Writing node.js applications in C#

http://www.erik-kallen.se/blog/writing-nodejs-applications-in-csharp

by erik-kallen • 14 years ago

31 33 14 years ago

impostervt• 14 years ago

When I read about Node.js, the first selling point people mention is how you can reuse code on the client and server sides. For me, the main selling point is that it's Javascript. When I see new variants of js, developed to "fix" js, it makes me want to cry.

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

I think there's a difference between languages designed to compile down to JS (e.g. CoffeeScript) and wanting to convert a completely different language (e.g. Ruby or C#) into JS.

JavaScript has a lot of good and bad parts, and given we don't really have an option of choosing to use something else in its place I strongly believe that (some) languages that compile to JS have their place. While I don't believe all of them are useful (i.e. dart, typescript) they're specifically targetted as an alternative to JavaScript.

If you're trying to convert a different programming language, that isn't based around the way JavaScript does things then I firmly believe you're doing something wrong. JavaScript isn't just remembering that the semi-colon is optional and that JSON is wonderful. While other languages support event driven behaviour, JavaScripts implementation is (probably) different meaning there's still a learning curve. The documentation for Node.js is, unsurprisingly in JS. The libraries are JS. The whole ecosystem is JS. At least with CoffeeScript quite a few libraries have their source as .coffee, and the style of programming is identical to the compiled JS.

Jare• 14 years ago

Currently, reusing code on client and server is far from the first selling point. Companies like Meteor and Groupon are pushing in that direction quite heavily, but for mere mortals it's still limited to reusing a few core libraries like underscore, async or templating.

Reusing experience and knowledge, and reducing the cost of context switching, those are very clear and positive advantages.

On the topic of sharing code, these should be interesting: the 'pipe dream' ( http://keithnorm.com/spainjs-pipedream/ ) and the 'holy grail' ( http://thatconf.chrisjpowers.com/ ).

rdrey• 14 years ago

Thanks for the "pipe dream" link, I found the conference talk on youtube and enjoyed it a lot. The reusable code 'function' of node is still too non-obvious to achieve without the right mix of tools and this talk gave a nice intro for a solution.

tomkludy4• 14 years ago

What exactly is the point here? If you want to write C#, just use ASP.NET and MVC 4. You will certainly save yourself a lot of headaches, and you can still do everything async, etc. From what I can tell, the purpose of Node.js is to reduce the number of technologies that a web dev has to use and understand. You already need to use JavaScript on the client side, so using the same thing on the server side allows code reuse, knowledge sharing, etc.

It seems like what the author really wants is ASP.NET on the server, and Script# on the client side. Then the whole stack is C#. Or perhaps he would find TypeScript an acceptable middle-ground on the client. But I don't understand why you would choose Node.js on the server if you hate JavaScript, does not compute.

erik-kallen• 14 years ago

Reason to use Node.js on the server without liking Javascript: I like the framework. Framework != language (or at least it should be).

davidlumley2• 14 years ago

Sidenote: Node.js isn't a framework, it's a platform.

tomkludy4• 14 years ago

I'm genuinely curious which feature(s) of node you like better than ASP.NET. I have used both and find them quite similar as far as "raw" capability. ASP.NET however has all of the things you were asking for: great Intellisense, great tooling (for instance integration with Entity Framework), great libraries available (such as SignalR), code in C# or any .NET language (including F#), rich async support...

I like node too, but to me, the reason to choose it is either if you want to remain platform-neutral, or if you really like Javascript.

mattmanser4• 14 years ago

MVC is actually pretty damn clunky. It has a lot of built-ins which are just frustrating (like IPrincipal, ugh). Also there are loads and loads of weird quirks that pop up as soon as you start trying to do anything like returning JSON.

MVC was a huge step forward from the old ASP.Net, but it's still making a lot of frankly odd decisions or suddenly bizarre behaviours in the background (e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1975983/how-can-i-disable...)

I think one of the reasons node.js is so great is that it just cuts out almost everything and gives you direct control over what is returned. MVC still mucks around with everything trying to be 'helpful' as it's really built on ASP.Net in the background.

To many of us, javascript is still one of the worst mainstream language around today.

Still, why not just make node.cs instead one wonders? Perhaps the existing ecosystem.

ConstantineXVI• 14 years ago

FWIW, I've found NancyFx[0] fairly non-clunky as far as .NET goes. It's more of an analogue for Sinatra than Node.js, though.

[0] https://github.com/NancyFx/Nancy

tomkludy4• 14 years ago

I personally find those "helpful" things to be truly, well, helpful. For example the input validation, anti-forgery token validation, simple cache control, etc.

Again, not saying you can't do these things in node. The two technologies can easily accomplish the same goal. But if your primary concern is avoiding JS, why would you choose a technology that is built entirely upon it?

Node.cs might make more sense, I agree. I have a feeling the existing ecosystem might bring its own problems with the author's approach, because your C# code may have trouble integrating with those existing libraries, if the underlying generated code does not behave as the Javascript library expects.

utnick• 14 years ago

can you elaborate on the quirks around returning JSON with asp.net MVC? its a pretty common usecase.

jimbobimbo• 14 years ago

What's wrong with IPrincipal, which btw is a .NET, not MVC thing?

cincinnatus• 14 years ago

There is already a node.js analogue that runs on .net and hosts .net https://github.com/jacksonh/manos

Hasn't been updated in a long time. Not sure why it isn't getting any love, maybe something better came along. Seems to me it should be more performant on equal hardware.

gizzlon• 14 years ago

I can't believe Javascrip is really that awful that anyone would rather go through all this trouble, rather than just write JS..

Maybe it has more to do with people being to reliant on IDE's, which he, kind of, admits to anyway..

I can't believe that any IDE is that great that anyone would rather go through all this trouble, rather than just use something else..

yawgmoth• 14 years ago

I think in this case, it isn't about being dependent on Visual Studio, but C#.

hkarthik• 14 years ago

The two go hand in hand. Aside from a very small cross section of Mono users, most C# users are very dependent on Visual Studio.

georgemcbay• 14 years ago

IMO JavaScript is that awful, but I still don't understand why you wouldn't just use Go or C# or whatever natively on the backend. There are lightweight frameworks similar in concept to node for virtually every language out there.

I understand why people write JavaScript translators for the browser -- there you're (unfortunately) stuck with JavaScript there is no other option. I also understand why people who do like JavaScript use node. Even though I'm not a fan of JavaScript, there is certainly some benefit to keeping a project all in one language. But if you're the type of person that wants to avoid JavaScript in the first place, why start off in a situation where you already have an overly complicated language-to-language transpiler situation on the backend?

louthy• 14 years ago

It strikes me that there's a much simpler solution, and that is to use TypeScript. It has all the VS intellisense that's required and none of the boilerplate in the OP's solution.

http://www.typescriptlang.org

cdl• 14 years ago

May want to take a look at ServiceStack, nice lightweight alternative to MVC with an extensive architecture providing for super easy and high performance ORM, JSON/JSV serialization/de-serialization, POCO DTO's with no-effort endpoints!

http://www.servicestack.net/

fpp• 14 years ago

One of the key benefits of node.js is that people who are great with JS can write server code and you have one language stack less to worry about. You can with that (watch for security issues) also share code & objects between the server and browser.

Can't see how this fits into that.

politician• 14 years ago

"JavaScript is the only language people feel like they don't need to learn to use." -- Crockford

kantl• 14 years ago

Not more than month ago when this project was announced people were praising it. (No wonder, it features a fairly complete subset of C# - it's free and open source, it works and it's great - mad props to the creator keep up the good work!) Now when the author presents a use case people are throwing rocks. (At least this is my impression by reading some of the comments). I don't know about you, but I feel bad about it. It's the same story everytime a topic of compiling to JS is brought up. The JS "crowd" steps in with their "wisdom" of why it's a bad idea to do "X" and all they do is criticize...

Writing node.js applications in C#

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