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C# vs Spring-Boot: What are the differences?
Introduction:
In this article, we will explore the key differences between C# and Spring Boot.
Programming Language vs. Framework: The primary difference between C# and Spring Boot lies in their nature. C# is a programming language developed by Microsoft, while Spring Boot is a framework built using Java. C# is designed to be a general-purpose object-oriented language, whereas Spring Boot is specifically focused on providing rapid development, configuration, and deployment capabilities for Java-based applications.
Platform Dependency: C# is primarily associated with the Microsoft .NET platform and is tightly integrated with Windows applications and services. On the other hand, Spring Boot is platform-independent and can be deployed on any platform that supports the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), including Windows, macOS, and various Linux distributions.
Language Paradigm: C# follows a statically typed, object-oriented programming paradigm. It includes advanced features such as generics, LINQ (Language-Integrated Query), and support for asynchronous programming with async/await. Spring Boot, being a framework, is not tied to a specific programming paradigm. However, it is commonly used in the context of Java, which is also an object-oriented language but provides additional support for functional programming with Java 8 and later versions.
Ease of Development: C# is often considered more beginner-friendly and easier to learn compared to Java, which is the language used with Spring Boot. It has a more concise syntax and provides a rich set of development tools and integrated development environments (IDEs) like Visual Studio. Spring Boot, while powerful and widely adopted in the Java community, may require a steeper learning curve for beginners due to the complexity of Java as a language.
Ecosystem and Community: Both C# and Spring Boot have a large and active developer community, but they differ in terms of ecosystem and third-party libraries. C# benefits from the Microsoft ecosystem, including various tools, libraries, and frameworks built specifically for the .NET platform. Spring Boot, being a part of the larger Spring Framework ecosystem, provides a wide range of modules and integrations for building enterprise-grade Java applications.
Deployment and Scalability: C# applications are typically hosted on Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Services) web server and can be deployed as standalone executables or within the .NET runtime environment. Spring Boot, being deployed on Java application servers like Apache Tomcat or Jetty, offers more flexibility in terms of deployment options and can be easily scaled horizontally by adding more instances of the application server.
In summary, C# is a programming language primarily associated with the .NET platform, while Spring Boot is a Java-based framework. C# is known for its platform dependency on Windows and its ease of development, while Spring Boot offers platform independence, a flexible ecosystem, and extensive scaling options.
I need some advice to choose a language for back-end development. Right now, my REST APIs were created by using Flask/Django, and I'd like to create a more reliable and more efficient API with static typing. On the one hand, Go is young, very light, and syntax like Python's, but C# has a large number of libs and more built-in methods. Which is the best solution today?
It depends.
From times to times I asked or was asked that same question. Technology aside, it's important to consider the skills and expertise that the dev team has. Whether you use language A,B or C or framework X,Y and Z, if your team has a strong background and experience with something make it count too.
I would recommend Go simply because as you mentioned, it's super light. No need to bring in the whole .NET suite to get a simple REST API up and running. Even if your API is a bit complex, Go should be able to handle it.
I started out with C# and .NET and I loved it. In my opinion, it was the perfect way to start learning the fundamentals of software development however I always felt like I was at a disadvantage when I was doing .NET development. Granted, .NET Core is now open-source and cross-platform, but I moved to Node.js simply because it is incredibly popular. I never thought I'd learn to love JavaScript it the way I did with C#, but I learned to love it pretty quickly, especially once I started using TypeScript. You get all of the benefits of C# and JavaScript all in one. If you've built a REST API with Python/Flask/Django, you'll be able to learn Node.js/Express/TypeScript well enough to migrate your API very fast and it's incredibly easy to host for free on any number of services.
I'm new to Go, I've got very little experience but the 'feel' of Go, isn't like Python in my opinion. Go has a pretty steep learning curve, much steeper than C# in my opinion. So if you are willing to consider Node/Express/TypeScript, I think you may really like it. If you're picking between Go and C#, I'd go for C# as of today, but once I am more comfortable with Go (which I anticipate being a slow process) I may change my mind.
At this moment in time, in late 2020- Node/Express/TypeScript feels like the obvious choice to me as a former C# developer.
The best language for you is the one that you know best!
Its a bit of a guess, but from your question and the difficulties you have with Python it seems to me the problem you describe is the manifestation of a bad design/architecture/code quality. These are not the problems of a language itself!
The experience you gained over the past years with your current programming language will outmatch any benefits of another language that you start from zero.
Because in the end of the day languages aren't all that different when it comes to fullfil the same task, it's more the tools, framework and ecosystem for a particular problem that make a difference.
I worked with Java, C#, Go and recently in Phyton, and I would choose Phyton over Go for WebApps, even I like compiled languages more. Go is a very simple language, I would even say maybe too simple. I can't stand all those go boilerplate if err checks, the broken filesystem, the date/time mess and many more things that aren't actually relevant for business application at all. Go has its advantages but not for WebApps.
Keep the lang and improve your skills and architecture you will benifit more from it than from a new language.
I recommend Go for backend. It's younger than C# doesn't mean it's not mature. It's already mature enough to be run on production. You can see there are already many companies in the world adopting Go as their backend business logic or tooling. I can name a few like Github, Shopify, uber, twitch, and many more. It's easier learning curve, low entry barrier, better performance than C#, better memory consumption than C#, since there's no VM/runtime needed. It's suitable for large scale system and large codebase for readibility and long maintainability. It's simpler than C# since no class, inheritance(this can cause hard to maintain software), exception, etc. You can still implement OO way in Go without those feature. Simple file structure, only main files and package files. It compiles to single binary and easy to deploy and work around it, unlike C# who compiled to IL and you need to wrap all those IL files to be run inside separated web server(even .Net/.Net Core platform provide built-in web server). For libs, don't worry, there are many open source libs you will found on Github and already adopted by many companies. Go is employed in personal, startup, even corporate level.
I suggest Go because it has a simple and clean ecosystem. The language is simple. You don’t need complex configs or installs either. You’ll be up and running very quickly. It doesn’t have as much as .NET but its standard library is more than sufficient for RESTful APIs. Concurrency is much, much easier too.
C# I’d definitely recommend later on. The .NET framework, especially core, is extremely powerful and there’s little you can’t build with it. Go won’t take you long to be productive with.
The database your are going to connect and the needed libraries could decide. Because both are awesome languages.
If you want to stick with python you may want to consider Fastapi. It uses Pydantic to give you strongly typed models and validation. It generates openapi docs for you out of the box. They have good documentation as well and they claim it is really fast.
I have some systems on production using both languages. I tend to use golang if the API is small or medium size, but if I am going to build a large system definitively I use c#(asp netcore).
I would recommend C#, particularly Simplify.Web web-framework. C# is easy to start with (especially .NET Core). Simplify.Web is also easy to start with, no extra setup required for simple API, but on the other hand you have power of C# and full control over your API with ability to extend.
Hi
I’ve been using Django for the last year on and off to do my backend API. I’m getting a bit frustrated with the Django REST framework with the setup of the serializers and Django for the lack of web sockets. I’m considering either Spring or .NET Core. I’m familiar with Kotlin and C# but I’ve not built any substantial projects with them. I like OOP, building a desktop app, web API, and also the potential to get a job in the future or building a tool at work to manage my documents, dashboard and processes point cloud data.
I’m familiar with c/cpp, TypeScript.
I would love your insights on where I should go.
Spring Boot is the lightweight of the Spring framework. I used the Spring framework before, and I fall in love with the Spring Boot. I also use .NET core, but still, I like Spring boot the best. If you have time then you should experience both. You are more than halfway in gaining experience. My suggestion is always to try to learn many things as you can.
I see what you're going through and I extend my hands to you. I felt the same frustration after almost 1.5 years of working with Django and Node.js in the parallel. And since the last one year, I've transitioned into Spring Boot. I think its fair to say, that its quite different when you're going from Django background as a framework, but otherwise. I think it's one of the robust ones out there. Scalability is seamless and you get most of the things out of the box or easily supported by dev dependencies. You should definitely check it out! :)
Hello, I am a fullstack web developer. I have been working for a company with Java/ Spring Boot and client-side JavaScript(mainly jQuery, some AngularJS) for the past 4 years. As I wish to now work as a freelancer, I am faced with a dilemma: which stack to choose given my current knowledge and the state of the market?
I've heard PHP is very popular in the freelance world. I don't know PHP. However, I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to learn since it has many similarities with Java (OOP). It seems to me that Laravel has similarities with Spring Boot (it's MVC and OOP). Also, people say Laravel works well with Vue.js, which is my favorite JS framework.
On the other hand, I already know the Javascript language, and I like Vue.js, so I figure I could go the fullstack Javascript route with ExpressJS. However, I am not sure if these techs are ripe for freelancing (with regards to RAD, stability, reliability, security, costs, etc.) Is it true that Express is almost always used with MongoDB? Because my experience is mostly with SQL databases.
The projects I would like to work on are custom web applications/websites for small businesses. I have developed custom ERPs before and found that Java was a good fit, except for it taking a long time to develop. I cannot make a choice, and I am constantly switching between trying PHP and Node.js/Express. Any real-world advice would be welcome! I would love to find a stack that I enjoy while doing meaningful freelance coding.
Hi Eva, As you have solid experience with Spring already, you should jump into freelancing with that. It would be quite stressful to start freelancing with a tech stack you don't know well. Then in the background you can keep learning/practicing an alternative and switch over when you are confident enough (eg. 0.5-1 year later). I think you should learn Laravel as you already like it and find it easier. Express has better performance but that is not required for most of the small freelancer projects.
I think Patrik and Alex are right: if you're comfortable with Spring Boot already, you'll be more productive right from the start.
If you wish to learn something else besides, both Laravel and Express are good choices. They aren't in the same category of frameworks: Laravel is an all-in-one solution, while Express is more like "build your own stack from different parts". Which implies that you can use whatever you want as a database engine: MySQL or PostgreSQL are perfectly valid choices (in my school, we teach Express with MySQL, because SQL is still a big thing here in France, and a sought-after skill). You can use Sequelize or TypeORM which support all major SQL DBMS.
Express is widely used, but if you're seeking the JavaScript equivalent of Spring Boot or Laravel, you probably want to look at NestJS. The only potential downside is that it's still young, maintained by a small commmunity, compared to those behind Spring Boot and Laravel.
Bottom line: using a stack tech, that you enjoy and are comfortable with, matters. Spring Boot + Vue.js seem perfectly fine to me. But do forget jQuery if you're using Vue.js, React or Angular, because it will definitely bring more harm than good!
Looking at current technological trends and rise of JavaScript, you cannot go wrong with JavaScript. - There's an abundance of libraries to get most things done - You can use JavaScript for both the frontend and the backend - this allows you potentially share your logic/models/code across both stacks - A dynamic/interpreted language such as JavaScript is great for serverless (there's somewhat of a trend towards serverless aswell - especially in modern projects) - If you like/need static typing, you can always migrate seemlessly to Typescript - VueJS is a lightweight framework (compared to Angular), it has more GitHub stars and most would argue it's easier to work with (beginner friendly). Additionally most modern webapps do not use JQuery anymore (even though a lot of legacy projects continue to do so). You don't need JQuery if you use Vue/Angular/React
Additionally it doesn't seem like performance is a hugely important metric in your scenario, so JavaScript would suffice.
Note: These are all my opinions and what I've seen in the current market when recently searching for jobs.
Hi as someone who employs and select developers i agree with a lot almost sayed but think of what are your strengths and where you are or better where your customers are. If you search for big enterprise projects spring boot is ok sql is must and html css as well. if you want to go more to internet related companies (like airbnb, what sup, facebook ) or similar (and not asia) then react is a must node js as well. The libraries tools etc which are used you need to adopt fast. If asia then VUE is a must. but if you like small projects with individuals or like wordpress or similar then you can learn php but i think in 2020 it is wasted time. Same for python in that area. and i also see that we often have problem that developer at least must understand docker docker compose better as it works with kubernetes ,.. just my 5 cents
I would definitely recommend you to go with Spring Boot + AngularJS + jQuery. Reasons: 1- You have an experience of 4 years with the above-mentioned stack. 2- As you mentioned that you wish to work as a freelancer, your stack is the perfect one for finding good bids with a little less effort than that of PHP + Laravel + Vue.js.
As a developer myself, I would recommend you not to restrict yourself to JAVA, PHP or any other language. New Tools/languages keep coming every day. If you do plan to move to freelancing. PHP has a lot of options in the freelance space and a lot of competition too.
Learning PHP is as simple as learning any other language. It depends merely on your interest.
Personally if you can code, you should not restrict yourself. I have had to code in many languages, PHP, Perl, shell script, Python, Java, Javascript, Ruby etc... I would keep your developing skills and logic, algorithms etc.. and increase your knowledge and experience in the different languages.
I agree with you JAVA is a lot more time consuming. But it also has its enterprise level scope.
At the same time learning a new language should not be a barrier for you to stop exploring what's out there and keeping your skills up to date. Learning new technologies should be your primary focus and getting project out of your stack helps you build a good reputation.
There are many options for you to pursue. Having an open mindset will help you move forward. If you look to learn now, you are setting yourself up for a brighter future.
in order to stay employable, I'd work with something you can deliver with. if I'd be your client and you'd have to get comfortable with a new stack, I would 100% not pay you for this startup time. learn new stuff in your free-time. or set aside time for learning.
that said, if you want to reorientate, php (even though i personally hate it) is extremely wide spread. but so are java and nodejs. so I'm not a fan of that argument... i recommend building something in each language, and see what you enjoy more. for me it was nodejs, because I already enjoy frontend JavaScript, and appreciate the ecosystem and community.
regarding expressjs and mongodb: yes, it is a goto solution for a lot of tutorials, because its as simple as it gets. especially wben using something like monk. BUT if you want to use mysql, posgres or similar, check out TypeORM, Prism or another ORM-like solution. you can use any db with express, and there's plenty of abstraction layers, which make your life easier. but i noticed that expressjs does a lot less "holding hands" compared to .net core (c#), or laravel (php). can be a pro or a con.
I like fullstack freelancers who stacks are clean as one of below
PHP (laravel ) + Jquery + Bootstrap
Python(Django) + Angular JS or VueJS
NODEJS + REACTJS
Hey There, I would recommend going fullstack javascript since you already have experience with javascript on the front end it would be very easy to pickup node and express js. You can use sql with node and express if you please, but mongo is pretty easy to get going with.
Please, try to work with your comfortable stack, here is some recommendation
I am currently planning to build a project from scratch. I will be using Angular as front-end framework, but for the back-end I am not sure which framework to use between Spring Boot and NestJS. I have worked with Spring Boot before, but my new project contains a lot of I/O operations, in fact it will show a daily report. I thought about the new Spring Web Reactive Framework but given the idea that Node.js is the most popular on handling non blocking I/O I am planning to start learning NestJS since it is based on Angular philosophy and TypeScript which I am familiar with. Looking forward to hear from you dear Community.
NestJS is an excellent framework (they both are). I would say the fact that you're working with Angular makes NestJS a great match, unless you're splitting front and back end between developers. But even in that case I would still go with NestJS for a new project.
Regarding the single threading point, take a look at PM2 which helps to run Node in multiple processes (we use it with NestJS) https://pm2.keymetrics.io/docs/usage/cluster-mode/
Also regarding web server performance in general this is an interesting post showing how Node with outperform Java in a web situation (be careful though, best to check a few posts to make sure these aren't totally biased benchmarks!): https://www.tandemseven.com/blog/performance-java-vs-node/
Node.js has only 1 real thread per process; Java JIT will mostly run faster than JS one; So if it happens to be not only I/O... Why do you need most popular, not simply popular? Does Node.js have tech advantages?
For context, I currently use JavaScript (React) and Python (Flask) in my daily routine.
I need your help in choosing either Spring Boot or ASP.NET Core. Both frameworks seem to have mature ecosystems. I would like to hear your thoughts on the following points:
- Difficulty level of both frameworks
- Level of community support
- Career prospects i.e do Spring based jobs pay more or vice versa
- which one will be helpful if I decide to transition towards a more specialized field like data engineering.
I am asking this because it is something that I am also exploring in parallel. I know that Python and #SQL play a huge role in big data.
I'll preface this by saying I haven't ever done work on the Microsoft stack, so take this with a grain of salt.
Community support: Java tends to have a more active community (and much more diverse universe of new open source projects) than .Net (related to below).
Difficulty level: I'd say the Java/Spring stack is more difficult because Java developers tend to use more community projects and have to know which ones to choose in which circumstances (e.g. what logging framework to use? What database connection pooling library to use? What testing framework to use). That being said, most decisions you have to make have choices that are vastly more popular than others. My impression is that .NET guys use stuff from the standard library almost exclusively. If it's not provided there, it's a problem they never thought to solve or maybe write their own (usually the former).
Career prospects: I'll get hate for this probably, but Java/Spring has more jobs than .Net. .NET Core even more so because it's new. Most .NET jobs out there are going to be not Core, and not on anything other than Windows. LinkedIn search for jobs in United States shows 97,103 for Java and 36,448 for C#. That's not to say some individual city might not have more .NET than Java, but by and large Java is bigger. Also, .NET is not dying at the same pace as say Ruby on Rails (sorry Rails fans). I'd say it's ticking very slowly lower, maybe even holding steady. I wouldn't say you're screwed career-wise if you choose .NET. C# is also pretty similar to Java from what I've seen, and I know professionals that have transitioned to Java (though interestingly, I don't know any that did the reverse). Several companies have basically no .NET footprint, for example, Amazon, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter all have Java, but basically no C#.
Specialized fields: Neither Spring or .Net are going to be a thing in a field like data science. That's exclusively Python (some R) for the most part. The only exception being that there is some Java in Hadoop, and Scala in Spark (which runs on the JVM). But I think those are generally more for data products being created, and not data science work. I'm also under the impression this is increasingly less the case than historically. Some other specialties might make Java useful, for example Android development.
In short, Java is the COBOL of the modern enterprise (which is both a good and bad thing). I recommend it to anyone over .NET, but not for technical reasons. It's for reasons related to the questions you asked. There are actually reasons I think CLR and C# are actually better from a technical perspective than Java (unsurprisingly, since they had the benefit of hindsight). But that's not what you were asking about...
Spring boot helps you creating microservices in hours, not days and there is a very active community around it with amazing integrations. Check one of the tutorials maybe. At least here in Germany, the job market will be better for Spring Boot as well, there are a lot more companies using Java then C#.
ASP.NET Core is pretty new while spring boot is very old but with a different name. Spring boot is just a pack of spring packages which make your life easier. I also believe that java community is way stronger than c# community... You can do your job in both frameworks and it's up to you what you choose after-all you're going to work on the project/lead it ... but whatever you choose.. after a few days of investment stick with your decision because in both frameworks you'll encounter challenges :)
I’ll echo what others have said here with a few twists.
I have experience with both platforms including Micronaut, a relatively new kid on the block. It all depends on your near term goal. If it is to make money, sure Java jobs pay more generally because there is more hassles when dealing with the entire ecosystem. Like someone said earlier, you have to make a decision at almost every stage of the development cycle from the IDE, dependency resolution framework, logging, serialization, microservice framework etc. There is just too much choice which some may argue is an advantage while others may argue is a distraction and productivity killer. At the end of the day you can build solid systems with both frameworks.
Coming to ASP Core, yes I also agree that options are more streamlined. You’ll be using Visual Studio or Visual Studio code. For dependency management, you’ll be using Nuget. But I disagree with one of the comments above about the lack of choice. In some aspects .NET actually has more choice believe it or not for example choice of ORM. There is entity framework, nhibernate, dapper etc. For J2ee, hibernate reigns supreme although you have JPA. For dependency injection you have many IoC containers like unity, castle Windsor in .NET while you have Guice and maybe a Spring based implementation.
Also C# is technically a better language that Java. That’s not questionable as has also been stated above. Many things are done right obviously by avoiding some of the mistakes made in the underlying architecture surrounding the Java programming language. That’s why Microsoft created c# to begin with. The language is a lot cleaner and allows you to focus on learning core principles and nail down fundamental OO with emphasis on good design. I find too many distractions in the Java ecosystem which takes me away from understanding the core problem I am trying to solve.
So as you can this is not an easy decision and as someone has stated there’s work to do regardless of what technology choice you make.
If your sole purpose is to make a higher base salary, sure pick Spring Boot. If you want to quickly deliver something and iterate, pick ASP Core. I personally use c# for all private projects and proving concepts even though my employer is a Java shop. It allows me to stay focused on solving the problem and not constantly wrestle with issues such as Gradle dependency resolution glitches in IntelliJ.
Given that you can transfer skills from .NET to J2ee I recommend guys to pick up ASP get a couple of services to get a feel web development as you can still get jobs in Java even with that experience. Companies don’t care these days. In fact a lot of companies are going to Go so there’s that too.
Depends on your immediate term goal.
Hi, I am looking to select tech stack for front end and back end development. Considering Spring Boot vs Node.js for developing microservices. Front end tech stack is selected as React framework. Both of them are equally good for me, long term perspective most of services will be more based on I/O vs heavy computing. Leaning toward node.js, but will require team to learn this tech stack, so little hesitant.
It's probably worth investing some time for your team to learn Node.js. There's very little overhead, especially with a framework like ExpressJS, so if your team is familiar with JavaScript it should be a quick process.
It handles I/O really well out of the box, and has a strong community with great open source libraries. Since you're using React on the front end, there's also some benefit to being able to use JavaScript throughout your stack.
The problem I have is: build a scalable backend API decoupled as much as possible from the frontend. And more in general, to build a Web application using some kind of frontend. I would like to compare mainly Liferay with Spring Boot
The most important factors for me are: scalable backend, API documentation, TDD, integration with frontend application for modern reactive interaction
It's a general development question, be more specific, because /dev/std... is a generic approach, not a targeted development. You want to develop PHP or Java? Both are good in their terms, but it's your decision. For PHP Laravel is a robust and exhaustive console enabled framework, featuring rich integrations with virtualization & REST. On the other hand, Spring will bring you learning curve if you are switching from PHP and so on. Try to match your needs with project requirements, it will be easier.
Laravel is lighter weight. Spring Boot quickly becomes a handful, as you'll be downloading hundreds of megabytes in dependencies for a few functions and a dynamic dependency there. There are multiple problems that are solved by "download and put it on your classpath by whatever means. Spring framework will automatically detect it and resolve the issue". It's magical when things work, but my teams have constantly found the limits of the framework's utility and starting points of their burden.
While my expertise with Laravel is more limited, I haven't seen this kind of mess in that community and God bless 'em for it.
Laravel all the way. i like the documentation, simplicity, and scalability
Starting a new company in 2020, with a whole new stack, is a really interesting opportunity for me to look back over the last 20 years of my career with web software and make the right decision for my company.
And, I went with the most radical decision– which is to ignore "sexy" / "hype" technologies almost entirely, and go back to a stack that I first used over 15 years ago.
For my purposes, we are building a video streaming platform, where I wanted rapid customer-facing feature development, high testability, simple scaling, and ease of hiring great, experienced talent. To be clear, our web platform is NOT responsible for handling the actual bits and bytes of the video itself, that's an entirely different stack. It simply needs to manage the business rules and the customers experience of the video content.
I reviewed a lot of different technologies, but none of them seemed to fit the bill as well as Rails did! The hype train had long left the station with Rails, and the community is a little more sparse than it was previously. And, to be honest, Ruby was the language that was easiest for developers, but I find that most languages out there have adopted many of it's innovations for ease of use – or at least corrected their own.
Even with all of that, Rails still seems like the best framework for developing web applications that are no more complex than they need to be. And that's key to me, because it's very easy to go use React and Redux and GraphQL and a whole host of AWS Lamba's to power my blog... but you simply don't actually NEED that.
There are two choices I made in our stack that were new for me personally, and very different than what I would have chosen even 5 years ago.
1) Postgres - I decided to switch from MySql to Postgres for this project. I wanted to use UUID's instead of numeric primary keys, and knew I'd have a couple places where better JSON/object support would be key. Mysql remains far more popular, but almost every developer I respect has switched and preferred Postgres with a strong passion. It's not "sexy" but it's considered "better".
2) Stimulus.js - This was definitely the biggest and wildest choice to make. Stimulus is a Javascript framework by my old friend Sam Stephenson (Prototype.js, rbenv, turbolinks) and DHH, and it is a sort of radical declaration that your Javascript in the browser can be both powerful and modern AND simple. It leans heavily on the belief that HTML-is-good and that data-* attributes are good. It focuses on the actions and interactions and not on the rendering aspects. It took me a while to wrap my head around, and I still have to remind myself, that server-side-HTML is how you solve many problems with this stack, and avoid trying to re-render things just in the browser. So far, I'm happy with this choice, but it is definitely a radical departure from the current trends.
In 2015 as Xelex Digital was paving a new technology path, moving from ASP.NET web services and web applications, we knew that we wanted to move to a more modular decoupled base of applications centered around REST APIs.
To that end we spent several months studying API design patterns and decided to use our own adaptation of CRUD, specifically a SCRUD pattern that elevates query params to a more central role via the Search action.
Once we nailed down the API design pattern it was time to decide what language(s) our new APIs would be built upon. Our team has always been driven by the right tool for the job rather than what we know best. That said, in balancing practicality we chose to focus on 3 options that our team had deep experience with and knew the pros and cons of.
For us it came down to C#, JavaScript, and Ruby. At the time we owned our infrastructure, racks in cages, that were all loaded with Windows. We were also at a point that we were using that infrastructure to it's fullest and could not afford additional servers running Linux. That's a long way of saying we decided against Ruby as it doesn't play nice on Windows.
That left us with two options. We went a very unconventional route for deciding between the two. We built MVP APIs on both. The interfaces were identical and interchangeable. What we found was easily quantifiable differences.
We were able to iterate on our Node based APIs much more rapidly than we were our C# APIs. For us this was owed to the community coupled with the extremely dynamic nature of JS. There were tradeoffs we considered, latency was (acceptably) higher on requests to our Node APIs. No strong types to protect us from ourselves, but we've rarely found that to be an issue.
As such we decided to commit resources to our Node APIs and push it out as the core brain of our new system. We haven't looked back since. It has consistently met our needs, scaling with us, getting better with time as continually pour into and expand our capabilities.
C# and .Net were obvious choices for us at LiveTiles given our investment in the Microsoft ecosystem. It enabled us to harness of the .Net framework to build ASP.Net MVC, WebAPI, and Serverless applications very easily. Coupled with the high productivity of Visual Studio, it's the native tongue of Microsoft technology.
Pros of C#
- Cool syntax351
- Great lambda support293
- Great generics support265
- Language integrated query (linq)211
- Extension methods180
- Automatic garbage collection94
- Properties with get/set methods89
- Backed by microsoft84
- Automatic memory management71
- Amaizing Crossplatform Support61
- High performance46
- LINQ43
- Beautiful38
- Great ecosystem of community packages with Nuget35
- Vibrant developer community27
- Great readability24
- Dead-simple asynchronous programming with async/await21
- Visual Studio - Great IDE19
- Open source17
- Productive16
- Strongly typed by default, dynamic typing when needed15
- Object oriented programming paradigm15
- Easy separation of config/application code12
- Great community11
- OOPS simplified with great syntax10
- Operator overloading9
- Cool9
- Good language to teach OO concepts8
- High-performance8
- Events management using delegates8
- Unity7
- Linq expressions7
- Conditional compilation6
- Coherent language backed by an extensive CLR6
- Top level code5
- Organized and clean5
- Comprehensive platform libraries5
- Concise syntax, productivity designed4
- Lovely3
- Statically typed2
- Far more sleek and sphisticated than other languages1
- Simple and Readable1
- Sophisticated overall1
- Interfaces1
- Interfaces0
Pros of Spring Boot
- Powerful and handy149
- Easy setup134
- Java128
- Spring90
- Fast85
- Extensible46
- Lots of "off the shelf" functionalities37
- Cloud Solid32
- Caches well26
- Productive24
- Many receipes around for obscure features24
- Modular23
- Integrations with most other Java frameworks23
- Spring ecosystem is great22
- Auto-configuration21
- Fast Performance With Microservices21
- Community18
- Easy setup, Community Support, Solid for ERP apps17
- One-stop shop15
- Easy to parallelize14
- Cross-platform14
- Easy setup, good for build erp systems, well documented13
- Powerful 3rd party libraries and frameworks13
- Easy setup, Git Integration12
- It's so easier to start a project on spring5
- Kotlin4
- Microservice and Reactive Programming1
- The ability to integrate with the open source ecosystem1
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Cons of C#
- Poor x-platform GUI support15
- Closed source8
- Fast and secure7
- Requires DllImportAttribute for getting stuff from unma7
Cons of Spring Boot
- Heavy weight23
- Annotation ceremony18
- Java13
- Many config files needed11
- Reactive5
- Excellent tools for cloud hosting, since 5.x4
- Java 😒😒1