can talk and walk for himself
with some help of his mum.
However, we see the same native office applications are coming out
again, and many other tools in SP2 of XP which could be in managed
code....but are not. So, as the inventor of .NET , why doesn't
Microsoft itself use "DOTNET" in its applications? Is there any
concern over the baby's runnung performance inside Microsoft itself,
or they gonna teach the baby how to run like a C kinda guy in future,
so that they'll be able to use it for themselves?

Don't forget that .NET is mainly about writing *custom* business
applications, just like J2EE. By definition, that's exactly the type of
software you cannot simply buy from Microsoft ;-)

I also wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a managed code version
Office or any other established MS product. There's simply no business
case for that.

Cheers,

 

[alejandro lapeyre]

The .NET is great, but it needs a lot of work to replace the windows api.
Before asking that Office is written in .NET, the ListBox should be written
in .NET!

regards
Alejandro Lapeyre

 

[Richard Blewett [DevelopMentor]]

Applications apart from Content Management Server and most of BizTalk 2004?

Where is the business case for completely destabilizing the Office codebase with a total rewrite?

And as others have stated - .NET's been released for 3 years not 5.

Regards

Richard Blewett - DevelopMentor
http://www.dotnetconsult.co.uk/weblog
http://www.dotnetconsult.co.uk

As the founder of .NET framework, Microsoft claims that it invention will be
the next best platform for programming in a near future. Now it is 2005,
.NET is 5 years old, and can talk and walk for himself with some help of his
mum.
However, we see the same native office applications are coming out again,
and many other tools in SP2 of XP which could be in managed code....but are
not. So, as the inventor of .NET , why doesn't Microsoft itself use "DOTNET"
in its applications? Is there any concern over the baby's runnung
performance inside Microsoft itself, or they gonna teach the baby how to run
like a C kinda guy in future, so that they'll be able to use it for
themselves?

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Lucifer,

I think that it will only be interesting for Microsoft to renew there older
success applications for Net ones, when other operating system builders have
full and correct implemented .Net.

Than they can sell there applications as well for that. Although I cannot
see even from that any economical benefit for them at the moment.

This changes of course when .Net they will implement in the OS in the same
way as IE was done in past. However, probably you know the law problems that
has given, because of the rumours their concurrent made, so I assume they
have to think twice.

Just my thought,

Cor

 

[Herr Lucifer]

The .NET is great, but it needs a lot of work to replace the windows api.
Before asking that Office is written in .NET, the ListBox should be
written in .NET!

Replace the API? You're kidding! Dot Net doesn't really do anything on its
own. It only calls the unmanegd APIs (built in Win32) from a managed
environment. Take a look inside the framework yourslef to see what is really
there.
Download and use this disassembler: (Reflector)
"http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet"

 

[Herr Lucifer]

Don't forget that .NET is mainly about writing *custom* business
applications, just like J2EE. By definition, that's exactly the type of
software you cannot simply buy from Microsoft ;-)

I also wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a managed code version
Office or any other established MS product. There's simply no business
case for that.

Then what are all these talks about the future platform of programming?
Isn't
"it" sth more than a wrapper around the real APIs?

 

[alejandro lapeyre]

That is why I said there is a lot of work to do.
there is nothing done yet.

regards,
Alejandro Lapeyre

 

[alejandro lapeyre]

That is why I said there is a lot of work to do.
There is (almost) nothing done yet.

I know Lutz Reflector and i am not kidding.

regards,
Alejandro Lapeyre

 

[Joerg Jooss]

Then what are all these talks about the future platform of
programming? Isn't
"it" sth more than a wrapper around the real APIs?

Again, it's all about custom developed applications, and not
shrink-wrapped products that have existing code bases of svereal
MLOCs...

 

[Cowboy \(Gregory A. Beamer\)]

When the next version of SQL Server comes out, it will have an internal CLR.
That is a pretty serious application utilizing .NET. As far as office goes,
or Windows, it will take some time, as .NET radically changes things. I
would expect MS apps around the Longhorn release and not before (maybe even
after).

There are, however, third party apps with .NET. Look at Sony, who has
released versions of its premiere video editing suite in .NET.

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SD, SE, DBA

*************************************************
Think outside the box!
*************************************************

 

[Joe]

This changes of course when .Net they will implement in the OS in the same
way as IE was done in past. However, probably you know the law problems that
has given, because of the rumours their concurrent made, so I assume they
have to think twice.

And even then, considering that most willing users dropped from the
upgrade cycle with Office95*, what killer features could Microsoft
come up with in their Office product that would justify rewriting this
huge piece of software with the .Net API?

There's just no economic value in rewriting what works now. Instead,
with time, they'll probably use .Net to write new products, and
add-ons to existing products, as .Net becomes a standard component of
Windows.

Joe.

* by far, those using more recent versions do it not because they went
out and bought the upgrades, but simply because the latest version
comes preinstalled on new computers

 

[Alvin Bruney [Microsoft MVP]]

Does that mean that *new products (ex Internet Explorer 7) would be partial
or fully .NET?

--
Regards
Alvin Bruney
[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
available at www.lulu.com/owc

 

[Herr Lucifer]

The Avalon is partially in .NET ( I mean the one in XP freestyle Longhorn),
hence it is too slow. That's the main issue i think. Things are gonna slow
down when come from c++ into .NET . However, i think the future graphic
cards driver might solve that GDI+ problem.

Does that mean that *new products (ex Internet Explorer 7) would be
partial or fully .NET?

--
Regards
Alvin Bruney
[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
available at www.lulu.com/owc
--------------------------------------------------

When the next version of SQL Server comes out, it will have an internal
CLR.
That is a pretty serious application utilizing .NET. As far as office
goes,
or Windows, it will take some time, as .NET radically changes things. I
would expect MS apps around the Longhorn release and not before (maybe
even
after).

There are, however, third party apps with .NET. Look at Sony, who has
released versions of its premiere video editing suite in .NET.

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SD, SE, DBA

*************************************************
Think outside the box!
*************************************************

 

[William Stacey [MVP]]

Web Matrix, BizTalk, MS Small Business Accounting (SBA), SQL CLR support,
ASP.Net in IIS 7.0, probably others. I think SBA is the first all managed
Office app. So we might expect new apps (not all) to be written in managed
code and legacy apps not ported unless there is some good reason. ASP.Net
is a good example of a good reason. There where so many new features and
model changes (i.e. xml config, drop metabase, rework to plugable
components, full managed api, etc) that they could justify rewritting from
scratch in c#. Can you imagine the work to port something like Word and
Excel to C#?

 

[William Stacey [MVP]]

Then what are all these talks about the future platform of programming?

Isn't
"it" sth more than a wrapper around the real APIs?

? You need to work with it to really get the value I think. Much more then
a simple wrapper around win32 apis. It is after all a framework. Some
wrappers, some fully managed. All the collection classes for example are
managed code. And tons of infrastructor stuff that you don't have to build
because it is in their (i.e. security, ton of xml stuff, and on...) and most
of the stuff works same way across all supported platforms.

 

[Sean Hederman]

I have a rant about this kind of complaint:
http://codingsanity.blogspot.com/2005/01/son-of-whiny-gripes-about-net.html