Why no serious MS Application in .NET yet ??

[Guest]

You have to think that Office is a huge code base currently. It would be very
expensive to rewrite that code base in managed C#, and what value would that
add?

My guess, is that the softies are writing a lot of new code in managed C#,
but they don't see any reason to rewrite exisiting applications.

 

[Guest]

Well, I doubt they would use C#... but rather Managed C++.
And the main point of the rewrite would be to lose the reliance on direct
Win32 API's and to gain the stability and security that the managed runtime
brings.

 

[SB]

It would be a colossal waste of resources for MS to rewrite Office in any
language. If they were even considering it, it would make more sense for
them to spend those resources writing a new operating system...from
scratch...with a truly object oriented programming interface. Of course,
due to backward compatibility, that is something MS can't afford to do
anytime soon...but I digress...

My .02c USD

-sb

 

[Guest]

<snip> scratch...with a truly object oriented programming interface. Of course,
due to backward compatibility, that is something MS can't afford to do
anytime soon...but I digress...

Why not? That's what VM's are for. How do you think modern day Windows
supports Win16 and DOS?

 

[Herr Lucifer]

It has gone too far.... finally, do i have to be optimist or cynic for the
future of .NET ?

 

[gaidar]

You do have to be optimist! Just look around - we are going to the future

 

[Nick Malik [Microsoft]]

You are in it too. Success depends on us all. Literally.

If you are a cynic, you have yourself to blame.

If you are an optimist, we all have you to thank.

--
--- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
representative of my employer.
I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
programmer helping programmers.

 

[Michael A. Covington]

It has gone too far.... finally, do i have to be optimist or cynic for the
future of .NET ?

Cynic, of course. The perfect operating system, UNIX, and the perfect
programming language, C, were released 1/3 of a century ago. No further
progress in computing has ever occurred.

 

[SB]

Excellent point...but that would be one heck of a VM. To be able to run
DOS, Win16, Win32, Win64 all by simulating the old WinAPI (since it would be
completely replaced with a new OO design). That would be a feat but it
could be done.

-sb

 

[Guest]

Eh, maybe not. I don't know. It doesn't have to be built "on top" of the new
framework. I mean, does the Win16 VM (a.k.a. WOW) in NT/2K/XP thunk up to
Win32. I don't think so. It runs in its own seperate "world" insulated from
the rest of Win32.... and like I said... the Kernel itself wouldn't change.

But, now that I think of it there are I/O (driver model) issues if the
driver model where to change dramatically in the new Framework. It would be
quite a feat. But, if Apple can do it... I really can't see why MS can't.

 

[gaidar]

Hm. Yeah! I agree with you - C is perfect, UNIX is cool but it's not the
future .
Are you still wanting to spend months and months coding and debugging
application you can easily create using C# or VB.NET and the greatest IDE we
ever had - Visual Studio?

 

[William Stacey [MVP]]

Just start using it and then let us know what you think.

 

[Nick Malik [Microsoft]]

you need to read up on the JIT compiler.

--
--- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
representative of my employer.
I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
programmer helping programmers.
--

 

[Michael A. Covington]

And don't forget that no one today uses binary programming any more.
Definitely binary is more powerful than C, but even "God" doesn't have
time to do that in the modern world of today, when you gotta make apps in
a very short time. And C# will be also a slow way of doing things in the
next 10-15 years. May, just maybe, we see computers that programs
themselves at that time, who knows?

They were saying that 30 years ago. (Not C# but Fortran... but otherwise
the same claim.)

 

[William Stacey [MVP]]

see NGEN

 

[Herr Lucifer]

What we've got in C is "quiet" like what we have in C#. Why? because both
languages don't do any "machine level" thing on their own. Well, C- the
great language- has the chance of having a compiler which translates the C
code into the native machine code directly. However, in C#, we have a layer
in between (an intermediate language) which is the reason for all these
troubles. I believe if there was a "Native Image Generator", which could
really generate native images, just like the final thing you make by using
C, there wouldn't be any more troubles over performance issues in .NET
desktop apps as we see now.

PS: I personally think the framework is great (and its modern oo design),
sth that you can never have when using C , nevertheless, this framework
could be harnessed in much better ways by much better compilers. For
example, imagine by third-party compilers that would compile your .NET code
(VB or C#) into machine level instruction directly.(just my idea)

 

[Herr Lucifer]

And don't forget that no one today uses binary programming any more.
Definitely binary is more powerful than C, but even "God" doesn't have time
to do that in the modern world of today, when you gotta make apps in a very
short time. And C# will be also a slow way of doing things in the next 10-15
years. May, just maybe, we see computers that programs themselves at that
time, who knows?

 

[Vyacheslav Lanovets]

Hello, CMM!
You wrote on Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:17:03 -0800:

C> I agree... and I'm not saying it's a totally bad thing. But, I think at
C> some point MS has to show that they're true innovators and not just
C> evolutionary. .NET is probably the most ambitious and courageous thing
C> to come from Redmond since Windows 95. Now we have to wait to see if
C> that courage extends to the rest of the Windows world.

I do not see ANY reasons to deprecate any old technology/API. If API exists
and works fine why not put it into next release of Windows along with all
the new stuff?

I am glad that I can run most of old software under Windows XP and I am
really happy when I can use my old C++ code for Windows or even Windows
CE(!).

You see, deprecating any API usually only creates problems to developers,
and leads to creating proprietary solutions to avoid dependency on MS
libraries.

Say, using ADOCE&C++ to make calls to SQL Server CE is now deprecated, which
wiil force us to make a lot of work rewriting ADOCE wrappers to OLEDB
wrappers.

What is innovation here?

Why fo I need innovaton? Space? But flash/HDD storage is constantly growing.
Security? Cost of support? ADOCE is not supported for several years but we
use it without a problem.

Yes, I understand you ideas, but I think it will not pay its price. I
believe that the evolution is the best way for tecnology. It's good that
new technologies appear but let's not forget about real world, about real
long-term projects, about a lot of code writteng during last decade. Don't
force developers to use new technologies removing old ones. Better create
better technologies and developers will certainly use them!

There is no reason to deprecate anything that works. Just spend several
hours compiling it for new platform (if needed) and that's all!

Regards, Vyacheslav Lanovets

 

[Guest]

I would disagree. You say you don't see ANY reason...

Remember the Gopher security hole in IE from a couple of years ago? I mean,
who uses Gopher??? And if you really had to, I'm sure there's a nice 3rd
party solution out there for you. The rest of us 99.9999 don't need it.

Here are your reasons:

1) Security and stability. Old code is often not just "old" it's also BAD.
And it's not just the code... which would suggest that one could fix it...
it's that the whole technology that it's built on is BAD. Case-in-point...
DDE and the WM architecture. Cross window messaging in the Windows World is
extremely insecure and often unstable. Remember the Timer exploit (I think
that's what it was called) last year that allowed someone to elevate their
privileges on a machine by "injecting" certain running Services?

2) Programmers are lazy and will not abandon a technology until they're
forced to. For instance, for years programmers have been storing user
settings in the program's own folder in Program Files... despite User
Profiles being around since Windows 95. It wasn't until WinXP and it's
"limited user" mode and corporate Admins finally locking down their systems
in the past few years that programmers have finally started doing the RIGHT
THING and storing stuff in %USERPROFILE%.

 

[Joe]

2) Programmers are lazy and will not abandon a technology until they're
forced to.

There are only 24 hours in a day, and (some) programmers have a life
besides coding.

Joe.