Hi all,

No question, but a comment.

I spent most of today helping a guy with some possible mechanisms to speed up an application he wrote. We covered all manner of potential improvements from the way that data is stored, faster sorting algorithms, nifty file handling etc.

Having spent all day discussing it, we opened up his code to check a few things and the very first thing I noticed was Option Strict Off . So after kicking him hard where it hurts , I had him switch it on and spend time cleaning up the errors. Having done that, the app now runs like a bat out of hell. So as far as I'm concerned, a whole day wasted.

So if you're writing apps, please switch Option Strict On! It can be a pain at first, but after you've cleaned up the errors, it makes life easier, not more difficult. Note my use of the word 'errors' here, IMHO Option Strict Off is a mechanism that allows errors and results in some weird and hard to find bugs. It also slows down your app due to non-optimal type conversions.

If anyone knows any good reasons why this option should ever be switched off, then please let me know.