On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, Rich C wrote: > Correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm no programmer, but I was under the > impression that the whole .NET thing was not Microsoft's invention anyway, > but simply a re-implementation of Sun's Java/Beans model that Microsoft > undertook when they realized what a stupid waste of time COM was...
.NET is, quite simply, the marketing name for the next release of anything in Microsoft's product line. They went from "Foo 95" and "Foo NT" to "Foo 2000" to "Foo XP" and now "Foo.NET". There are some vague mentions of including this or that, but ultimately, this is what it has and almost certainly will continue to amount to. .NET used to be called "Next Generation Windows Services". Before that, it was "Digital_Nervous_System". Certain things, like C#, SOAP, and XML, are often tied to .NET as being The Next Big Thing, but it all goes back to marketing. At one time or another, LANs, the Internet, and email have all been similarly tied. C# is basically yet another object-oriented version of C, joining Objective-C, C++, and Java-the-language. It has some similarities to Java in that it is supposed to involve a VM somehow. From what I hear, the VM is little more than a thinly veiled API wrapper for MS-Windows, which fits Microsoft's MO perfectly. "VMs are cool, so invent a VM that only works with our stuff." Of course, Miguel is actually talking of implementing that VM on Unix, which seems odd to me, but hey, Miguel is an odd guy. ;-) SOAP is Microsoft's own version of CORBA. *yawn* So, basically, .NET is .NIH (aside from the marketing thing). -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
