Microsoft's .Net Framework "an inefficient bundle of code"
Some interesting comments on .NET performance:
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in Refining Paperless News - says that:
"RSSReader (Win 98 or newer, free at www.rssreader.com) leaves out FeedDemon's price tag, but also its performance. It was easily the slowest newsreader we tried -- partially because it runs on Microsoft's .Net Framework, an inefficient bundle of code that lets developers add Web functions to their software."
Hmmmmm, Jon Udell - goes onto to echo that:
"this is a real issue that will dog client-side .NET in the same way, and for the same reasons, that it has dogged client-side Java"
Normally, I have a lot of respect for Jon's opinions - but I don't think he can back this one up. I'm doing smart client (no touch deployment) .NET development at the moment. I find that we've no trouble getting excellent performance out of our app. When we do have problems its is usually algorithmic. Jon what .NET client side apps have you tried? SharpReader? RSS Bandit? NewsGator? Are any of these slow? Let's test claims like this before repeating them.
BTW - I think the actual point of the article is quite good. We shouldn't be trying to introduce Aunt Tillie to newsreaders as seperate programs. Lets start off with something simple that uses the familiar browser interface.
Finally - I'm not trying to start a flame war. Lets all be respectful. What I really want to know is have Jon or Steve really found a flaw with the framework? or just applications that could afford some optimization? (For the record I use SharpReader - but it really chews through a lot of memory).
Update: I posted a followup here: http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/mlevison/archive/2004/04/07/10933.aspx