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by mattferderer
1423 days ago
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> Which namespace do I open to import the right extension method to register swagger generation If you use the templates provided by .NET Command Line Interface or Visual Studio, you'll get this all baked in & setup. VS also added a very nice feature where it suggests & imports popular packages if you type a method on a type that's well known. If you already have it added to your project but need a using statement in this file, it'll pick that up fast as well. They've also improved their docs quite a bit from years ago with lots of good examples for common things. |
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- Templates are no substitute for intuitive and minimal code for a number of reasons. (e.g. how to extend, how to customize, confidence that it isn't brittle if I change one thing, etc etc). If a template doesn't have the exact variation you want (e.g. a faster logging library) the learning curve is very high for a newcomer .NET dev. NOTE: I think this applies to some other OO languages too.
- Suggesting popular packages and namespaces is a great tooling improvement. But it could also imply a closed wall garden. The fact that other non C#/Java like languages don't have this problem even with something as minimal as VS Code as your IDE shows that the tooling is trying to cover over a language and/or library problem. With the Java/C#/other old OO lang workflow you need the knowledge you need to use the library itself (convention based, which class, which extension method, which namespace for that object to configure this feature, startup class conventions, etc). It isn't discoverable even with the packages imported. Remember just getting Serilog working in new ASP.Core and it taking a day or so with all the packages, config, etc etc if you don't already know what you are doing.
I like the improved docs. But fundamentally simplification/minimization is better. I think the dev workflow that means I don't need these tooling improvements is still a better experience. I like .NET, but I do understand when using other languages they seem to not have these issues despite not having the uber tooling that C# has. They don't have package suggestions, they barely even have auto complete yet the library design feels a lot more intuitive.
I can look up say a Fastify, Golang, even some F# examples with something like Giraffe and get a web app quickly with little code and no convention magic with everything being explicit yet concise. No fancy attributes I need to remember, no conventions in my startup classes I need to understand if any customisation, even dep injection is something to learn from people coming from some other platforms rather than just standard library calls composed together.
I actually like the .NET platform, don't get me wrong, I do think it is one of the best web platforms right now. Its more intuitive than Spring/Java as a comparison but that isn't saying much IMO. For newcomers I think the user experience to newcomers who are used to a lot less ceremony could be improved further. My first suggestion would be less "developer headspace required" to get started. On a personal note I think natural F# code tends to favor this from the teams I've been in but can't put my exact finger on a reason as to why - it feels more like coding Go/JS to me at least than C#.