Has it come to this?
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Paul Watson wrote: But for Photoshop? For an IDE? Why can't the Photoshop or VS.NET IDE user-interface be described in XML? As long as the rendering engine isn't limited by the control types it supports. Using XML defined u/i with C# assemblies plugged in to give the flexibilty that we programmers need, I don't see why it can't work. Lets face it, VB programmers have been writing their apps this way for ever. A VB form is just a text file describing the position, size and colour of controls with ActiveX providing the plugin support for new and different controls. If this kind of functionality is available straight out of the Windows box, but with the full spectrum of the .NET framework and languages. I don't see why this is going to be a bad thing at all. It's what I've been trying to write for the past few weeks on Win32, because for the vast majority of business data applications it is the way forward. Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
Lets face it, VB programmers have been writing their apps this way for ever. A VB form is just a text file describing the position, size and colour of controls with ActiveX providing the plugin support for new and different controls. And could you please refference me to any commercial strength product written by MSFT/others that has Phoshop/IDE power and complitely written in VB???... "...Ability to type is not enough to become a Programmer. Unless you type in VB. But then again you have to type really fast..." Me
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So this guy is totally wrong? "...Microsoft made a HUGE bet on .NET with the next version of Windows. How huge! I doubt there are any new traditional Win32 API calls; they are all managed. Like it or not, you will be dragged into .NET; you will have to deal with managed code. Virtually everything in the OS is being rewritten in managed code. The new shell is managed, which I also think will make it easier for developers to extend, who can simply inherit from shell objects..." I am not a low level programmer, never want to be, so am just asking questions here and will probably take your word for it :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Miszou wrote: I have read the entire internet. on how boring his day was. Crikey! ain't life grand?
Paul Watson wrote: So this guy is totally wrong? Just extremely naive. Somewhere .NET has to make actual calls to a native API. Microsoft is a lot of things, but resource stupid they aren't. They aren't going to rewrite "virtually everything in the OS." They don't have time and what's the point? (And, I know this hard for some people to understand, the shell isn't the OS.) Microsoft has always been intent on supporting backward compatibility. Ergo, Win32 as of XP at least will very much still exist. Developers WON'T "have to deal with managed code" (it may be there and do things whether you like it or not, but you won't have to "deal" with it.) (Plus, this is at odds of other statements MS has made to the effect that if you aren't using managed code, that's okay, you can get to this functionality through COM objects.) Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Paul Watson wrote: So this guy is totally wrong? Just extremely naive. Somewhere .NET has to make actual calls to a native API. Microsoft is a lot of things, but resource stupid they aren't. They aren't going to rewrite "virtually everything in the OS." They don't have time and what's the point? (And, I know this hard for some people to understand, the shell isn't the OS.) Microsoft has always been intent on supporting backward compatibility. Ergo, Win32 as of XP at least will very much still exist. Developers WON'T "have to deal with managed code" (it may be there and do things whether you like it or not, but you won't have to "deal" with it.) (Plus, this is at odds of other statements MS has made to the effect that if you aren't using managed code, that's okay, you can get to this functionality through COM objects.) Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Cool, thanks for the explanation Joe, appreciate it. Someday I may have to do more windows app dev than I do now and it is good to at least keep tabs on what is going on. Back to my web-dev sandpit I go. :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Miszou wrote: I have read the entire internet. on how boring his day was. Crikey! ain't life grand?
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Christopher Duncan wrote: The Future (tm) appears to be a world where everything exists within a browser. No - now instead of forcing users to download software, go through an install, reboot the computer, then start our standalone .exe, we have the option to deploy through a browser. Believe it or not, more software is distributed through the net than sold off the shelf on CD-ROM. All I can say is, it's about friggen time. I've been experimenting with HREF'd .exe inside IE and it's still very akward to do. Giving developers a real option of deploying apps through the web is godsend to me. Christopher Duncan wrote: Is this just Internet trendiness? Or are they trying to dumb down programming so that anyone who can start Front Page is considered a software developer? At the current rate, computer programming and word processing are going to become synonyms. Wrong - nothing replaces sound development planning and implementation. Your argument is nothing new though; I remember hearing these same cries when VB started becoming popular. Christopher Duncan wrote: We have incredible horsepower at our disposal with the machines we run today. Instead of a massive effort to reduce programming to the point where any chimpanzee can bang on the keyboard and create a chimpanzee quality app, why can't we push the envelope in the other direction and create ever more powerful technologies to accomplish greater things, along with the tools that let intelligent and capable programmers do their jobs? Quality chimpanzee apps will never be quality apps. Why create simpler technologies? Because simpler is better! Don't like simple? Go develope a COM app in pure C. Enjoy, see ya around in 5 years, masochist. Windows development is getting easier and faster because Microsoft learned a lesson with Java: the gem that people prefer to do things the easier way. To say, "Back in my day we did things the real, tough way, real quality and real men yahda yahda" makes you sound like an old WWII vet cranking on about how things were better "back in the day." To our fortune, .Net and rapid application development is here to stay. Hop on or learn Unix. The graveyards are filled with indispensible men.
Judah H. wrote: To our fortune, .Net and rapid application development is here to stay. Hop on or learn Unix. My love hate relationship with linux/unix is what drove me to .NET :) Jared jparsons@jparsons.org www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte477n
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Christopher Duncan wrote: The Future (tm) appears to be a world where everything exists within a browser. No - now instead of forcing users to download software, go through an install, reboot the computer, then start our standalone .exe, we have the option to deploy through a browser. Believe it or not, more software is distributed through the net than sold off the shelf on CD-ROM. All I can say is, it's about friggen time. I've been experimenting with HREF'd .exe inside IE and it's still very akward to do. Giving developers a real option of deploying apps through the web is godsend to me. Christopher Duncan wrote: Is this just Internet trendiness? Or are they trying to dumb down programming so that anyone who can start Front Page is considered a software developer? At the current rate, computer programming and word processing are going to become synonyms. Wrong - nothing replaces sound development planning and implementation. Your argument is nothing new though; I remember hearing these same cries when VB started becoming popular. Christopher Duncan wrote: We have incredible horsepower at our disposal with the machines we run today. Instead of a massive effort to reduce programming to the point where any chimpanzee can bang on the keyboard and create a chimpanzee quality app, why can't we push the envelope in the other direction and create ever more powerful technologies to accomplish greater things, along with the tools that let intelligent and capable programmers do their jobs? Quality chimpanzee apps will never be quality apps. Why create simpler technologies? Because simpler is better! Don't like simple? Go develope a COM app in pure C. Enjoy, see ya around in 5 years, masochist. Windows development is getting easier and faster because Microsoft learned a lesson with Java: the gem that people prefer to do things the easier way. To say, "Back in my day we did things the real, tough way, real quality and real men yahda yahda" makes you sound like an old WWII vet cranking on about how things were better "back in the day." To our fortune, .Net and rapid application development is here to stay. Hop on or learn Unix. The graveyards are filled with indispensible men.
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As Michael has stated in, uh, all of his replies, this isn't quite a "convert your app to html+javascript" nightmare. Let's face it - implementing a complex, solid UI using C + Win32 isn't too difficult... but it's tedious as building a cathedral out of gravel and toothpaste. The .RC dialog definitions haven't been terribly useful since Win 3.0 - quality UIs today adapt to user's screen size and appearance preferences. Who wants to spend the time making an app look good in WinXP regardless of whether the user is using the classic theme or "Super Bubble-Gum Windows"? Of late, i've been using DHTML + MSHTML control to prototype, and even implement major portions of a UI. I can make cosmetic changes quickly and see the results without compiling, it's powerful and flexible in what it allows me to do, and get this - it keeps the UI well separated from the program logic. If it pans out, and i'm able to quickly write UIs that look good with whatever Windows funkiness is coming down the pipe, then great - i can go back to actually spending time making my programs do something.
A servant to formulaic ways.
Shog9
Rofl you get a five just for the title on that one. :laugh: pseudonym67 Neural Dot Net Articles 1-11 Start Here Fuzzy Dot Net Articles 1-4 Start Here PathFinder Game Of Life 2 Life Wars
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As Michael has stated in, uh, all of his replies, this isn't quite a "convert your app to html+javascript" nightmare. Let's face it - implementing a complex, solid UI using C + Win32 isn't too difficult... but it's tedious as building a cathedral out of gravel and toothpaste. The .RC dialog definitions haven't been terribly useful since Win 3.0 - quality UIs today adapt to user's screen size and appearance preferences. Who wants to spend the time making an app look good in WinXP regardless of whether the user is using the classic theme or "Super Bubble-Gum Windows"? Of late, i've been using DHTML + MSHTML control to prototype, and even implement major portions of a UI. I can make cosmetic changes quickly and see the results without compiling, it's powerful and flexible in what it allows me to do, and get this - it keeps the UI well separated from the program logic. If it pans out, and i'm able to quickly write UIs that look good with whatever Windows funkiness is coming down the pipe, then great - i can go back to actually spending time making my programs do something.
A servant to formulaic ways.
Shog9
Shog9 wrote: Of late, i've been using DHTML + MSHTML control to prototype, and even implement major portions of a UI. I can make cosmetic changes quickly and see the results without compiling, it's powerful and flexible in what it allows me to do, and get this - it keeps the UI well separated from the program logic. Any articles planned on the subject. Sounds like an interesting approach. Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
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Shog9 wrote: Of late, i've been using DHTML + MSHTML control to prototype, and even implement major portions of a UI. I can make cosmetic changes quickly and see the results without compiling, it's powerful and flexible in what it allows me to do, and get this - it keeps the UI well separated from the program logic. Any articles planned on the subject. Sounds like an interesting approach. Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
Michael P Butler wrote: Any articles planned on the subject. Possibly... There are a fair number of them here already, but there are enough little gotchas that another wouldn't hurt. Note: it's dead easy with MFC7... probably the biggest improvement with the new version.
A servant to formulaic ways.
Shog9
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Michael P Butler wrote: Any articles planned on the subject. Possibly... There are a fair number of them here already, but there are enough little gotchas that another wouldn't hurt. Note: it's dead easy with MFC7... probably the biggest improvement with the new version.
A servant to formulaic ways.
Shog9
Shog9 wrote: There are a fair number of them here already, but there are enough little gotchas that another wouldn't hurt. I'll have to have a read. I'm looking for something for easy prototyping of screens (at least until I finish my XML Forms engine) Michael 'Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.' - The Doctor: The Wheel in Space
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I realize that a lot can change and will in the years before Longhorn hits the streets, but reading this article, A First Look at Writing and Deploying Apps in the Next Generation of Windows[^], paints a rather dim picture of the future for developers in my personal opinion. Clearly, The Future (tm) appears to be a world where everything exists within a browser. Browser based applications are and have always been clumsy at best (to be kind), but when surfing the web we live with this as an acceptable tradeoff for the power we get from the Internet. Http provides a lowest common denominator approach to let the world's various machines all view the same pages. As anyone with any road behind them knows, the lowest common denominator is always the natural enemy of high quality and innovation. And now this lowest common denominator approach wants to invade my desktop and become the defacto (or MS enforced) standard for application development? You've just got to be kidding me. I can see myself now trying to explain to the folks I work for why we should write mission critical air traffic control software in a web browser using dumbed-down markup languages. Is this just Internet trendiness? Or are they trying to dumb down programming so that anyone who can start Front Page is considered a software developer? At the current rate, computer programming and word processing are going to become synonyms. We have incredible horsepower at our disposal with the machines we run today. Instead of a massive effort to reduce programming to the point where any chimpanzee can bang on the keyboard and create a chimpanzee quality app, why can't we push the envelope in the other direction and create ever more powerful technologies to accomplish greater things, along with the tools that let intelligent and capable programmers do their jobs? Let the secretaries do the word processing. Grr. Chistopher Duncan The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World Unite the Tribes: Ending Turf Wars for Career and Business Success
"In addition to using XAML, you can also write applications for Longhorn entirely with procedural code. In general, successful Longhorn-based applications have two ingredients—XAML pages and managed procedural code. How you combine them is up to you, but any combination of the two is acceptable." Sounds like you don't have to use XAML, but you do have to write managed code. X|
"We have done so much in the last 2 years, and it doesn't happen by standing around with your finger in your ear, hoping everyone thinks that that's nice." - Donald Rumsfeld
Jason Henderson
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I realize that a lot can change and will in the years before Longhorn hits the streets, but reading this article, A First Look at Writing and Deploying Apps in the Next Generation of Windows[^], paints a rather dim picture of the future for developers in my personal opinion. Clearly, The Future (tm) appears to be a world where everything exists within a browser. Browser based applications are and have always been clumsy at best (to be kind), but when surfing the web we live with this as an acceptable tradeoff for the power we get from the Internet. Http provides a lowest common denominator approach to let the world's various machines all view the same pages. As anyone with any road behind them knows, the lowest common denominator is always the natural enemy of high quality and innovation. And now this lowest common denominator approach wants to invade my desktop and become the defacto (or MS enforced) standard for application development? You've just got to be kidding me. I can see myself now trying to explain to the folks I work for why we should write mission critical air traffic control software in a web browser using dumbed-down markup languages. Is this just Internet trendiness? Or are they trying to dumb down programming so that anyone who can start Front Page is considered a software developer? At the current rate, computer programming and word processing are going to become synonyms. We have incredible horsepower at our disposal with the machines we run today. Instead of a massive effort to reduce programming to the point where any chimpanzee can bang on the keyboard and create a chimpanzee quality app, why can't we push the envelope in the other direction and create ever more powerful technologies to accomplish greater things, along with the tools that let intelligent and capable programmers do their jobs? Let the secretaries do the word processing. Grr. Chistopher Duncan The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World Unite the Tribes: Ending Turf Wars for Career and Business Success
It is jus the same old thing but a different decade.. When C was taking over people complain "it is just to big and bloated, cannot design quality applications with it".. Then C++, was "just too much of a performance hit with all those silly classes and what not".. Then Windows hit, and the "you cannot generate quality applications with that, a graphic user interface, it is too slow and not everyone will be able to use a mouse, just stick with DOS".. And lately, .NET and C#, yep now "That is just a Java clone, you cannot build real applications, the framework is broken it will not give me the speed I need to build my desktop calculator!"... Simple, you need fast development with a new fresh look and easy integration with minimal debugging, use the the technology, you need raw speed, you always have assembler, enjoy ;) Bring me the future, I want it NOW ;) Oh yeah, and through ever one of these changes, I heard the same common theme, "no one will really use that it is just a fad".. Long running fad ;) To be fair thought it depends on your market. If you are currently producing software for clients that are using Windows 95, then you might not want to look at anything for another decade, you have all the technology they need, but you will always fall so far behind you will do nothing but swim against the current forever. Lot easier flowing with the current. Rocky <>< www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com