been looking at job openings (trying to find something better) and virtually everyone is looking for .NET people. What's .NET all about? Why is it so popular?

 

I'd like to know this myself...

 

i ran into this in my current job actually

we decided not to use it, but to use sharepoint for that project, though my understanding is one doesnt necessarily relate to the other.

my understanding of .net is that its basically a web based infrastructure (portal if that helps you) to deliver web services programs via xml.

i dont know how it all works, but my grasp of it is that you can centralize all info and give access to programs via the web... sort of like a vpn i think?

i hope someone with experience chimes in.

 

Wow. The answer to that question fills many, many books.

In brief, .NET is microsoft's current application development infrastructure. It covers both Windows and Web programming (among others). For web developers, it provides the same class of tools that windows (etc) programmers have had for years (better actually) so you can develop much more capable things without it being a quivering mass of spaghetti.

It has lots of advantages over its predecessors, such as being easier to maintain, reuse stuff in many pages, automate a lot of the annoying stuff like validations, etc.

It's damn cool because you get an environment where you can multiple languages (C variants, VB, and a few others) that actually play nice together, application deployment is a dream, and the built-in ways to do things like manipulate databases are actually usable in the real world (unlike some of MS's predecessor products).

It also has a fantastic amount of support for all things web, including good page programming tools, excellent web services development, and similiar functionality.

It is popular because a) it's the current microsoft thing, and b) it really IS that much better than it's predecessor.

It's only major disadvantages are that it's microsoft, and therefore really only runs on microsoft platforms, and that it's microsoft, so it's 137 times the size of it's predecessors.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Microsoft. I've been programming for 20-odd years, and this is just what I'm using today...

 

.Net rocks.

I've been using it for a couple years now and it is sooooooooo much better than ASP.
We are just starting to look into upgrading ASP.NET 2.0 (which hopefully isn't too much of a headache)

 

is it the latest and greatest because it's Microsoft, or is it really that good? I've been pretty happy with MySQL and PHP, but I get the impression that .Net is more than a coding language and a database that play nicely together.

 

I haven't used MySQL and PHP, but asp.net just has a lot of nice controls and features that speed up development. It finally separates the biz logic from the presentation layer by using code-behind files.

The interface is an HTML file (.aspx) and the code-behind files are C# (.cs) or VB.NET (.vb) that are compiled into dlls.

This makes it easy for a front end graphic designer to polish up the UI without interfering with the backend developer.

That datagrid is prob one of the most useful customizable controls. Create a dataset, bind it to a datagrid and you instantly have a listing with sortable columns, paging, alternate color rows, etc, etc. If you want one of the columns to be a data entry textbox, just overload that column with your own template.

You can even create your own custom controls and dynamically inject them into the page at runtime. Plus creating web services are a piece of cake.

 

Compared to their previous offerings (ASP for web stuff and Visual Studio 6 for windows programming), it's really that good.

Compared to php/mysql, I can't really say. I don't have the experience to defend any comments there. The minimal web scripting I've done outside of MS products is using a text editor to write bad perl scripts, and that just sucked.

The thing I really like is that the development tools are really top notch to use, everything is nicely separated out between presentation and implementation, the tools are super helpful in helping you remember all those cool properties you forgot about, and the ability to make a very responsive web site with minimal effort is pretty sweet.

I'm sure you could say the same thing about Dreamweaver or any of a host of other top end products, but I don't have the experience to prove it.

.NET according to Microsoft is pretty much "everything". It's the underpinnings of pretty much all of their current or incoming technologies.

I'm not sure this is really helpful. I think you need to hear from someone who has used other tools and can compare.