.NET Framework ??

Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:02 pm   

"The Real Andy" <therealandy_at_nospam.com> wrote in message
news:041dt21hhl09eio48gptcb44g0sqmqd9b6_at_4ax.com...
..

Shows how much I know then... Time to download more stuff?

DNA

Sat Feb 17, 2007 6:31 pm   

The Real Andy wrote:

I'd also recommend not uninstalling it, unless you're really sure you'll
never be running any .NET apps before you reinstall Windows. The
uninstaller, IME, often leaves enough junk around such that any future .NET
frameworks won't work properly. As far as I can tell, it doesn't do any harm
besides consuming disk space.

[...]

Even numbered version, no argument. Odd numbered version are generally
pretty good though :)

[...]

The non-.NET version of Delphi uses it's own component library (VCL or CLX)
not MFC. It sits on top of the Win32 layer, so is at the same level as MFC
(or .NET framework for that matter). The .NET versions of Delphi (or the
C++/C# variants) can either use the winforms library (requires deployment of
the full .NET runtime) or VCL.NET (which can run "self contained" and does
not need a .NET runtime installed).

Mixing MFC classes in with any of these version is ... unpleasent.

[...]

--
Michael Brown
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz - My inbox is always open

Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:53 pm   

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:25:58 -0700, Jim Thompson
<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon_at_My-Web-Site.com> wrote:


I'd leave it installed. More and more programs are using .NET.
Unfortunately, it's looking more like a MFC piece of crap with version
problems. I recently ran across a program that required .NET 1.1, even
if you had version 2 installed. Perhaps it's due to crappy programming
that they required v1.1. I haven't seen any bad issues leaving it
installed.

---
Mark

Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:14 pm   

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:53:11 GMT, qrk <SpamTrap_at_spam.net> wrote:


OK. I'll leave it. (It's v1.1)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:15 am   

The Real Andy wrote:

Sorry it's not.
but that doesn't mean it's any good either.

Bad comment to make, Borland apps have nothing to do with security
issues, it's the people writing the code and that's where the problem
is. .NET Robust? i don't think so. Cripple and slow ? yes/.
Microsoft loves people like you, easy brain washing.

talking about the VCL. That is Borlands class library and it has no
MFC what's so ever.



facts straight.
--
"I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken"
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

Sun Feb 18, 2007 3:39 am   

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:15:43 -0500, Jamie wrote:

It was made by MICRO$~1, and therefore is crap by definition.

Cheers!
Rich

Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:39 am   

On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:15:43 -0500, Jamie
<jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa__at_charter.net> wrote:


The code behind maybe different, but the model is essentially the
same. Both are managed languages, both compile to an intermediate
language, both are JIT compiled at runtime.


..net is robust in the same sense as java. Sure you can write unsafe
code (in fact MS even use the term unsafe in the languages) but then
you are being plain mad.

Cripple and Slow? You quite clearly have never used it in a commercial
environment. I do, in an enterprise environment, and I can assure you
it not cripple and slow.


Microsoft love people like me because we spend money on their
products. I don't buy the MS marketing, I buy the products because I
can develop in a shorter timeframe and my code is a lot more robust.
In a commercial environment that means a lot, the business gets what
they want on time, I get paid and they then give me more work because
I can deliver. Its pretty simple.


Sorry, I meant Win32. However in saying that, when Borland dropped OWL
they began paying MS a licence fee to use MFC. I have not touched
Borland for some time now, so I don't really know what the deal is
these days.

I did just knock back a job that involved Borland C++ however. Also
knocked back a Delphi job too, both in preference for a job doing
enterprise .net systems.


You must be Borland user.

Sun Feb 18, 2007 4:22 pm   

The Real Andy wrote:


Java runs in a safe and secure "sandbox" it cannot gain access to anything
you don't give it access to. It is safe by design... that said, I don't
write Java, or C#... I prefer the embedded world.


I never found that to be true. I have found that Microsoft's applications
tend to confound my efforts to write good software. I would much rather work
with opensource.

The problem as I see it, is MiracleSlop has such a monopoly on seats in
the computer world that finding opensource work is difficult. It is worth
the effort, though, as it is so much easier and more reliable.

-Chuck

Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:09 pm   

Chuck Harris wrote:




--
"I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken"
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:07 pm   

The Real Andy wrote:


.NET is not the same in the background.


you think.
I feel sorry for people like you getting lead down that dark
path.



Yeah i know, it's pretty simple. MS loves simple users.
glad you finally admitted it.


end user. I don't know where you got this information from but it's
clearly incorrect. Borland has there own set of class libraries that
simply sprang from the early days of OWL. they call it the VCL now.
VCL = Visual Control Library.



Don't feel bad, you did them a favor by not letting them hire you.



write code for Windows Mobile etc..
I've been in the field sense the day's of
punch card computers and have fallow the
product line's of Borland, MS, Symantic, Watcom
to say a few.
Now that we're done with our pissing contest, go back
to your slow .NET MS controlled applications. and hope
you have fun writing slow bloated code.
Just think, since you're suck a good MS customer, maybe they
won't make you wait for months to fix a crash/serious bug that
arises in your code due to a frame work error that only MS can
fix.



--
"I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken"
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

Sun Feb 18, 2007 11:05 pm   

On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:07:28 -0500, Jamie
<jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa__at_charter.net> wrote:


Ha ha ha, i take that as a compliment.


The path to finacial success. Its funny how when people lose an
argument they resort to insulting people.



Ahh, remember when Borland dropped OWL, they licenced MFC? Remeber
that there was some condition regarding the approval that prevented
Borland from continuing with MFC? It was about this time that everyone
stopped using broland products. VCL is completely different.




Its funny how when people lose an argument they resort to insulting
people.



Excellent, you must be very successful in your job.


I still cant see where you get slow and bloated from. You really
should spend some time using .net, you will be surprised.


Hasn't happened to me yet, and I have been using .net for 4 years now.

Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:18 am   

The Real Andy wrote:

IIRC, Borland licenced MFC around the time of C++ 5. It was only included
for compatibility reasons so that you could compile your MFC apps with BC++,
and it didn't always work 100% (due to the dependence of MFC on MSVC
undocumented extensions). OWL was still very much the focus of BC++ 5.

BCB was the next product in line, and this used VCL instead of OWL. OWL
wasn't dropped until BCB5, though it was (like MFC) included only for
compiling older projects with the newer compiler. MFC compatibility is
included all the way through the BCB line AFAIK, though it's for compiling
only. You can't use the designer to make MFC GUIs.

There was a big debate a couple of years ago in one of the borland NG's
about when/why/how Borland "lost" the C++ market. Their marketshare had
dropped substantially long before BCB was released, or OWL was ditched for
that matter. The basic problem was versions 4 and 5 of BC++ were pretty bad
(especially the IDE), and OWL was simply not being updated and fixed very
quickly. While they picked up some new people with the VCL (though more with
Delphi than BCB) they'd lost their momentum in the C++ market, and with MS's
aggressive pushing of MSVC (and later poaching of a significant number of
key Borland developers) it was pretty much impossible to come back again.

[...]

You've never tried running a .NET application on a machine with 512MB of
RAM, I guess? :)

Cold start times for .NET applications are terrible. Even a simple winforms
"Hello World" takes somewhere between 15-25 seconds (depending on the phase
of the moon) to start where the CLR isn't already loaded (for example, after
a reboot, or if you have 512 MB of RAM as the CLR files fall out of the
cache pretty quickly). Warm start times are better, though still in the
order of 3-4 seconds. Compared to, say, firefox, which cold-starts in a bit
under 10 seconds and warm-starts basically instantly. While this isn't a
problem for applications that run all the time, it prevents .NET from being
used for small utility applications - I don't want to wait for 3 or so
seconds while calc or notepad starts, for example. Similarly, meory usage is
terrible for .NET apps - a "Hello World" takes up around 7MB of RAM.

As MS forces more and more .NET stuff on people, these problems wil become
less significant since the framework will always be loaded - it's not really
a nice solution, though, as all that means is that you've got bloat loaded
all the time (taking up space that could be used for better purposes), not
just when you run an app that needs it.

Performance-wise, it's a bit hard to compare. For complex FP stuff , .NET is
slower (at least on K7 Athlons and P4's), no questions there. It depends on
the exact algorithm, but I've typically seen anything from a 20% to a 100%
increase in computation time required. CPU-intensive stuff in general is
slower, but most of the tests I've done are FP-based things so I can't give
a decent range for other types. For I/O intensive stuff such as throwing
files through sockets, most of the time is spent outside the application, so
although the application may only be operating at half the speed of a native
app it doesn't really matter. I could go on and on ... basically, CLR is
significantly slower than C++ code compiled to native code, but unless your
application is CPU-bound in your code, it doesn't matter a whole lot.

The biggest problem I've found is that, although you can code a .NET to be
fast, it's not encouraged. A lot of the things that make .NET development
easy also make the resulting application slow. The end result of this is
things like ATI's CCC - massive memory use, slow startup times, laggy
interface, etc etc. While I know that CCC is not representitive of a "good"
..NET app, it is representitive of a vast majority of .NET apps.


While I can't say I've run into a problem that *can't* be worked around,
some bugs (mainly in the 1.0 and 1.1 era) have required significant and/or
ugly workarounds (which had to be developed using trial and error). One of
the things I love about Borland's VCL is that you get the source code, which
means you can easily trace into the VCL and see where something is going
wrong. This makes it much easier to develop workarounds compared to
developing them for .NET where if you tell MS "{x} doesn't work correctly"
you just get the response "don't do {x}, and it may be fixed in a future
service pack". At which point, if doing {x} is important to your code, you
have to start the tedious process of black-box debugging the framework.
Reflector can help a bit if you've narrowed it down, but it's still nowhere
as nice as being able to trace into the code.

--
Michael Brown
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz - My inbox is always open

Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:26 am   

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:05:59 +1000, The Real Andy
<therealandy_at_nospam.com> Gave us:



Borland died because their main products, Paradox and Quattro Pro
could not compete with Foxpro or Excel.

They could not get themselves out of the DOS world cleanly, and was
never able to catch up in a Windows based realm.

Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:28 am   

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:18:52 +1100, "Michael Brown"
<see_at_signature.below> Gave us:



They were unable to compete in the "visual" based development realm.

Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:45 am   

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:18:52 +1100, "Michael Brown"
<see_at_signature.below> wrote:


Sorry, I screwed up once again I meant to write that MFC licence
condition was valid only if Borland dropped OWL. That was some time
ago now, I cant really remember what happened.


Most of our customers run 512mb ram (on PC's supplied by us).


Ok, so the lowest CPU speed I have app's running on is around 2GHz.
These are AU$400 PC's shipped with 512mb RAM, running XPSP2. I have
never seen one take more than a few seconds to load the framework,
even after a reboot. BTW, there is tonnes of information out there on
how to reduce cold start times of app's. In fact MSDN mag did an
article on such not so long ago.


Hardware is cheap, development time is quick, results are relatively
robust (you can still write bad code). The whole idea with .net and
java is that you sacrifice some resources for the huge benefits gained
from safe, secure and reliable code.


Fair point. I don't do FP stuff. Things such as casting classes to
binary buffers can be slow, but by marshalling to unmanaged and back
it is real fast. What's great about that is the marshaller will not
let you exceed the bounds of the array. You cant overrun a buffer. Big
plus. Does not matter how bad you code, you cant do it. It won't let
you. This is just one of the benefits. I challenge anyone to tell me
that they have not had a buffer overrun, even if it was found before
production.


I wonder what agent uses. Currently in my process list (Sysinternals)
I have Agent at 10MB, followed by explorer(Win GUI shell) at 13MB, and
Visual Studio 2005 at 40Mb. SO I wonder what language agent is written
in? I have seen C++ app's (Borland and MS) that have been more bloated
than C# app's.


Maybe that's where I differ. I don't want the source code. I don't
care about it. The last thing I want to do is spend time learning my
way through some library. I just don't have time. My experiences with
..net have been good. What I cant do with it, I can do with Interop,
and its rare that I need to go there. This is especially so with .net
2. All I really care about is giving the business what it wants, and
if I can do that, on time with a product that does not have bugs, then
I keep the business happy. If I keep the business happy I get
rewarded, both financially and with more work.