I was not sure of where to post this. I am not sure of how appropriate the title is, but here goes:
The main focus of my post is to get a broader idea of current technologies. Taking a peek at non-Microsoft Technologies, I played a bit with JDeveloper and ADF. I have to admit that I noticed features that are not matched in the Microsoft realm of development tools and approaches. The whole framework is something else. I mean ADF is obviously targeted at business applications, and I as an ASP.NET developer have to develop Business Applications all the time. But ASP.NET does not have those cool things that ADF + JDeveloper + (add what you see fit here since I am not an expert ) have.

Why don't Microsoft start heading in the right direction? I know that they are working on MVC, and some other things like ASP.NET Dynamic Data, but I am not sure that this is enough. When working with .NET technology, it always feels like we have this big puzzle that we must figure out. We have to get a tool from here, and a whole other framework from their, and some hacks from somewhere else and finally glue all these things up. And after things start working, you notice that you are like the only one that knows how the pieces fit together, thus inducing a very steep learning curve.

I am starting to feel jealous when I notice how other developers that work on JDeveloper, are able to build a whole business application without having to write much code. Everything (almost) is done deceleratively. OR Mapping, they have it; MVC, already there; smart IDE that has tons of wizards, granted. In ASP.NET (.NET in general), we need something like NHibernate for OR Mapping, messing around with the BETA MVC framework for MVC, and have to get third party controls or even build our own to start feeling that we are developing smarter.

I wish Microsoft can learn from others, I might even start learning that Oracle technology cocktail. 

Hi,

Infinite_Recursion:

we need something like NHibernate for OR Mapping

Yesterday Microsoft released ADO.NET entity framework that you can use. Or another one is Linq to Sql. There are also projects already done by people in combination with NHibernate (I only used it in a winforms client application, not with ASP.NET so I can't speak out of personal experience here).

Grz, Kris.

I've worked both sides of the fence, and don't assume the Oracle cocktail goes down smoother.

I wish Oracle would get better at a bunch of things Microsoft does better.

And I wish Microsoft would get better at a bunch of things Oracle does better. 

Both technology stacks are hard to learn and harder to master.  

Infinite_Recursion:

we need something like NHibernate for OR Mapping

Can you list a few pros and cons of both sides? Or at least provide a link to someone who does that? Also, I know this might sound like a naive question, but where would you invest in learning if you only could go one way or the other?

Thanks. 

david wendelken:

Infinite_Recursion:

we need something like NHibernate for OR Mapping

There are a number of code generators out there that do basic OR Mapping for you.  A number of them are free.  If you know what you want it to do, a simple one isn't that hard to write for yourself, and well worth the time and effort.

Code Generation != OR Mapping. They are two different things. OR Mapping is Object Oriented, and provides more control, separation of concerns, and facilitates best practices. Code Generation is just a faster way of doing the same thing you would be doing on your own.

david wendelken:

I've worked both sides of the fence, and don't assume the Oracle cocktail goes down smoother.

I wish Oracle would get better at a bunch of things Microsoft does better.

And I wish Microsoft would get better at a bunch of things Oracle does better. 

 

Both technology stacks are hard to learn and harder to master.  

 

I would not invest in "New Microsoft Technology" to develop real business applications. Experience shows that committing  to new MS technology is not good, one has to wait until it matures. On the other hand NHibernate is based on Hibernate which is not a new technology at all, and has its own community (and I think it is also Open Source).

Infinite_Recursion:

I would not invest in "New Microsoft Technology" to develop real business applications. Experience shows that committing  to new MS technology is not good, one has to wait until it matures. On the other hand NHibernate is based on Hibernate which is not a new technology at all, and has its own community (and I think it is also Open Source).

Both the Microsoft asp and Java technology stack graveyards are full of discarded approaches.  Neither camp has proven they have got it right yet.   

check out

http://www.castleproject.org/

It offers a proven MVC platform in monorail and  also uses Active Record around NHibernate.

Also check out Alt.Net

AltNetPedia
 

 ALT.NET - Alternative tools and approaches to mainstream .NET

mckelt:

check out

http://www.castleproject.org/

It offers a proven MVC platform in monorail and  also uses Active Record around NHibernate.

Also check out Alt.Net

AltNetPedia
 

 ALT.NET - Alternative tools and approaches to mainstream .NET

I have used ActiveRecord, I liked it, but it still faces some problems:
1. it is an open source contribution, their is no real support (aside from the forum), and it is still not mature

2. It still lacks some powerful features of NHibernate (take value collections for example) 

Concerning MonoRail, I find it a nice idea, but the choice of engine inside it is not simple, since when using the default engine  you would have to forget about what you know in about the rich ASP.NET controls like the GridView.

I have yet to experiment with ASP.NET MVC, but  that's another thing.