You’re Fat and I Hate You (frameworks & libraries)

A pretty well known Web Developer (James Edwards a.k.a brothercake) posted an article I thought might be interesting to share.
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/04/17/youre-fat-and-i-hate-you/

For some reason it reminds me of an essay by Paul Graham on Java: http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html

Often Times I feel the same way towards the .NET framework. Whats your feeling on this? Is the hype and excessive abstraction making worse programmers in general?

I dunno.  It seems to me, that if you are writing in anything other than assembly, you are subject to code bloat, slower code, etc.
I guess the idea is to draw the line at a point where the bloat and performance hits are outweighed by the ease-of-coding of the language.
For me, since I only write admin-helper scripts, I can handle a few extra seconds to finish a script.
But just because one person can't or doesn't want to, doesn't mean it is a bad thing, it is just to their taste/requirements.
 
This reminds me much of the linux vs. windows debates.
You've got linux guys who preach endlessly about how terrible windows is, and how wonderful linux is.
Then, you take a windows-only guy, and he decides to try out this luinux stuff.  Only he gets stuck.
he runs into a problem getting his sound subsystem to work.  he posts a question in the linux "help" forums, and
is immediately ridiculed for not either a) not already knowing how to fix it, b) not writing his own drivers in c and recompiling the kernel to fit his particular hardware, or c) told to go read every linux book written since 1984 in an effort to understand the 'theory' behind the sound subsystem in linux.
So the guy lifts a particular finger to the forums and to linux, and reinstalls windows.
 
i find that many programmers seem to be very arrogant and stuck-up concerning what languages one writes in.
C guys look down on C++ guys (why not just write those routines yourself? har har)
Java guys - well, Java guys are too busy watching buffy the vampire slayer to worrry about taunting other coders.
C++ guys look down on Visual Basic guys
and Visual Basic guys look down on java guys.
 
Oh yeah, python coders throw everyone the finger, finish writing their code and watch Buffy over the java guys' shoulders so they have plausible deniability.
 
And everyone, EVERYONE spits on vbscript guys because we aren't *real* programmers, we're just jumped-up script-kiddies.
 
 

I agree with a lot of the points DiGiTAL.SkReAM has pointed out....plus the author could always write his own language if he feels so strongly against a framework.

I figured I'd take a shot at playing with C# recently....using Visual Studio Express 2008 and the use of the .NET framework made it extremely easy for someone like me with, no real C# experience, to write a functional windows gui application.  Much like when I started with VBScript I am sure it may not be the prettiest thing to look at (might not be following best practices, many places for improvement, and who knows what else), but they will come with experience if I stick with it.

There must be many good programmers out there that know how to fully utilize and take advantage of frameworks such as .NET, but even they may produce bad code if they work in an enviroment where timelines are far more important than the quality of the program being developed.

So, while on the subject....anyone know of a good C# web resource or book?

I really detest this elitism you find amongst programmers.  I've lost count of the amount of times during the development of ManagePC I was told "that would be easier/faster/prettier in C#". 

"I DON'T CARE!".  VB is what I know and I find it infinitely more readable than the squiggly bracket-laden C variants.  I don't think the .NET framework encourages bloat or poor coding.  Ignorance and laziness do that.  When I look back on early versions of ManagePC compared to the latest release I can really see why performance and stability were not so good.  There was inefficient code, poor error trapping, lots of repeated code instead of using proper OO methodology.

Basically, a well-written program or script will work better than a badly written one, no matter what the language.