SQLite is pretty much the only remaining native dependency in my C# codebases, and as much as I love the engine, I wish that could go away.

Replacing System.Data.SQLite with Microsoft.Data.Sqlite already helped with Apple ARM builds (despite all the small differences that only showed up in actual use), but pretty much the only native debugging I do these days is related to the "batteries" -- the linked article outlines the general strategy pretty well.

On the one hand, I feel bad about turning into a "pure-Java only" kind of developer (I mean, limiting yourself to H2, the horror...), but on the other hand, I'm increasingly starting to see their point. Oh, well, if AI actually works, I'm sure Microsoft.Native.Data.Sqlite is just around the corner (and, later edit, to prevent confusion: the abuse of 'Native' here is mostly making fun of Microsoft naming conventions -- they'd call it 'Interop' if it were like truly native).

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andix 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I guess you would need to switch to a dotnet native database, like litedb. Even if you would use postgres, there would be native code left, decoupled from the dotnet application though.

It would be interesting though, if it's possible to run webassembly inside the CLR (dotnet runtime).

But I don't really get the issue with native code inside a dotnet application. In the end everything you do in dotnet ends up being executed as native code. Even a simple console.writeline() is implemented in native code.

	▲	ZeroConcerns 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've really tried to like LiteDB (mostly because it can use an IO.Stream as the database backing store, which enables lots of fun scenarios), but even light usage mostly resulted in data corruption and inconsistent result sets, something I've literally never seen with SQLite. Plus, I think the project is pretty much dead? And yes, of course everything ultimately runs as native code, but deployment is a major issue. As long as you only deploy IL (or, possibly at some point, WASM), you only need to worry about the relatively lightweight CLR (the dotnet executable and its direct dependencies) -- it does get a lot more complex once you go beyond that, unfortunately.

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pjmlp 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly because of the benefits of this, there is the meme CGO is not Go, as any package with native dependencies kills the possibility to cross-compile with the Go toolchain.

Same applies to the pain of using native dependencies in Perl, Python, Ruby,...

Many .NET developers are only now slowly the pain of having so many dependencies to C++ DLLs, COM and C++/CLI.

One of the reasons why we still do so many .NET Framework projects at my employer agency.

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andix 3 days ago | parent [-]

> One of the reasons why we still do so many .NET Framework projects at my employer agency.

What's the issue with porting them to .net (core)? Most of that stuff is still supported, if you only have native windows DLLs you would still be constrained to windows only, but still better than staying on ancient .net framework.

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stackskipton 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

If you are stuck on Windows and upgrade to Core requires more then 2 hours of dev time, it's likely not worth it. Core biggest feature is running on Linux. If you can't, who cares? Framework is not going anywhere. It will be supported till 2035 for now.

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jborean93 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Core biggest feature is running on Linux

There are so many features that .Net 5+ brings to the table. Even if features aren’t important the performance improvements you get with the newer versions should be enough to justify moving to it.

I agree the support side is annoying but honestly the support side is really just “security” fixes with security being a very hard thing to describe here and gives MS a lot of wiggle room to not actually support it.

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andix 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No, linux support is not the only new feature. Read the change logs, it's thousands of huge improvements everywhere.

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stackskipton 3 days ago | parent [-]

As someone who deals with this, Framework -> Core on Windows is small % performance improvement. Framework Windows -> Core on Linux is huge. Most of it coming from not Windows.

Yes, there is other nice language features but obviously 15 years of Framework code base has probably put up guard rails around those sharp edges.

My point still stands, I can't imagine most companies green lighting .Net Framework -> Core conversion if they can't switch to Linux. If you are stuck on Windows, you have probably developed all the tooling to deal with Windows so it's all sunk costs.

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bob1029 3 days ago | parent [-]

Linux was rarely part of the conversation when I was doing these conversions.

Getting access to things like Kestrel (breaking out of IIS jail) is way more critical. Also, self contained deployments mean you can stop shipping magical blessed machine images around. It's not even about the performance. It's about having technology that doesn't actively hate you.

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pjmlp 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

We solved that headache with Windows containers, but yeah that is literally shipping a blessed machine in disguise.

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000ooo000 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Adding to this, IME, doco for .NET Framework is increasingly hard to find because the .NET Core stuff bubbles up in its place - possibly also because Google is absolute trash these days. Not a big deal if you have some hardcore .NET lifers who know Framework inside out.. but I'd say those are heavily outnumbered, and eventually going to move on to goose farming anyway.

	▲	pjmlp 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I can tell you that in regards to that, being around .NET since day zero is really advantageous for actually being able to find what I wanted. Also they aren't the only ones, same applies on the Apple ecosystem, only those around Mac OS and OS X early days actually manage to find sensible documentation.

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pjmlp 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Someone has to pay for the work.

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mcraiha 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Would the WebAssembly version of SQLite be OK for you?

	▲	ZeroConcerns 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I haven't really kept up with the state of WebAssembly in .NET (mostly because I'm entirely uninterested in Blazor), but I don't think we're at a point yet where we can simply reference a .wasm file and invoke code in it regardless of the underlying platform, right? Until that is the case: no, not really.