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Speaking of COBOL, if you know who Grace Hopper is, I was actually in her office in the basement of the Pentagon once.
The fundamental design of COBOL is good; it was intended to be understood by non-programmers. Most other languages, like C/C++ and PHP, are too cryptic and peculiar.
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Sam Hobbs wrote: I was actually in her office in the basement of the Pentagon once.
That's an experience I'd swap for a lot.
The best thing about COBOL is that it was optimised specifically for handling financial data, so it's blistering fast, when used in that field. The only language that can even come near to keeping up with it is C (with no plusses, sharps, etc.)
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I should have returned to Grace Hopper's office sometime when she was there and told her I wanted more challenging work. I did not think about that back then but my life would have been different if I had done that. At the time I was working in the Pentagon but I had very, very little to do.
As for COBOL, we need a language with similar requirements but improved with modern advances. I don't know what the current standard is but it is probably held back by COBOL's legacy. I think it would be interesting to design a language based on COBOL's design and used in internet servers like PHP. It could be and should be more professional than PHP.
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COBOL was held back be by the fact that it became one of the major languages to be used for banking; and those guys just don't handle advances the way everyone else can.
I'm still jealous as Hell of the people you had access to, though, even though it's hindsight that gives me the possibility of such jealousy -- you can't tell something will be thought of as amazing in the future, when you're living through it day by day.
It's good to know that I know someone who was there. Kudos.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I don't think I ever talked with Grace Hopper directly. I attended a presentation by her. She gave all the participants a nanosecond. I was in the Army. I also wish I had appreciated Grace Hopper back then.
As for COBOL, it is more appropriate to say "financial" instead of "banking". However COBOL was used substantially by non-financial companies such as aircraft manufacturers. The engineering and manufacturing systems of aircraft such as the L-1011 and the F-22 Raptor ATF were all COBOL. So it is probably more appropriate to say "business" instead of "financial" and it is called Common Business-Oriented Language. You are right that it is neither scientific-oriented nor software-oriented (as in operating systems and compilers). The C language was designed to include software-oriented uses.
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Spoken like one who is "Truly" outside the loop.
I love the "Oh, we're dumping ReactJS. We've rewritten it completely with only "Small" breaking changes.
YEAH, let's go AngularJS the "More versions than fleas on a baboon" language. Pick one you will like. uh, no that one is now obsolete.
Besides, browsers are soooooo stable across platforms they should be declared a standard..... Actually there are so many standards you can't keep up with them.
You are probably right....
Having a true write once and just change the IO's to match the op system language and platform is probably a pipe dream....
Oh, wait...
I already have it working using ASP.NET Core.......
I know, I know,,,, Raspberry pi is really not a computer.........
Actually it is, and is very stable if you use a 2 amp dongle.
So C# and a PI talking to an MVC app running in the cloud is a lot of fun......
But MS is sooo confused.
Yes, they are probably just stupid to make almost all of their releases of software backwards compatible which protects everyone's investments in IP.
I know being open source is so stupid and letting the user community submit enhancements is way dumb..... But they plod along just the same.....
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I can only say one thing...
If you want to write something... do it. It can't be worst than some of the stuff is getting approved lately.
There are some million users of CP, I guess someone will find useful what you post.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I would like to answer your title in a simple sentence: UWP is, in no way, better than WPF. Period.
Then, as for your for articles, come on man! Keep them coming.  The thing is, that entire of the Windows Runtime was developed on top of async/await pattern, now that pattern requires a lot of configuration, the configuration of the way we think, we develop, we debug, and we release the application. Not the configuration of software etc. There is nothing different, or confusing. If you want to be a better developer at Windows Runtime, I recommend be a hardcore async/await developer. I mean it.
1) Didn't they have problems with Windows 8, Windows 8.1? How about Aero effects? How about the other versions. People don't like change. And developers, they hate change. Because, at least for me, we have to change or upgrade, or migrate or sometimes rebuild everything just because SDK changed.
2) I don't have Hypervisor as I don't like it. I personally prefer VirtualBox, and as for testing, I consider writing good code, instead of breaking a live or virtual app.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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I've heard of people using virtual box with the windows phone image is their a converter app out their that does that? Well, I mean linking it to the xde app (somebody in the article I read awhile back was doing registry hacks though). Personally, I like getting msdnaa software for free. I plan on going back to school and learning more about computer science as I get older.
jeffery
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jeffery c wrote: using virtual box with the windows phone image
That would be worst thing to do. Don't do it. 
1) It would be extremely slow.
2) Even if you could get something like x86 around with that, there would be a lot of consequences.
3) Those who do it, are IT guys. They don't know anything of programming. All they care about is that blue logo of Windows.
In case if you really have to, consider Hyper-V, as that is the platform they require you to use, and there is a method where you can setup booting where you can (when working) boot with Hyper-V enabled, and (when at home, or not working) boot with Hyper-V inactive. Otherwise, consider an online solution.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan wrote: The thing is, that entire of the Windows Runtime was developed on top of async/await pattern
I thought that was a fantastic improvement, but the fact that it only runs on W10 (I finally have a laptop that uses W10 that I purchased a couple months ago) was a total showstopper for me in bothering to even learn more about it.
Marc
Latest Article - Merkle Trees
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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Marc Clifton wrote: bothering to even learn more about it.
Let me tell you what I learnt in my past 6 months, or literally-hair-pulling-ly-rough-experience, it works fine and in 2 different ways.
- You don't use async/await at all. You perform all the operations synchronously.
- You write every function call, with an await operator. That way, most of the errors (such as Illegal operation, Invalid state) etc would go away.
I would go with the second one, but like you said, it still requires us to learn more about it. I built one of my application, 1.5 years ago, which had 0 async await applied, because I did not know anything. But, I was working on another application a few weeks back, and since I knew async/await, I mistakenly added a few function calls as awaited. After that, it forced me to make sure every call in the stack was awaited, otherwise,
- Illegal state
- Invalid operation
- Infinite loop
Were only a few of the problems to tackle and work on. I think, in the next update Microsoft should work on these things, to make sure asynchrony is managed by OS itself and even being a feature of language, stays as a pain of the kernel only.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan wrote: I think, in the next update Microsoft should work on these things, to make sure asynchrony is managed by OS itself and even being a feature of language, stays as a pain of the kernel only.
I'm not convinced this is reasonably possible. I assume when you say "asynchrony is managed by OS itself" you are saying the OS should re-use a blocking thread's time-slice? How would you maintain state then for the blocking code? If you save the stacks, registers, etc before loading the new code then you're still basically performing a context-switch with even more overhead. The OS/hardware is already both asynchronous and multi-threaded from its standpoint. The hardware has a specific number of cores ("threads") and the OS switches out kernel threads ("tasks") to make best use of them including suspending blocking kernel threads. Abstracting out these kernel threads into another thread/task pattern is of no concern to the OS and rightfully so.
The language being asynchronous would be possible but I'm not convinced it would be a benefit. Multi-threaded applications might rely on the main thread being synchronous which would no longer be a guarantee. Just enabling asynchrony by default might be an alright idea. You could just wrap the return in a Task<T> under the covers. If the function doesn't use await then it'll just run synchronously.
public class Whatever
{
public async Task<int> ReturnTwoSynchronously() => 2;
public int ReturnTwoSynchronously2() => 2;
}
At the end of the day though, is it worth the effort? My opinion - probably not.
modified 22-Apr-17 22:46pm.
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Oh, some good points. 
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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For you old C/C++ devs: await is the new const correctness.
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To answer the question of what I think about UWP, I think that it is built upon legacy technology. It is my understanding that the async/await mess is partially the result of the limitations of the message loop. If someone can explain async/await in a manner that makes clear when we need to use it then that will be popular. For example the clipboard in UWP requires async/await in many places but everywhere else the clipboard does not require threads or waiting (except waiting on the user). I don't understand why UWP needs async/await so much except (1) the message loop for some reason and (2) it is in a separate environment that requires additional security beyond the classical Windows process.
I think Java also has async/await; does it? Is it as confusing as UWP is as far as async/await?
The requirements for UWP probably go beyond the current design of Windows. Probably Microsoft needs to write another operating system to support the requirements. IBM has developed many operating systems but Microsoft has designed, at most, two operating systems. IBM had an operating system they called the Event Driven Executive; it is probably not relevant here except that the concept of being event-driven is not new. In many ways, Microsoft's technology is behind that of half a century ago and UWP is weighed down by that.
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Sam Hobbs wrote: In many ways, Microsoft's technology is behind that of half a century ago and UWP is weighed down by that
LOL, reminds me back in my younger days [as an employee] was often required to attend microsoft presentations. I recall one in particular when they introduced "multithreading" (demo: one window set to crash, the other carries on.) (This demo of "brand new tech" was about 10 minutes into an after lunch presentation - at that point I shook my head and left - not back to the office but went home)
It was something I knew was already 25+ years old (FFS I had a 'nix running on my own home pc).
What sticks in my mind though is the room full of people oohed and aahed over that demo, and were still talking about it the next day back at work.
so while true that ms never bring anything new,
where they usually [too often] excel is in bringing these things to the market.
usually excel as in: there are items even in android/iphone that ms did earlier (not first), .... but they lost the phone battle.
(OT - rant: it was 100% their sucky interface that looked just like the same sucky interface on windows 8 (was that uwp 1.0?) that failed their phone. Today it's the win 10 uwp (2.0beta?) that is mostly responsible for hobbling win 10 adoption and killing pc sales; it will also [if not -has already-] wreck their next attempt at a phone. Yes some people like the look, but then again some people drive pink cars. nad's biggest fail is and always will be this insistence on keeping this fugly uwp.
Sin tack
the any key okay
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Looking in Wikipedia (which is not always reliable but is useful for this) multitasking was available beginning about 1964. Even back then, processors were faster than peripheral hardware so the benefits of multitasking was obvious.
Not relevant to Microsoft, but I once saw a presentation for Artificial Intelligence programmers about a new way to design software. It was old stuff for other types of programmers.
Microsoft's tendency to deliver things to the world is not always good; their focus on Basic instead of superior technology, such as Pascal, is unfortunate. If I had a choice of Basic or COBOL as they existed at the time, COBOL was far superior. If performance was the consideration, Pascal was explicitly designed to show that something better was possible that could perform equivalent to Basic.
Most people do not realize how much of what Microsoft developed in their earlier years came from outside Microsoft, such as from IBM and Unix.
The one innovation that Microsoft did help with could be dynamic linking. Unix did not have it at the time; I forget if OS/2 did but it probably did.
As I mentioned previously, and in the context of UWP, I wonder how much of the async/await mess is unique to Microsoft.
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I am sure many people here would read your articles, and learn from your experiences !
The questions always on my mind are:
1. what does it offer me now, and in the future ?
2. what does it cost in terms of "learning curve," set-up, deployment ?
3. what resources are available to get oriented, and start developing ?
4. to what extent can current skills be re-used ?
cheers, Bill
«When I consider my brief span of life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, now rather than then.» Blaise Pascal
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Sorry bill about the mess (flips his coin like Han solo in the cantana to bill), I will make up for up for it with an article here soon. Some people here must be older programmers to know what the nuclear systems are written in.
jeffery
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NASA had to re-purpose its existing computers whenever a new satellite was launched.
I know for a fact that these were programmed in assembler as that is the fastest language to execute programs in.
The programs that processed the data streamed by the satellites were themselves written in assembler.
In addition, real-time operating systems were written for machines that you could swear couldn't support such OS for lack of even minimal hardware support.
All of this in the 1970s.
Been there, done that.
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jeffery c wrote: If I post some code here and articles would people be interested in UWP?
Yep, definitely. I've got an existing Xamarin app that runs on iOS and Droid, but I've been toying with the idea of creating a UWP app with it as well (for desktop/laptop machines).
I don't know much about UWP (been a bit busy with porting my ASP.NET app over to .NET Core and coding the Xamarin apps) so it'll be interesting to see what it can do and whether it's suitable for my needs.
Now is it bad enough that you let somebody else kick your butts without you trying to do it to each other? Now if we're all talking about the same man, and I think we are... it appears he's got a rather growing collection of our bikes.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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It's not popular and is used by very few people/companies today. I had considered writing an article series on it last year and then decided against it. If you've got them drafted already, I'd say post them - don't expect a lot of feedback though, outside of casual 5 votes.
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I like what Microsoft is trying to do with UWP apps. It's the only game in town if you want to run the same application on both your desktop and mobile device. The only problem is that there aren't enough Windows 10 Mobile users to drive the demand for UWP apps. If Windows 10 Mobile could get just 20% of the mobile market it would change everything.
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With Windows Phone completely dead right now, my personal opinion of UWP / .NET Native is that it's a huge pain in the ass and not worth using at the moment except for very limited use cases. I'm personally of the opinion that WPF is a better solution for *almost* every application with many less "gotchas". As you've noted, you can still get it into the store with their converter.
The thing that really kills UWP for me is lack of emit and code gen, which I use extensively. Reflection also becomes painful.
The desktop to store app converter is pretty brilliant. It's great.
I wish they would kill UWP / .NET Native and put the resources into coming up with a better solution that doesn't rely on native compilation. Android seems to be doing just fine without it.
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