Paint.NET - The anti-Gimp?

[Gordon Darling]

Interesting post on Slashdot

"Arno contributes a link to Paint.NET, a free-of-charge raster-graphics
program for Windows XP machines. "Quote: 'Paint.NET is image and photo
manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows
XP. Paint.NET is jointly developed at Washington State University with
additional help from Microsoft, and is meant to be a free replacement for
the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems. The
programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with GDI+
extensions.' It really seems like a nice tool. I definitely prefer its UI
to GIMP's."

&

"FYI:
Program also works on Windows 2000 with .NET 1.1 installed.
First impressions: sure beats MS Paint "

The link is http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Also http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/downloads.html

But it's suffering very badly from the slashdot effect at the moment

Regards
Gordon

 

[Gordon Darling]

Interesting post on Slashdot

"Arno contributes a link to Paint.NET, a free-of-charge raster-graphics
program for Windows XP machines. "Quote: 'Paint.NET is image and photo
manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows
XP. Paint.NET is jointly developed at Washington State University with
additional help from Microsoft, and is meant to be a free replacement for
the MS Paint software that comes with all Windows operating systems. The
programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with GDI+
extensions.' It really seems like a nice tool. I definitely prefer its UI
to GIMP's."

Screenshots http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/screenshots.html
Source code http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/files/pdn_src_2_0.zip

Program http://www.wsu.edu/~rolo/PaintDotNet_2_0.msi
or http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/files/PaintDotNet_2_0.msi

"Paint.NET has many of the powerful features that expensive commercial
applications have, including the ability to use layers. This is the second
semester that Paint.NET has been a project at Washington State University,
and we have the goal of adding as much functionality as expensive
commercial applications provide, but of course, for free! In the spirit of
all this freedom, we welcome any suggestions, as well as provide the
source code free of charge for anyone who wishes to tinker with it. Please
explore this website, download the software and try out many of the things
you would do on those expensive commercial applications."

Regards
Gordon

 

[domsters]

what a work out!

i had to install ms.net

and it decided to change all my settings!

any way after a couple of hours correcting what was wronged

the paint program looks promising!

regards

Domsters

 

[Gordon Darling]

what a work out!
i had to install ms.net
and it decided to change all my settings!

The requirement for dot.NET is a pain though it's a one off install. More
stuff is going to come out that requires it because of the advantages of
the C# environment. Be interesting to see if it would compile under Mono

any way after a couple of hours correcting what was wronged
the paint program looks promising!

It does indeed. It looks as if the development is (will be) based on the
Academic Year. When the next bunch of suckers (students) enrol the project
will be pushed forward. It's certainly a very useable piece of software.

Regards
Gordon

 

[Mark Carter]

The requirement for dot.NET is a pain though it's a one off install. More
stuff is going to come out that requires it because of the advantages of
the C# environment.

My heart sinks.

No offense intended you understand, but isn't this all just bloated
crap, the latest paradigm du jour? Skimmed milk masquerading as cream?
Isn't dot.Net just a reaction to Java, and Mono a reaction to dot.Net?
Object-orientation as the "one true religion"? Like a painting by Escher
with an ever-ascending staircase which nevertheless still brings you
back to where you started.

We should probably all be programming in Lisp anyway.

Also in the dot.something flavour is dotGnu:
http://www.dotgnu.org/

 

[rocker]

what a work out!

i had to install ms.net

and it decided to change all my settings!

any way after a couple of hours correcting what was wronged

the paint program looks promising!

Well domsters, please tell what amounts to 'all my settings' if you
can...could be helpful to me (others) considering both Paint.Net and ms.net.

rocker

 

[Bob Adkins]

My heart sinks.

No offense intended you understand, but isn't this all just bloated
crap, the latest paradigm du jour? Skimmed milk masquerading as cream?
Isn't dot.Net just a reaction to Java, and Mono a reaction to dot.Net?
Object-orientation as the "one true religion"? Like a painting by Escher
with an ever-ascending staircase which nevertheless still brings you
back to where you started.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

On the upside, you only install Dot Net once, and there are many nice
compact and powerful programs created for Dot Net out there now. Programmers
seem to like it, so we should be seeing more and more Dot Net apps.

I neither like nor dislike Dot Net. I find some of the programs useful, some
not so useful. So don't feel like I'm trying to push it on anyone.

-- Bob

 

[Gordon Darling]

My heart sinks.

No offense intended you understand, but isn't this all just bloated
crap, the latest paradigm du jour? Skimmed milk masquerading as cream?
Isn't dot.Net just a reaction to Java, and Mono a reaction to dot.Net?
Object-orientation as the "one true religion"? Like a painting by Escher
with an ever-ascending staircase which nevertheless still brings you
back to where you started.

I understand some of your position. BUT, computer science doesn't stand
still. This isn't the evil empire in Redmond attempting to extend world
domination and kill java. C and C++ have many limitations (as computer
languages they were designed years before modern Pentium/Athlon/Xeon
processors) and Microsoft's design goals for C# has a lot of good ideas.

If you want to run Java programs (on any platform) you need a Java
runtime. If you want to run Perl or Python programs (on any platform)
you need an appropriate runtime. If you want to run Win32 programs
(on Solaris/Linux/BSD) you need Wine. If you want to run unix
programs (on Windows) you need CygWin.

Running jit (just in time) interpreters/compilers on modern hardware is no
longer the pain it used to be.

Regards
Gordon

 

[REM]

Mark Carter <[email protected]> wrote:

No offense intended you understand, but isn't this all just bloated
crap, the latest paradigm du jour?

It all depends upon you. If you use a great many .NET apps that
require the framework it is a decently organized pachage that is very
easily updated when necessary.

The idea is not to reinvent the wheel everytime a program is written,
for VB anyway. Need a form? scrollbox? Textbox? Simply drag one out
onto the form and the majority of the code comes with it. This means
that programs can be written much more quickly, so there should be a
great many to try, which makes your investment in installing the
framework credible.

Each .NET program downloaded has it's baggage waiting for it (after
the initial framework install).

If you elect to get the framework for a single program, then yes, it
is bloat.

Skimmed milk masquerading as cream?

Or vice versa from the developers point of view?

We should probably all be programming in Lisp anyway.

I've never used lisp. How long would it take to write a program like
the paint program mentioned?

You have a great deal more experience. I think .NET is a pretty good
deal at this point though.

BTW: We do free range chickens also. You've never had a real egg until
you've had a free range egg! (in the Texas anyway) The things that
commercial layers are fed here leave a really, really artificial
looking substitute for an egg. We stop eating eggs when the free
rangers go out of season.

 

[Mark Carter]

;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for Lisp evaluation.
;; If you want to create a file, first visit that file with C-x C-f,
;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer.

I understand some of your position. BUT, computer science doesn't stand
still.

Kinda.

Years ago, when I had an Amiga, I downloaded an animation for it. It had
a programmer tapping away at the keyboard. He was obviously frustrated.
The words C++ floated above his head. As he looked like he was going to
give up, the phrase "it's the hammer for every nail" replaced the words.
So he carried on typing. Eventually, everything came to an end and the
computer exploded.

I remember the good old days when I was doing my PhD in the early-mid
90's. We had the game Black Maria networked on a few machines running
Windows 3.11. What that shows is that as far back as the early 90's we
had reasonable networking infrastructure.

I'm just so jaded by all this. C++, MFC, COMs, DCOMs, Java, now C#,
dot.Net and its look-alikes. I had a chance to look at some RFCs the
other day. For those that don't know RFCs (Requests For Comments)
document series is a set of technical and organizational notes about the
Internet (originally the ARPANET), beginning in 1969:
http://www.rfc-editor.org/

They deal with such things as how email is sent and received, how
newgroup messages are formatted and accessed; a whole bunch of things.
What's amazing about them is their simple, clean, lean, robust elegance.
And they have longevity. Compare that with the proprietory, bloated
crapshite that commercial organisations push out. Microsoft even have
the stated goal of providing "enriched" protocols.

Computing science hasn't advanced, it's just been progressively caked in
layers of detritus. That's how Microsoft wants it. That's how all
commercial outfits want it. After all, where's the money in writing
software that anyone can reproduce? It's all so horribly wrong from an
engineering point of view.

A (free) document that's well worth looking at by the geeky types is the
"The Art of Unix Programming" by Eris S Raymond:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/index.html
It contains links to other interesting articles, such as why RPCs are
problematical, using the shell as a 4GL, the merits of micro versus
monolithic application design, and more.

Jadedly,
Mark.

 

[Mark Carter]

It all depends upon you. If you use a great many .NET apps that
require the framework it is a decently organized pachage that is very
easily updated when necessary.

The idea is not to reinvent the wheel everytime a program is written,

Don't get my worng, I'm all for that!

I've never used lisp. How long would it take to write a program like
the paint program mentioned?

Oh no! In truth, it'd probably be problematical. Lisp does have it's
downsides. Probably the most severe ones would be: fragmentation of
implementations, commercial compilers which are too expensive, or free
ones which are comprehensive. I rarely deal with Lisp. My company
mandates Visual Basic (for Applications), and everything else I tend to
write in Python. To me, it is quite frustrating to try to use Lisp.
However, I appreciate the philosphy of Lisp. As a language design in
itself, it cannot be beat.

One thing, for instance, that p*sses me off about Java is that
everything is an object. Why?? What's so broken about the concept of a
plain, straightforward, ordinary function anyway? The problem here is
language hype. Paradigms. Object-orientation as the "one true religion".
Things like C++, Java, and now C# have really been sucked in by this.
Objects may have their place, but I am far from convinced that
"everything is an object" is a good idea (and yes, I know that this
isn't strictly true for C++).


Followup links:
Table oriented programming: http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/top.htm
Java Sucks: http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html
No Silver Bullet:
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SoftwareEngineering/BrooksNoSilverBullet.html
A Critique of C++: http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/c++_critique.html

BTW: We do free range chickens also. You've never had a real egg until
you've had a free range egg!

Fortunately, here's something that we can agree on! Our eggs are vastly
superior than anything you can buy out of the shops. Some might say it's
arrogant, but I prefer to think of it as accurate.

 

[Mark Carter]

It all depends upon you. If you use a great many .NET apps that
require the framework it is a decently organized pachage that is very
easily updated when necessary.

The idea is not to reinvent the wheel everytime a program is written,

Don't get my worng, I'm all for that!

I've never used lisp. How long would it take to write a program like
the paint program mentioned?

Oh no! In truth, it'd probably be problematical. Lisp does have it's
downsides. Probably the most severe ones would be: fragmentation of
implementations, commercial compilers which are too expensive, or free
ones which are comprehensive. I rarely deal with Lisp. My company
mandates Visual Basic (for Applications), and everything else I tend to
write in Python. To me, it is quite frustrating to try to use Lisp.
However, I appreciate the philosphy of Lisp. As a language design in
itself, it cannot be beat.

One thing, for instance, that p*sses me off about Java is that
everything is an object. Why?? What's so broken about the concept of a
plain, straightforward, ordinary function anyway? The problem here is
language hype. Paradigms. Object-orientation as the "one true religion".
Things like C++, Java, and now C# have really been sucked in by this.
Objects may have their place, but I am far from convinced that
"everything is an object" is a good idea (and yes, I know that this
isn't strictly true for C++).


Followup links:
Table oriented programming: http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/top.htm
Java Sucks: http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html
No Silver Bullet:
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SoftwareEngineering/BrooksNoSilverBullet.html
A Critique of C++: http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/c++_critique.html

BTW: We do free range chickens also. You've never had a real egg until
you've had a free range egg!

Fortunately, here's something that we can agree on! Our eggs are vastly
superior than anything you can buy out of the shops. Some might say it's
arrogant, but I prefer to think of it as accurate.

 

[Mark Carter]

It all depends upon you. If you use a great many .NET apps that
require the framework it is a decently organized pachage that is very
easily updated when necessary.

The idea is not to reinvent the wheel everytime a program is written,

Don't get my worng, I'm all for that!

I've never used lisp. How long would it take to write a program like
the paint program mentioned?

Oh no! In truth, it'd probably be problematical. Lisp does have it's
downsides. Probably the most severe ones would be: fragmentation of
implementations, commercial compilers which are too expensive, or free
ones which are comprehensive. I rarely deal with Lisp. My company
mandates Visual Basic (for Applications), and everything else I tend to
write in Python. To me, it is quite frustrating to try to use Lisp.
However, I appreciate the philosphy of Lisp. As a language design in
itself, it cannot be beat.

One thing, for instance, that p*sses me off about Java is that everything
is an object. Why?? What's so broken about the concept of a plain,
straightforward, ordinary function anyway? The problem here is language
hype. Paradigms. Object-orientation as the "one true religion". Things
like C++, Java, and now C# have really been sucked in by this. Objects
may have their place, but I am far from convinced that "everything is an
object" is a good idea (and yes, I know that this isn't strictly true for
C++).


Followup links:
Table oriented programming: http://www.geocities.com/tablizer/top.htm
Java Sucks: http://www.jwz.org/doc/java.html
No Silver Bullet:
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SoftwareEngineering/BrooksNoSilverBullet
..html
A Critique of C++:
http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/c++_critique.html

BTW: We do free range chickens also. You've never had a real egg until
you've had a free range egg!

Fortunately, here's something that we can agree on! Our eggs are vastly
superior than anything you can buy out of the shops. Some might say it's
arrogant, but I prefer to think of it as accurate.

 

[Mark Carter]

My apologies. I appear to be making multiple posts. I've noticed lately
that Thunderbird version 0.9 (20041103) is giving me posting difficulties.
I find that if I try to reply to a post, and take some time doing so, it
presents a progress bar, but never seems to complete the connection and
send the post. I'm on broadband, so I shouldn't be hanging up, or anything.

I'm now posting this message in XNews, which does not appear to be giving
problems.

Anyone else get the same problem?

 

[Tim Weaver]

Mark Carter wrote:

I'm on broadband, so I shouldn't be hanging up, or anything.

If you were, that would really suck.

 

[/3iff //ullins]

The link is *snipped*

garbage.

 

[Bob Adkins]

Computing science hasn't advanced, it's just been progressively caked in
layers of detritus. That's how Microsoft wants it. That's how all
commercial outfits want it. After all, where's the money in writing
software that anyone can reproduce? It's all so horribly wrong from an
engineering point of view.

Do you think MS really wants it that way, or is forced to settle for all the
bilge due to a shortage of skilled programmers?

-- Bob

 

[Mark Carter]

Do you think MS really wants it that way, or is forced to settle for all the
bilge due to a shortage of skilled programmers?

My conclusion is that yes, they really do want it that way. Some time
ago, I was fiddling around with Hamster, an NNTP server, and
experimenting with NNTP clients using Scheme and Python. Python was able
to extract articles from the server, but Scheme was not. After
investigation, it turned out that Hamster does thing the Microsoft (i.e.
*wrong*) way, rather than implementing the relevant RFC standard (can't
quote which one off the top of my head) exactly. The Python library code
is able to cope with the non-conformance, but the Scheme library was
not. It implemented the standard exactly as specified. It all turned out
to be something in the way that lines were terminated.

Now, the RFC was quite specific about how lines were to be terminated.
It should not have been difficult for Microsoft to have conformed to the
RFC standard if they so chose. Tedious maybe, but quite doable. For
Microsoft to foul up on this takes either laziness, stupidity, or
malice. My vote goes on malice.

I did a quick Google on
microsoft "rich protocols"
It turned up
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2002/07-24netstrategy.asp

I counted the 27 words with the root "rich". It's always "rich
protocols", "rich documents", "rich graphics". The idea that something
should be simple would appear to be just too, well, simple.

You know, the guys that wrote the RFCs didn't write simple protocols
because they were lazy or lacking in imagination. They were interested
in writing protocols that were robust and as easy to implement as
possible.

In the future, I only see this getting worse. I read something a few
days ago that Microsoft wanted to oompf up it's browser to give it
"richer" features. It seems that Microsoft want Internet Explorer to be
able to run applications, probably over the 'net. So, the theory appears
to be that gone will be the days of writing Windows applications. It
will all be browser applications (and specifically Internet Explorer
applications).

This is a sorta interesting idea in theory, but what about the security
implications? Looks like a security disaster waiting to happen, if you
ask me. So then we'll have a "rich browsing experience", but then have
to disable it because it's a complete security nightmare. This is
typical Microsoft. There's sure to be more security disasters that hit
the TV headlines some time in the future. And everybody takes this as
all par for the course. Maybe, one day, the IT heads of big corporations
will finally wake up and wonder what the fsck is going on, and decide
that a switch to something more robust really is for the best. Then
Microsoft will be really screwed. On the other hand, that probably wont
happen.

 

[REM]

Mark Carter <[email protected]> wrote:

One thing, for instance, that p*sses me off about Java is that
everything is an object. Why?? What's so broken about the concept of a
plain, straightforward, ordinary function anyway? The problem here is
language hype. Paradigms. Object-orientation as the "one true religion".
Things like C++, Java, and now C# have really been sucked in by this.
Objects may have their place, but I am far from convinced that
"everything is an object" is a good idea (and yes, I know that this
isn't strictly true for C++).

I certainly have no problem with functions. I'm still grasping at
objects and tend to use them whenever I can. Without any practical
experience objects are a pain.

I've been trying to wrangle the xEarth program mentioned here awhile
back to be a bit more user friendly. Just exorcising the usage of the
registry is tough for me to do. I think I've made some progress though
and have two .ini files used in place of the registry. It seems overly
complex, but I'm pretty inexperienced. It's good exercise though. I'm
using the .NET C++, as my old VC++ 5.0 is not compatible with the
code.

A Critique of C++: http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/c++_critique.html

The author chooses C++ over C? I'd have thought the opposite.

Fortunately, here's something that we can agree on! Our eggs are vastly
superior than anything you can buy out of the shops. Some might say it's
arrogant, but I prefer to think of it as accurate.

Aye. It's a crying shame what is commercially sold. It really should
be mandated that an outside area for exercise and ranging be added to
all layer houses.

 

[REM]

garbage.

Because of .NET?