ASP.Net with Mono/Linux

I'm not a developer but, I'm curious why would anyone do this. We are a linux shop. But yet our website our DevOps makes is ASP.Net (which our web catalog/store). It runs in with the mono plugin on our CentOS web servers.

Is this odd or crazy? I asked the DevOps team and they said it was because it works better and provides better integration for putting data directly into our order processing system (and pulling it directly from it to)

MattSpeller

I'm not sure this is your case, but previous experience with related things: sometimes what "works best" is what the existing staff know how to use/program/dev/admin and not necessarily what actually "works best" in a compatibility/OS/software sense.

scottalanmiller

It's not completely crazy but it leans that way. .NET is pretty awesome and avoiding MS licensing is a nice way to be cheap. Can't imagine many shops finding value there, though. Java and Node fill that space better most of the time. And running on Linux is pretty niche.

As far as better integration, that sounds like horse hockey.

That confused me too. not sure how it integrates better. They said when they started many years ago on ASP.Net the choice was really only ASP.Net or PHP and php just wasn't as versatile. and they haven't had time to do a full rewrite in node.js or possibly ruby.

scottalanmiller

@thecreativeone91 Java is older than .NET. Java is what it was based on. Java has always been the more viable option. There was a time when there was Java and PHP. But never a time when .NET and PHP were the options.

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 Java is older than .NET. Java is what it was based on. Java has always been the more viable option. There was a time when there was Java and PHP. But never a time when .NET and PHP were the options.

I am biased against Java from too many years of poor corporate decision making forcing Java based clients down on us.

I'll build it in .Net every time.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 Java is older than .NET. Java is what it was based on. Java has always been the more viable option. There was a time when there was Java and PHP. But never a time when .NET and PHP were the options.

I am biased against Java from too many years of poor corporate decision making forcing Java based clients down on us.

I'll build it in .Net every time.

You had bad server side clients? Or just client side? One big difference is that .NET had great client side, but non-cross platform support. Java has horrible, but cross platform client support.

But for server side, both are awesome but I'd take Java nine times out of ten over .NET. But wouldn't avoid .NET, it is great too.

scottalanmiller

And if you like functional programming...

.NET has F# and Java has Clojure.

dafyre

Or you can build it in PHP. Whoever said PHP isn't versatile really hasn't taken a deep dive into it. You can even write full GUI applications (for Windows only, AFAIK) with it...(granted, I've played with it, and it ain't fun...)

How is that not versatile?

Granted PHP may not always be the BEST language to program something in... but it can definitely be done.

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said:

You had bad server side clients? Or just client side?

Client side, and I know that has nothing to do with server side java development. but it still does not stop me from having a horrible mental image just thinking about coding java.

First impressions and all of that.

scottalanmiller

@dafyre said:

Or you can build it in PHP. Whoever said PHP isn't versatile really hasn't taken a deep dive into it.

In 2003 it was pretty limiting.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

You had bad server side clients? Or just client side?

Client side, and I know that has nothing to do with server side java development. but it still does not stop me from having a horrible mental image just thinking about coding java.

First impressions and all of that.

Fortunately I got to work with it in big finance where it really shines. Low latency, massive scaling, loads of features. It is pretty awesome there.

@scottalanmiller said:

@dafyre said:

Or you can build it in PHP. Whoever said PHP isn't versatile really hasn't taken a deep dive into it.

In 2003 it was pretty limiting.

Yep that's is about when the current website was started as far as the backend code. I think the Design has changed a lot.

@scottalanmiller said:

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

You had bad server side clients? Or just client side?

Client side, and I know that has nothing to do with server side java development. but it still does not stop me from having a horrible mental image just thinking about coding java.

First impressions and all of that.

Fortunately I got to work with it in big finance where it really shines. Low latency, massive scaling, loads of features. It is pretty awesome there.

DNS filter really shows of the power of Java to Nxfilter is fully Java and works a million times better than any proxy server. http://www.nxfilter.org/p2/

dafyre

@scottalanmiller There's almost always creative ways to get things done... Even if they are a bit outside of the box... outside of the box in somebody else's garage, lol.

I didn't really get in to PHP much until around 2005 or so. That may have been the case in 2003.

scottalanmiller

PHP was very young then. It has been growing steadily in capability since then. It is very powerful now, but it has really stiff competition now too.

dafyre

@scottalanmiller said:

PHP was very young then. It has been growing steadily in capability since then. It is very powerful now, but it has really stiff competition now too.

Don't know who said it, but competition breeds excellence!