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Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
The point is : quality products ; no upgrade frenzy
I guess everybody agrees that high quality products is a must. The problem is the upgrade "frenzy"... there's a lot of competition out there and if a company doesn't immediately deliver products that match and surpass the competition feature by feature, that company risks going out of business. For developers this is a chicken and egg dilemma: wait a considerable amount of time until there's a "perfect" version ready or deliver a good-enough version so the sales people can make money for the company? I'm telling you, there's no easy answer.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
The anti-IE campaign is meant to promote a better IE
I haven't used IE directly for the longest time: I use NetCaptor and MyIE2. As long as Microsoft keeps providing the underlying HTML rendering and support engines I couldn't care less.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Real world projects often fall in old C code, and customers don't want to spend money on deployment. Know what I mean?
I know what you mean, believe me... I KNOW what you mean. But, that being said, it doesn't mean that the door to evolution must be closed. On the contrary, software often behaves like a living entity that is evolves and after some time gets old and dies.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Slashdot ? What would be the added value, now that 100 times a day people are criticizing them.
You have every right to complain and bitch about Microsoft all you want, I do that often, too. But, if I'm not mistaken, you're a Windows developer. Right? I just believe that, without being submisive, nobody should try to bite the hand that feeds them. Microsoft is a company that has created an ecosystem where millions of people all over the world benefit and thrive. It doesn't mean that their behavior or products are perfect, no, they are a just business that tries to make money for their shareholders just like every other company in the world. And if you compare the "ecosystems" created by other companies, you'll notice that they look pretty dull and dry by Microsoft's standard.
The nice thing about C++ is that only your friends can handle your private parts.
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Eddie Velasquez wrote:
wait a considerable amount of time until there's a "perfect" version ready
I have no problem with this, as long as older versions are still supported. Unfortunately, Microsoft is retiring both their older products, older SDKs, older documentation. Worst of all, they are doing this SILENTLY. Although it's true they can't support for instance Windows NT forever, I believe they could do something else than retiring everything.
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
As long as Microsoft keeps providing the underlying HTML rendering and support engines I couldn't care less.
Web developers certainly appreciate this. When engines and file formats are wrecked, it's simply a shame not to fix them. Of course, all this is true, unless Microsoft intends to make the next IE version compelling enough to ask customers to also buy an OS, and a new PC... 
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
On the contrary, software often behaves like a living entity that is evolves and after some time gets old and dies.
Yes, infrastructure underlying that software has to last a decade or so. Unforutnately, the entire Microsoft development platform is being upgraded at least once a year, along with broken formats, etc. Do you remember that Microsoft broke the .COFF file format used in libraries between VisualStudio 97 and VisualStudio 6.0 ? (libraries compiled with VisualStudio 6.0 would cause internal link error when used in VisualStudio 97) ?
Don't tell me it's because they have added a bunch of new features.
I could go on with examples.
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
nobody should try to bite the hand that feeds them.
I don't think real world .NET projects are feeding any mouth at the moment. It's much too early. Of course, regarding personal projects, there is plenty of stuff to do thanks to that platform.
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's name and password.
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's clipboard.
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Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Microsoft is retiring both their older products, older SDKs, older documentation
As any company in the world... after a while, old products are left to die. In any industry it's the same thing. Just look at Sun and Java... now, that's real fun!
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Worst of all, they are doing this SILENTLY. Although it's true they can't support for instance Windows NT forever, I believe they could do something else than retiring everything
I think most of what Microsoft drops doesn't go down silently. They just can't spend the same amount of marketing effort on announcing the death of a product as the launch of a new one!
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Web developers certainly appreciate this. When engines and file formats are wrecked, it's simply a shame not to fix them.
Thank God I'm not a Web developer then!
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
Microsoft development platform is being upgraded at least once a year, along with broken formats, etc. Do you remember that Microsoft broke the .COFF file format used in libraries between VisualStudio 97 and VisualStudio 6.0 ? (libraries compiled with VisualStudio 6.0 would cause internal link error when used in VisualStudio 97) ?
Who forces anybody to upgrade? If VS97 was good enough why go with VS6? Microsoft doesn't force anybody to upgrade; if the new versions are compelling enough the users upgrade. I think it's quite simple.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
don't think real world .NET projects are feeding any mouth at the moment.
It has fed a bunch of mouths in MY family for a long time. And I know, and heard of, countless people (at least according to my limited ability to count) that can testify to the same. And I'm not talking "Hello World" projects, I've personally developed a couple of mission-critical applications exclusively using .NET. And as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I haven't heard from my clients in a while, the apps must be working ok! 
The nice thing about C++ is that only your friends can handle your private parts.
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Eddie Velasquez wrote:
As any company in the world... after a while, old products are left to die.
The Windows 9X DDK was retired on September 2002. Silently. Now the Windows DDK is under...guess what... the XP umbrella. What do you think of this ?
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
I'm not a Web developer
That's the problem with discussions (also the beauty btw). Everyone has his own perception of technologies. For web developers, whether we are talking HTML, PHP or ASP.NET, that one is critical.
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
If VS97 was good enough why go with VS6?
Gotcha mate! The Windows media SDK was provided with VS6.0 compiled libraries. Now imagine you have to write an application relying on the SDK, BUT your company is using (that was in 98, it's over now) VisualStudio 97. What do you do? Cut the project down? Or send the dollars to Microsoft first by upgrading to VS6.0 (mandatory as I thought my former post was obviously implying) ?
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
It has fed a bunch of mouths in MY family for a long time.
Glad to know. I am not sure it's really representative of the situation though.
Eddie Velasquez wrote:
I haven't heard from my clients in a while
I am not sure it's good news. Aren't software companies making money on disributing bugged software? 
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's name and password.
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's clipboard.
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Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
The anti-IE campaign is meant to promote a better IE.
It already exists. It's called AvantBrowser[^]. Simply awesome. Mozilla type wrapper around a pure IE core. 
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It is said that 95% of the browsing public uses IE. Regardless, I know that nearly 100% of my visitors use IE. Why move away? If you want to move away then what was this all about?
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote:
The anti-IE campaign is meant to promote a better IE.
AvantBrowser is great because it extends IE with features that are missing at the same time providing the real world compatability that is beneficial to us all. If you want to change 95% of the browsing public, I say good luck.
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Tom Welch wrote:
Why move away?
- IE is the tool allowing MS to prevent competition from happening (installed by default with the OS)
- IE is really insecure. Partially due to the fact the Jscript is COM-enabled and allows all sorts of untrusted code to be executed without being seen.
- IE has a broken rendering engine
- IE does not implement standards. IE implements his own standards, while web sites and web apps can be sold to customers only if they support say Netscape (occured with Cisco for example, who is as you can easily guess aware of security flaws).
- IE is lagging behind in terms of features (renderer)
Tom Welch wrote:
AvantBrowser is great because it extends IE with features
We are not talking the rendering engine.
Tom Welch wrote:
If you want to change 95% of the browsing public, I say good luck.
That's not really the point Tom. It's more to force MS to improve IE.
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's name and password.
Taking advantage of InternetExplorer to steal user's clipboard.
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Until .Net becomes universal, installation programs should check the target host to see if it is already installed. If not, they should inform the user that the program will not run without it, and offer to install it from the installation CD. If the customer declines, the installation should exit cleanly without changing the user's machine.
"The Lion shall lie down with the Lamb;
but the Lamb will not get much sleep..."
Lazarus Long
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Well said! I hate nothing more than CDs/installers that go right up and install something without your acknowledging what you're installing.
Of course, for the apps I write, that means it would be difficult if not impossible to ever use .NET, since my team writes installers and CD front ends/browsers. 
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein
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Given that our company does most of our software installation jobs ourselves, we just bung dotnetfx.exe on the CD we take to the customers site.
--
Ian Darling
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what *version* of the .NET redistributble you need... 
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein
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Yes! You can not install both versions and I have heard that the new version breaks applications created with the first version...
John
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Sure you can install both 1.0 and 1.1 at the same time.
Applications run in the framework they were compiled in, and can be forced to run in another if specified in it's manifest.
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Q.
If I already have the .NET Framework 1.0 installed, do I need version 1.1?
A.
You will need version 1.1 to run applications built using the .NET Framework 1.1. Applications built using version 1.0 will run just fine on version 1.1 of the .NET Framework Redistributable. The application vendor should inform you whether or not you need a particular version of the Redistributable to run the application.
For more technical information, see Versioning, Compatibility, and Side-by-Side Execution in the .NET Framework.
Q.
Can I run applications built using the .NET Framework 1.0 on version 1.1?
A.
Generally speaking, yes. Application vendors can build their applications in such a way, however, that they will only run against version 1.0. These situations are rare, but they can occur. If you are unsure, check with the application vendor. For more technical information, see Versioning,
I find the answers to these two questions in the FAQ for the .NET framework redisributable interesting. The first answer says that "Applications built using version 1.0 will run just fine on version 1.1 of the .NET" the second says not exactly...
John
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This happens due to some code breaking changes introduced by version 1.1 of the .NET Framework.
You can teste your application thoroughly to see if it runs stable in a specific version of the CLR, but as a general rule of thumb it is best to run your application on the .NET Framework version in which it was compiled, just to play it safe. To ensure a program just runs on a specific .NET Framework version use an application configuration file
As to Side-by-Side execution, you can have several versions of the .NET Framework installed on a computer. They function independently. So you can have two programs running at the same time, one that uses .NET Framework 1.0 and another that uses .NET Framework 1.1.
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apferreira wrote:
As to Side-by-Side execution, you can have several versions of the .NET Framework installed on a computer. They function independently. So you can have two programs running at the same time, one that uses .NET Framework 1.0 and another that uses .NET Framework 1.1.
Thanks for the info. Somewhere I read a message in a forum that stated that you could not install both at the same time.
John
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... and target market. If most of your customers will have XP, then you can probably get away with not including it at all. Or if you distribute on a CD, you can put it there, no problem.
But if you have a 2 meg web download that you want anyone to run, you're pretty much toast. Including a 20 meg redistributable would be the equivilant of the tail wagging the dog.
Maybe in a few years, everyone will have XP and/or broadband connections... but for now, the majority of users are running something less than XP with a dial-up connection.
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein
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Err... WinXP don't have any .NET runtime installed as standard, so there is no difference between XP and all other Windows'...
- Anders
Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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Yes, but IIRC, XP recognises .NET applications anyway, and indicates you need the framework. Pre XP systems don't do this.
--
Ian Darling
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Really?
Did not know that...
Anyway, I don't see how this helps when talking about the size of the runtime. 
- Anders
Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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Anders Molin wrote:
Anyway, I don't see how this helps when talking about the size of the runtime
True enough  Shame you can't break it down into more modular bits - after all, most people won't need the ASP.NET bits for end-user applications. You could get the tools to generate a dotnetfx-dependencies.exe for your application, and it just includes the bits you use. That would probably help considerably.
--
Ian Darling
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Ian Darling wrote:
Shame you can't break it down into more modular bits
I think that just makes distribution even harder because somebody wouldn't know what parts they already have.
Even though ASP.NET by default is only used by IIS, you can use ASP.NET from within your own winforms application by using the hosting API. There also wouldn't be much in savings by excluding ASP.NET from the redist, a meg or two at most.
You might have a case for making a server-only redist though, I can't think of how you would use the WinForms stuff from within ASP.NET (unless you generate your winforms app at runtime, but that seems a bit overboard). But again, you don't save a lot by doing so, so you might as well keep everything all together.
James
"I despise the city and much prefer being where a traffic jam means a line-up at McDonald's"
Me when telling a friend why I wouldn't want to live with him
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Yeah, I guess you're right. I suppose I meant "Longhorn" instead of XP.
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity." - Albert Einstein
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