White Papers - VB.Net

[Dennis D.]

Back a few decades the proper way to learn a language began with a white
paper. Do they exist for dot net, or would a person begin by studying the
compiler specs? Guess what I'm asking is: Where does it all start?

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Back a few decades the proper way to learn a language began with a white

paper. Do they exist for dot net, or would a person begin by studying the
compiler specs? Guess what I'm asking is: Where does it all start?

Never saw that for a language can you give an example (although my
expirience with (program) languages is longer than a few decades)

Cor

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Back a few decades the proper way to learn a language began with a white
paper. Do they exist for dot net, or would a person begin by studying the
compiler specs? Guess what I'm asking is: Where does it all start?

From my FAQ:

If you want to take a quick look at Visual Basic, I currently would
install the Express beta and play around with it:

<URL:http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vbasic/>

Alternatively, you can order the trial version of VS.NET:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/trial/>

General information about VB can be found here:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/>

For beginners' tasks, VB at the Movies may be helpful:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/atthemovies/>

The Visual Basic .NET Resource Kit contains a test version of VS.NET,
some free components and a lot of training material:

<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/vbrkit/>

Quickstarts on various topics of the .NET Framework can be found here:

<URL:http://samples.gotdotnet.com/quickstart/>

For VB6 programmers, there are separate documents about the switch to
VB.NET:

VB.NET for VB Veterans
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/e...tiontovisualbasic70forvisualbasicveterans.asp>

 

[Arne Janning]

Back a few decades the proper way to learn a language began with a white
paper. Do they exist for dot net, or would a person begin by studying the
compiler specs? Guess what I'm asking is: Where does it all start?

Hi Dennis,

in addition to Herfried's great FAQ-collection there is an official Visual
Basic.NET Language Specification as well:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/vbls7/html/vbSpecStart.asp

Cheers

Arne Janning

 

[Dennis D.]

ADA, BASIC, and C all began with white papers, although finding them now
would be challenging.
Most people didn't bother with them, but those who did became the guru's of
the language(s).
The people who were designing the (schematics) hardware often became the
programmers, and their documentation began as white papers. The most elegant
solutions came from the people who thoroughly understood the technological
base (including the Mathematics), as is still the case.

D.
http://www.dennisys.com/

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

ADA, BASIC, and C all began with white papers, although finding them now
would be challenging.

So, what would you expect to be the content of such a white paper?

Product Information for Visual Basic .NET 2003
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/productinfo/>

Product Overview for Visual Basic .NET 2003
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/productinfo/overview/>

 

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

Dennis,
I just answered you in the "Functions: Passing multiple values" thread"

I believe there is a white paper for C# on MSDN, I don't know of a white
paper per se for VB.NET. For both C# & VB.NET I've reviewed the "compiler
spec" in MSDN. I find Paul Vick's book "The Visual Basic .NET Programming
Language" from Addison Wesley to be a much easier read then the "compiler
spec" on MSDN. Both are useful.

James S. Miller's "The Common Language Infrastructure Annotated Standard"
also from Addison Wesley, is the "CLI spec" with annotation, which provides
a good insight into how the CLI & CLR itself works...

Hope this helps
Jay

 

[Dennis D.]

Herfried:

The hardware white papers were written to explain the function(s) of
circuits. The software white papers were written to explain how the software
took advantage of the hardware functions.

Architecture was needed as the number of circuits increased. Often there
were pressures from the headshed to complete a project. There was not a lot
of (qualified) supervision either, so in many cases old circuits were not
redesigned or reallocated, they were simply branched out of use. Interesting
how the software follows the same pattern to this day. Makes me wonder how
many of the millions of circuits in the CPU's of today are actually
functional. NASA made some real engineering progress when the space program
required smaller components and versatile redundant circuitry.

Initially, the white papers were written primarily for and by system and
component developers. When the higher level languages appeared, they simply
followed the same documentation pattern of explaining how the language took
advantage of new hardware technology.

So I would expect the same today of a white paper. What hardware issues has
Basic, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.Net, or the Dot Net Platform addressed and
how, and what hardware issues has it not addressed. After that..., the
papers move into the language reference, which most people are familiar
with. If Dot Net is a new paradigm in addressing hardware technologies, then
I would expect a white paper explaining it from scratch.

I haven't been keeping up with the hardware design, but from a cursory look
engineers went in a non-traditional direction. That is, as people may have
pointed out, there are no white papers. That probably occurs because
Microsoft, and Intel and AMD, want to retain (conceal from the public) the
knowledge of their design engineers for their own benefit, which isn't
illegal. That's strange in a way, in that most of the 'headshed' couldn't
build a CPU if their life depended on it, so basically they don't understand
how their own software operates, and yet they will conceal it from the
public, thereby preventing further optimization that would benefit everyone.

Guess if I had my way I would start over from scratch and design nothing but
public domain hardware and software, and remove laws governing patented
circuit designs, hardware, and copyrighted software. I think it would be
better to sell the hardware and software at a reasonable price to more
people, and give people (the general public) the opportunity to improve it
to everyone's benefit. Would that drive them out of business? No, they just
would not make so much money. The wealth would be more widespread.

Thanks for the URL's Herfried. I own VB.Net 2003.

 

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

Dennis,

with. If Dot Net is a new paradigm in addressing hardware technologies,
then I would expect a white paper explaining it from scratch.

..NET is a virtual machine how it addresses hardware is largely an
implementation detail, implementation details are just that implementation
details. In other words how .NET is implemented under Linux is immaterial to
how it is implemented under Windows, or Mac OS X. As long as they all agree
with the CLI and base class library.

See http://www.mono-project.com/about/index.html for a Linux implementation
of .NET, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/07/SharedSourceCLI/
for a FreeBSD (Max OS X) reference implementation of .NET. NOTE: Rotor is
for academic use only.

Again I would refer you to the "Common Language Infrastructure" as that is
the "White Paper" of the virtual machine that VB.NET & C# are built upon.

You can either purchase the annotated book I referenced earlier, or you can
find the files in the "\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
2003\SDK\v1.1\Tool Developers Guide" folder for VS.NET 2003, look in
"\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET\FrameworkSDK\Tool Developers
Guide" for VS.NET 2002. Personally I would recommend the annotated book.

Hope this helps
Jay

Herfried:

The hardware white papers were written to explain the function(s) of
circuits. The software white papers were written to explain how the
software took advantage of the hardware functions.

Architecture was needed as the number of circuits increased. Often there
were pressures from the headshed to complete a project. There was not a
lot of (qualified) supervision either, so in many cases old circuits were
not redesigned or reallocated, they were simply branched out of use.
Interesting how the software follows the same pattern to this day. Makes
me wonder how many of the millions of circuits in the CPU's of today are
actually functional. NASA made some real engineering progress when the
space program required smaller components and versatile redundant
circuitry.

Initially, the white papers were written primarily for and by system and
component developers. When the higher level languages appeared, they
simply followed the same documentation pattern of explaining how the
language took advantage of new hardware technology.

So I would expect the same today of a white paper. What hardware issues
has Basic, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.Net, or the Dot Net Platform
addressed and how, and what hardware issues has it not addressed. After
that..., the papers move into the language reference, which most people
are familiar with. If Dot Net is a new paradigm in addressing hardware
technologies, then I would expect a white paper explaining it from
scratch.

I haven't been keeping up with the hardware design, but from a cursory
look engineers went in a non-traditional direction. That is, as people may
have pointed out, there are no white papers. That probably occurs because
Microsoft, and Intel and AMD, want to retain (conceal from the public) the
knowledge of their design engineers for their own benefit, which isn't
illegal. That's strange in a way, in that most of the 'headshed' couldn't
build a CPU if their life depended on it, so basically they don't
understand how their own software operates, and yet they will conceal it
from the public, thereby preventing further optimization that would
benefit everyone.

Guess if I had my way I would start over from scratch and design nothing
but public domain hardware and software, and remove laws governing
patented circuit designs, hardware, and copyrighted software. I think it
would be better to sell the hardware and software at a reasonable price to
more people, and give people (the general public) the opportunity to
improve it to everyone's benefit. Would that drive them out of business?
No, they just would not make so much money. The wealth would be more
widespread.

Thanks for the URL's Herfried. I own VB.Net 2003.

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Not special to Jay.

The hardware white papers were written to explain the function(s) of
circuits. The software white papers were written to explain how the software
took advantage of the hardware functions.

I think that with a lot of languages there where never white papers written,
while with some others "Cobol" by instance they are extremely made however I
do not call those white papers more a language desctiption, I lost the name
of that what it was with Cobol, because that was extremely regulated.White
papers are for me more the idea, however maybe that is my own perception of
white papers. With this text not denying your text.

Architecture was needed as the number of circuits increased. Often there
were pressures from the headshed to complete a project. There was not a lot>

Makes me wonder how many of the millions of circuits
in the CPU's of today are actually functional.

Exactly my thought when the CPU is used by not in direct in a machine
language written programs.

So I would expect the same today of a white paper. What hardware issues
has Basic, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.Net, or the Dot Net Platform addressed and
how, and what hardware issues has it not addressed. After that..., the
papers move into the language reference, which most people are familiar
with. If Dot Net is a new paradigm in addressing hardware technologies,

then
About your other text what I agree, would we not have than to talk about the
description IL -> hardware and Language -> IL in this concept?

Cor

 

[Dennis D.]

Thanks Jay,
The response was an answer to the question:
"So, what would you expect to be the content of such a white paper?",
that Herfried asked.

Right now I'm into one of those "What happened to my order?" of Coding
Techniques for MSVB.Net by John Connell. I have the Murach Beginning VB.net,
Balena's Programming MSVB.Net, and the MS Language Ref, + just a big bunch
of URL's, so I'm coding and reading at the same time.

I just previewed the Common Language Infrastructure Annotated Standard, and
revisited the Windows API docs. This is good timing after 8 months of
familiarization with the language. The CLI-AS is what I was looking for,
without reference to the Windows API and COM services. I'm guessing this
will feed into the .Net architecture documentation.

One message I got real fast was that larger systems have more documentation.
No more reading a few 'white papers' to get the required knowledge to begin
working in the technology. More like reading the whole library these days.
One chunk at a time I guess.

Thanks again Jay.

Dennis.
http://dennisys.com

 

[Dennis D.]

COR hello:

"If Dot Net is a new paradigm in addressing hardware technologies"
I was wrong in making this statement because, as Jay noted, Dot Net is a
virtual machine with it's architectural layers existing on top of the
Windows API and COM services.

If I wanted to read about the hardware interfaces, then the documents would
be found with the individual operating system at the technical level. White
papers are technical documents, or at least they were. I haven't read any
lately (except maybe the W3C technical specifications), so I don't know how
the format has changed.

D.
http://dennisys.com/

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

The response was an answer to the question:
"So, what would you expect to be the content of such a white paper?",
that Herfried asked.

Thank you for the long and detailed explanation.

I just previewed the Common Language Infrastructure Annotated Standard, and
revisited the Windows API docs. This is good timing after 8 months of
familiarization with the language. The CLI-AS is what I was looking for,
without reference to the Windows API and COM services. I'm guessing this
will feed into the .Net architecture documentation.

One message I got real fast was that larger systems have more documentation.
No more reading a few 'white papers' to get the required knowledge to begin
working in the technology. More like reading the whole library these days.
One chunk at a time I guess.

 

[Dennis D.]

Sorry. I'm a warehouse laborer, so I don't always have the mindset to write
short, consise, and studied answers, but I can do that on weekends after
dumping the company baggage and getting down to what I enjoy doing. The
exercise was not in vain. There is the answer, and it was worth the effort.

Thanks Herfried for your devotion to this newsgroup and the people who use
it. This is the best reference in a pinch, and it's always full of good
VB.net information.

Dennis D.
http://dennisys.com/