Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeb
My company has been starting to develop for .net; our managing partner is real high on us being in that space. I guess we'll see over time how that's going to play out vs. java.
The reason I chose Java on the front end for my app was I needed a framework that was highly interactive. Basically the app is a drag and drop front end to a cross-tab stat package.
3 years ago I had the choice of:
1. ActiveX (never really considered)
2. Java
3. .NET (in beta form)
Availability was a big concern (what would the client need on their computer) and stability. Given my previous developments using Microsoft technologies I figured it would take them at least two years to produce a production quality .net after the announcement of beta (which it was two years at least!).
So we decided on Java on the front end. To get away from the differences between J1/J2 we wrote a "JCL" a java compatibility layer. We wanted an app that would run well on J1 or J2 with one code base.
Other than 2 weeks worth of work on the Mac compatabilty, we ended up with a client app that would support 99.9% of the clients out there without the need to download additional software. In about a month, it will also run under any device that supports mobile java.
Interestingly, when Microsoft recently release a patch to the JVM (in the past couple of months) it broke my ability to compile the app under Microsoft's VM. I could run it through the legacy J++ interface but when I .cab'd it and signed it, it won't run.
No worries, I keep a Windows 98 box around just for this purpose. :-0
I'm currently working un-Microsofting the server side pieces and with the hope of taking advantage next year of Mosix. Much easier and cleaner (IMO) to cluster using Mosix than it is clustering with Windows.
We are at about 1000 users right now and the IIS box is starting to freak. Some of it was out fault, but not all of it. It will be nice when the sales guy says, "I just sold an additional 1000 client license are we going to handle it" and I can say, "Yea, we'll buy a couple of $500 boxes and stick them on our cluster".
We do have a couple of apps running under .net for specific clients who support the .net environment and it seems to be working out ok for that part of the business.