Ask HN: Does Blazor pass as a “boring technology”?

4 points by tmamic 5 years ago | 6 comments

Hi all. I know, Blazor is a new technology so that might already provide an answer. But I would like to hear some first-hand experiences.

New devs in my startup want to use it. My app, built by another dev uses razor pages, typescript, bootstrap and jQuery.

There is an overhaul in frontend we need to do, and I would like to make a right decision.

My old dev said to me "good luck finding developers for boring technology" and I did find new devs because I said they could do it in Blazor.

jf22 5 years ago |

I'm a engineering manager in charge of hiring who writes production Blazor on the side.

I'm assuming you are asking this question because high-fidelity UI is not required for whatever you are building. If you need a fancy UI, then there is no question being in the JavaScript ecosystem is important.

Blazor is great that provides language and framework unity. You don't have to hire, train, and retain separate developers in the UI framework/JavaScript/Typescript world. The front-end worlds moves at such a rapid pace, not having to be in that world is valuable.

Backend inclined-C# developers have less interest in keeping up with the front-end JavaScript world. Boring technology in a familiar language is great for them.

Somehow people started using React before there were react devs so I don't understand the hiring issues. If you need to hire 100 developers then sure the framework matters, but if you hire few people a year then getting talented C# developers who would like to learn the newest tech from Microsoft should be easy.

I actually don't think Blazor is ready for a major project yet because the developer experience isn't great yet. The WebAssembly debugger is shoddy and the lack of hot reloading in both server and wa is demoralizing.

tmamic 5 years ago | |

I got to learn more about limits of UI on Blazor. I am more concerned of introducing a wrong technology in my app.

gitgud 5 years ago |

Blazor is far from boring, dotnet compiling to Web assembly is pretty cutting edge. But that's the problem, it's too new. So just like boring old technology, your going to have trouble finding developers with experience in it...

hellwd 5 years ago |

I would suggest you not to choose Blazor. It's not that Blazor is bad or that I have something against, but you don't want to limit yourself when it comes to finding a Blazor developer. You will hardly find a frontend developer who is focusing on Blazor. Today are React, Angular, Vue or similar frameworks the best way to go, especially for a startup where you need flexibility. Keep using .NET for a backend, provide a nice API and implement frontend using already mentioned frameworks.

tmamic 5 years ago | |

Thanks for advice!

Finding developers with Blazor focus/experience, seems to have two sides. One is .net developers really want to work on Blazor, and other is that not many have experience. By "choose boring technology" standards, these are both red flags.

However, I wonder if it is more work to implement Vue than Blazor considering my existing stack and that much of app is already developed. Razor pages use the same syntax as Blazor.

decafninja 5 years ago |

Depends.

I would think you can find plenty of devs willing to learn and use Blazor. But they will probably be from the old school, non tech companies that are used to working with things like ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF, etc.

So hence, in a way, it probably is considered "boring technology" in the same way C# or .NET. in general is considerd "boring technology.

Not that there's anything wrong with C# or .NET from a technical perspective. But .NET in general tends to be much more widely used in "boring non technology companies", and not so much outside that sphere. At least here in the US anyways - not sure where you are located.

I've worked with C# and .NET longer than any other tech stack in my career, but I specifically removed all mention of .NET in my resume because I'm actively trying to avoid such companies.