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The current generation of the product our team is working on was built using VC6/Win2K. I'm the self-described team evangelist. While the released version of the product will continue to be maintained using VC6 and targeted to Win2K, the next version (hopefully) will be built using VS.NET and running on WinXP. I've already started moving my parts of the product in that direction.
It shouldn't be too hard a sell to get my boss(es) to agree to this. Engineering management here has been bitten too many times by not keeping pace with current technology. For example, one of our (still selling) products runs under MS-DOS , and another runs on OS/2 . We still have to maintain them to allow the customer to continue to use the hardware that these apps are controlling.
Too many times developers here seem to disdain new technologies, saying "Oh, that will reduce performance" or "We don't need to be able to do that". For example, .NET would not seem to be very useful for us (we build machine control apps). Not so! Building web capabilities in our apps would let our customers do remote management and accounting from their desktops. Right now, they have to shutdown production to do these things, because they have to do them at the application. I try to advocate people keeping an open mind about these things.
Gary R. Wheeler
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I agree we need additional positions.
If new technology never provides a new benefit I am not going to work to implement it (ever). If new technology shows hugh benefit I will work on being an early adapter.
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
If new technology never provides a new benefit I am not going to work to implement it (ever). If new technology shows hugh benefit I will work on being an early adapter.
Michael I respect you opinion,
But how can you tell in advance whether the new technology will benifit you without investigating it.
I find I'm continually following leads on new technologies, and most of the time they are not worth while. But occasionally I strike it lucky and it is definitly worth while.
BTW:
I have studied .NET enthusiastically whilst I can't afford Visual.NET and am still not convinced by it.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
28 th Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr#
Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
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Colin
Colin Davies wrote:
But how can you tell in advance whether the new technology will benifit you without investigating it.
I think we agree here. Please note that I said "implement" or put it into practice. I spend quite a lot of time investigating options that end with the investigation.
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
I think we agree here. Please note that I said "implement" or put it into practice. I spend quite a lot of time investigating options that end with the investigation.
OK, sorry it was my misreading of your Post, Sorry.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
28 th Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr#
Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
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where do you keep your women?
- Matt Newman
-Sonork ID: 100.11179:BestSnowman
Frankly AOL should stick to what it does best: Fooling millions of americans into believing that it, AOL, is the web. -Paul Watson
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Whoops, didn't see it was already posted.
- Matt Newman
-Sonork ID: 100.11179:BestSnowman
Frankly AOL should stick to what it does best: Fooling millions of americans into believing that it, AOL, is the web. -Paul Watson
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I have noticed a disturbing trend. Fully 9 times out of 10 with these polls my answer ranks in a max scoring answer of 10%.
Once again, I voted bleeding edge (it honestly is boredom) and am out there with only a handful of others.
Just thought I would share that thought with you and let you vote on whether I have lost all touch with reality or not
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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I voted bleeding edge too.
I get bored very easily with coding. Once I've written something once I like to move onto something new. Sadly my working life has been spent either writing database applications or writing telephony apps. Both get very boring, very quickly.
At least .NET gives me a chance to do something a little different with database apps. I am also going to have a lot of fun figuring out how I can get C# to talk to TAPI and other telephony interfaces.
Michael
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I voted pragmatic. While I might be tempted to try out new stuff like this at home, it's just too expensive, and sitting for hours at a computer at home right after coming home from work is less than appealing, too.
There is no way we'll try anything .NET at work until it has been out in the real world for a while, has had a few service packs, etc. Changing compilers in the middle of a project at all, let alone to one that is brand new, is just asking for trouble.
So if it looks like .NET starts to become more accepted and mainstream, then I'll start leaning more about it. Until then though, I'll sticl with VC6.0 and good old C++.
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
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Paul Watson wrote:
Just thought I would share that thought with you and let you vote on whether I have lost all touch with reality or not
Well, you _are_ a VB Developer, so why do you ask?
- Anders
Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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I fail to see how this issue has anything to do with being or not being conservative in your approach to technology. I suppose I'm pretty damned conservative when it comes to anything, including technology. Yet, I think .Net contains some very interesting new technologies which are worth being explored.
As a technology, if it lives up to the hype, it will open new doors, offering new opportunities to provide customers with better ways to resolve *some* of their needs. But it is certainly not going completely change the software needs of the world at large.
It is not going to simplify development to any great extent. Things that are simple are still going to be simple and things that are complex are still going to be complex. Anyone who could not design a complex app with an unmanaged language is still not going to be able to do it in a managed one.
C++ will remain the best tool for general desk top design of large applications. That is not a conservative statement, it is simply a practical one. People who design such applications would by nuts to change to (managed).Net/C# except where it makes sense in relation to issues pertinent to internet connectivity.
"Thank you, thank you very much" Elvis.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Net/C# except where it makes sense in relation to issues pertinent to internet connectivity.
I may rave on about .NET but it is exactly that, internet connectivity, which is what makes me rave on
And IMHO the number of desktop app types which do not need internet connectivity is dropping to single figures. This whole "connected" way may not lead to easier, faster etc. apps, but it is leading to more useful and productive apps.
What kind of apps now a days do not need internet connectivity?
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Paul Watson wrote:
What kind of apps now a days do not need internet connectivity?
In fact I am observing that trend to "go on the web" with all the apps for a while, heck I am making one of these myself in my work.
Generally most of them don't need the internet connectivity per se. It's just that managers think they do.
Paul Watson wrote:
This whole "connected" way may not lead to easier, faster etc. apps, but it is leading to more useful and productive apps.
Funny is how the harder and slower app can actually lead to more useful and productive app?
Maybe it's easier to develop, but generally it seems like an issue with deployment. Eg. it's easier to use the browser as a host for your app assuming that eveybody has one installed already. However that is an illusion - in practice browsers have their own quirks and are very unpleasant to run within. Some behaviour will alter between the versions and all together it comes to the same hassle as before, but now it's "web-based"...
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George wrote:
Funny is how the harder and slower app can actually lead to more useful and productive app?
I was being a lazy typer. I meant that this whole connected way may not lead to faster and easier development but it is leading to the end app being more useful and productive, IMHO.
Also even the simple web has made me a more productive and skilled developer. Not a chance would I be half the developer I am (stop sniggering in the back) without the web and it's vast throbbing mass of information which can be turned into knowledge.
George wrote:
Eg. it's easier to use the browser as a host for your app assuming that eveybody has one installed already. However that is an illusion - in practice browsers have their own quirks and are very unpleasant to run within. Some behaviour will alter between the versions and all together it comes to the same hassle as before, but now it's "web-based"...
Well deployment is easier with web-apps, no two ways about that. It is the work you have to do to support un-specified configurations which is the hard bit in contrast to "normal" apps.
If IE 6.01 does a funny quirk on a page on my machine, then you can be pretty sure it will do it on your machine and everyone elses. Not always, but most of the time. So that is better than "vbrun.dll wont register, no I tried that, and that, and that, oh no I havent tried that... doesnt work... come onsite", repeat for 40% of all desktops your app will be installed on.
IMHO the browser will actually fade away. While I can make a web-UI in a browser the equal of a windows app's UI it is sheer bloody minded hard work and not worth it. Rather windows apps will become more web and internet aware, using the internet and web resources in better ways. .NET helps in this by making trans-internet communication a snap to do, and by using what standards we have. Other .NET like initiatives also do this.
I just don't see many app types now a days which could not benefit from communication technology over the internet. Prime example is what they did with MS Money. It went from a bog standard, rather pitiful, glorified calculator to quite a useful and beneficial financial planner just by using information from the internet, like bank integration, quote prices, product prices and financial news. Other apps can do it to, if they just understand the power of information.
Anyway, my 2 cents
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Paul Watson wrote:
What kind of apps now a days do not need internet connectivity?
Probably about the same percentage that didn't need it before .Net, certainly the same percentage that got by just fine without COM. For those that do need it, many probably can get by just fine with old fashioned client/server technologies (sockets). I can't think of a single app I've worked on for the last ten years that would have benefited from allowing the user to access the internet.
I really think whats going to happen is that a lot of products are going to be offered to provide slick internet connectivity and the users are going to shrug and say "Damn, if I wanted to go to the internet I would have just used my browser!"
Right now, I'm on the verge of declaring .Net (at least for MFC apps) to be an absolute pile of dog crap. It seems to be extordinarily buggy and poorly designed. I've been trying to create a simple context menu for two hours and the resource ID's after I compile are not what I defined in the resource editor. Aaaarrrrgggg!
"Thank you, thank you very much" Elvis.
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I personally have not been sold on .NET but the concepts are where we need to go.
Paul Watson wrote:
This whole "connected" way may not lead to easier, faster etc. apps, but it is leading to more useful and productive apps.
This really is the point. Just because apps did not need connectivity does not mean that hugh benefits will not be gained by getting connectivity.
In my area of work the development of better solutions has lead to now about 70% of the effort is in getting data to the application and not running it. As we change this manual effort into one that is guided to valid data source we can cut that 70% by a significant factor.
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Now like it has been discussed below, some people may be using the text entry field as a search box, thus I can understand "barcode", "image processing" and even "honestech code", but where do you keep your women? That is just taking the Michael... John, please don't misuse the polling feature!
________________
David Wulff
http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Sonork ID: 100.9977 Dave, CPUA: 0x0b0b
Contents of my clipboard:
Barclays Visa Connect - 4936-3503-2 -- sh*t, I'd better edit the rest out...
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David Wulff wrote:
but where do you keep your women? That is just taking the Michael
or Michelle, if you will...
Actually I believe it is a legitimate search phrase. Obviously it is another lonley hearts CPian looking for advice that is all things female related. Though I think he/she is looking at it from a very male chauvinistic point of view, as if we keep them locked up! Hah! Everyone knows we let them out at least twice a day.
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Uh I didn't know that... that's why mine are looking so pale recently.... but I like it.
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peterchen wrote:
but I like it.
I couldn't disagree more. I love a well tanned women, it truly enhances her beauty. White-as-a-sheet scared-of-sunlight girls just do not do it for me.
But then I live in Africa and the temperature right now is 37 degrees Celcius, so no wonder I like tanned girls
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
"The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Sonork ID: 100.9903 Stormfront
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Now we all realise this is a quote from the Blues Brothers, right ?
It's probably worth keeping in mind that some of us have made CP a way of life, while others are yet to be fully assimilated. Giving the latter group the ability to type ANYTHING into a poll is likely to generate a number of 'joke' answers that really don't deserve analysis. ( Yes, I realised this AFTER starting a thread on it below ).
Christian
I have come to clean zee pooollll. - Michael Martin Dec 30, 2001
Picture the daffodil. And while you do that, I'll be over here going through your stuff.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Now we all realise this is a quote from the Blues Brothers, right ?
Way before my time...
________________
David Wulff
http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
Sonork ID: 100.9977 Dave
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David Wulff wrote:
Way before my time...
The Blues Brothers is a must hire. Blues Brothers 2000 is a must burn, but buy the soundtrack anyway.
The Blues Brothers ? They still owe you money, fool !!
This is glue. Strong stuff....
That ain't no Hank William's song.
We're on a mission from God.
Christian
The tragedy of cyberspace - that so much can travel so far, and yet mean so little.
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Christian Graus wrote:
We're on a mission from God.
Brings back memories.
Jon Sagara
What about ?
Sonork ID: 100.9999 jonsagara
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