Using .NET

[weirdbeardmt]

Do you need any different equipment or installs to use for example PHP.NET?

[Jeremy W.]

My question is... What modules are currently out? Is there a PHP.NET? I know MS wasn't going to do a Java.NET, but it's actually relatively simple to program other modules so has anyone done the Java one (it's simply a matter of taking java code, writing a transformer to ILM and writing a debugger, along with the manual of course).

I guess I shoudl kick up my .Net learning again (ergh).

[Kevin Yank]

Microsoft has done Java .NET (it's called Visual J# .NET): http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualj/jsharp/beta.asp

There is no PHP.NET yet, that I'm aware of.

[Jeremy W.]

See? Learn something new everyday, last I heard MS had sworn off java (licensing, they just plain hate Sun). Good to know they've turned it all around

[Kevin Yank]

That depends on how you look at it. See my Tech Times editorial, which I posted in the what does it do? thread.

[Hierophant]

If you look in the updated documentation for PHP 4.1.0 there are is a new function listed for dealing with loading .NET modules. However it is also listed as experimental and there is not much in the way of documentation for it yet.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.dotnet.php

Hopefully as things progress this will be made more comprehensive.

[Kevin Yank]

I expect this won't be much different than the current functionality for loading COM objects...

[Umair.ms]

One thing worth mentioning is that functions to access .NET framework have been written by Microsoft developers. So, it should work.

I never tried COM with PHP. I really do not see any benefit of using PHP on Windows platform.

[wdmny]

Originally posted by Umair.ms
One thing worth mentioning is that functions to access .NET framework have been written by Microsoft developers. So, it should work.

I never tried COM with PHP. I really do not see any benefit of using PHP on Windows platform.

Well, thats the thing, it really doesn't matter what platform it runs on, either *nix or Windows. I wish that ASP was like that as well (ChiliSoft doesn't count).

[Kevin Yank]

I agree -- that's what I like about both PHP and Java: platform independance.

[Umair.ms]

and .NET

[Kevin Yank]

.NET is not at all platform independant. Read my editorial on the subject, which has been posted in several threads in this forum already.

[Winged Spider]

Microsoft is working hard on making ASP.NET platform independant. There is a version of .NET in the works that will run on a Linux server.

[Kevin Yank]

Microsoft is porting the .NET framework to FreeBSD, not Linux. There are a number of Open Source efforts underway to create .NET runtimes for various other operating systems (including Linux), but none of these will include the .NET Framework -- the set of classes including ADO.NET and the Windows Forms library, among others, that make .NET truly useful.

The relevant section of my editorial:

At the heart of .NET is the Common Language Runtime (CLR). All .NET programs (be they Windows applications or Web pages written in ASP.NET) are compiled ahead of time into Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) files. From the point of view of a Windows user, these files look and behave just like Windows .EXE and .DLL files; however, instead of being written in machine code suitable for native execution in Windows, .NET programs use a set of instructions that are understood by the .NET CLR. The CLR sits on top of whatever operating system the user happens to use and translates MSIL into native instructions that are understood by the operating system.

Anyone who has done any Java development before will find that this all sounds eerily familiar. Java programs are compiled into Java bytecode, and are then run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that converts the bytecode into native operating system instructions. This design choice was made to allow Java to be a platform-independant language. In fact, any operating system for which there exists a JVM can run Java programs with no need for recompilation or porting of any kind! So naturally the first question that springs to mind about .NET, which uses the very same design pattern, is this: will .NET be a way to write Windows applications that run on multiple platforms, maybe even on Linux and MacOS X? Microsoft themselves are developing a CLR for the FreeBSD operating system, while Open Source initiatives are already underway to develop a version of the .NET platform for Linux.

Not so fast: .NET is more than just the CLR. .NET also includes the ".NET Framework", a vast collection of class libraries that include the software components neccessary for writing graphical Windows applications, for creating dynamic Web sites with ASP.NET, and for accessing relational databases with ADO.NET, among other things. None of these class libraries will be officially available on any platform except Windows, and with non-Windows incarnations of previous Microsoft-only APIs (such as ASP 3.0 and ADO 2.5) having only just recently become practical, we can expect it will be quite some time before we see any truly useful, platform-independant applications of .NET.

In short, ASP.NET will be no more platform-independant than ASP 3.0 is now.

[Winged Spider]

What would be the benefit of running ASP.NET on FreeBSD without the runtime libraries?

[Kevin Yank]

The basic libraries (e.g. server controls) will be there, but anyone who attempts to use .NET in a multi-platform capacity will constantly be running into the borders of the limited subset that Microsoft are going to implement on non-Windows systems.

Microsoft have always aimed to sell their server software; they're not about to change that by making their hottest new technology available for free on free operating systems.