Max said:
I've failed in making any sense obviously. When I say Windows apps I mean
winforms, is that better? Sorry if I don't consider a .NET application as
an actual Windows application. COM yes, because it requires Windows. .NET
does not technically require Windows, it just happens that it's the only
OS line that it supports.
No, that's not correct. A WinForms application can easily be made with
..NET. It's not a choice between .NET and a WinForms app. You can do
WinForms in .NET. In fact, you can actually build a WinForm and host that
WinForm from within an ASP.NET Web Application (pretty cool stuff!). And,
actually yes, MS .NET does require Windows. There are 3rd party versions of
the .NET Framework (not supported by MS) that allow for .NET development on
non-Windows platforms, but that is not in the main stream and not what
people are talking about when you talk about .NET here.
But how can you say the .NET framework is going to make VB 6.0 obscelete?
I've not seen one major winform app built on .NET yet. I don't know, is
Office using .NET yet? It's great for server and web apps though. I've
been using it since beta.
As with any new technology, there will be a period of time (years) where
both exist. But as far as Windows development is concerned, VB 6.0 is now
considered a legacy language (version 6 is almost 10 years old if you count
the beta time as well).
Sure, it will be a while before you walk into CompUSA and purchase a new
piece of commerical software written solely in .NET, but it will happen.
One of the way MS is trying to accelerate that day is by making sure that
Windows automatically has the .NET Framework installed on it. They couldn't
get the Framework into XP when it first shipped, but by adding it to service
packs and making it available from the Windows Update site, they are sure to
get it on to millions of PC's. As a software developer, you don't build
client application on a platform that not many people have. But when many
people do have it, you are more likely to build for that platform. AS MS
gets the Framework on to more and more machines, you will start to see
commercially available software written in .NET. And while Office is not
written in .NET, Office 2003 does support VSA (Visual Studio for
Applications, which uses .NET).
As you point out, server applications work very well in .NET and that's why
the first "push" of .NET development has been in the Enterprise Software
markets.
I kinda look at .NET like Java. No one will really use it for winforms,
except for portability reasons, and this is true so far.
Well, I don't think it is true at all. Just post a message in this NG with
a subjet of "Anyone using .NET for WinForms Applications" and you'll see how
wrong you are on that.
Hope you prove me wrong though. MS seems to be placing a lot of effort
into pushing .NET winforms on us.
I don't know where you seem to be getting that impression. Could you
elaborate? MS thinks (and I believe, rightly so) that we are moving towards
a more server-centric (distributed computing) world and while .NET doesn't
require that, it has many features built into it for that kind of
developoment.
Hopefully everyone will figure out how to install it so we won't have to
open a call center in Jamaica just to support the install.
All there really is to install it is to shut down your AV software, have IIS
already installed and run setup.exe. If your firewall asks you whether or
not to allow the software, answer yes.