World record VB!

[JorgeLedo]

Smallest working and payed app I've developed: 72Kb, biggest 3.4Mb.


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Jorge Ledo
[email protected]
Portugal

[chrisjk]

There was a little discussion about a world record for the most number of posts to a topic...how about a world record for the most number of forms and largest VB EXE size...I'm developing (e.g. not yet finished) a project which currently has 63 forms,5 modules which between tham have 33 custom functions, and when compiled the EXE is over 7.5 MB!!

Is this normal for a large app?

Have fun!

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- Chris
[email protected]
If it ain't broke - don't fix it


[This message has been edited by chrisjk (edited 01-29-2000).]

wow, thats a big app, whats it for?

63 forms? not even close, a friend of mine built a program once, but he accidentally pasted a form creation line into a recursion loop, left to its own devices for 45 minutes, it crashed the win95 server it was running, we estimated that 350+ forms had been created - every minute! oh dear, in retrospect we may laugh!


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Wossname,
Email me: [email protected]
www.dreamwater.com/tech/wossname/

[chrisjk]

Its a database for storing names/addresses and such like. It takes AGES to compile!! On my PII 350, 256MB RAM, it takes about 10 minutes!! Any compile errors and I have to start ALL over again!

Ok, 63 handmade(!!) forms!!

[rino_2]

Thats a lot of forms but 7.5MB is nothing.

[chrisjk]

Well considering things like Word/Access are 1.5MB at most, I think 7.5MB for something I made ain't bad (well, actually size isn't good! )

So what have you had? I'm just trying to get "average" sizes here.

[Buzby]

What the hell have you got an all those forms? If it's just for storing names and addresses have you got a separate form for each field!!?

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Mark "Buzby" Beeton
VB Developer
[email protected]

[Troy Mac]

7.5 MB is very large for VB and I am sure that if you sell this thing your customers wont like the wait while they run it. You should try reusing forms its very easy to do. I can think of no reason in the world to have that many forms... Don't forget about the people that still have P133 and 32 or 64MB of Ram

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TMacPherson
Customer Suport Software Analyst
[email protected]

[Frederik Gekiere]

7.5 MB , that seems a bit large to me ..

[This message has been edited by Frederik Gekiere (edited 01-31-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Frederik Gekiere (edited 01-31-2000).]

[Buzby]

That many forms is not really anything to be proud of!! The more forms you have in a system the more forms a user has to know how to use, and the more chance they have to mess it up. If there was a record-breaking VB program it should really be for the least number of forms and smallest .EXE !!
The biggest program I've written has rolled in a 2.4MB, and must have about 20 forms. This is being used by a wine distributing company, and handles the wine database, orders, sales, report printing (including report wizards etc), linking to an external accounts system, maintenance of growers, vintages, wine types etc etc etc.



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Mark "Buzby" Beeton
VB Developer
[email protected]

[Serge]

At my previous job, our application had 124 Forms, 34 modules (about 150+ functions) and 23 Class Modules (Don't remember the count of functions and properties), BUT ...
our application was only 4.6MB when compiled.

Just my $0.02

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Serge

Programmer Analyst
[email protected]
[email protected]
ICQ#: 51055819



[This message has been edited by Serge (edited 01-31-2000).]

[chrisjk]

When I said "for storing names and addresses" i was being very vague. It will run your entire business (can't mention what type of business - very hush hush!). I think the reason it is so big is that I use pictures wherever I can to make it more user friendly. Plus it has more ADO Recorsets than I can count! I'm also using res files to store stuff like AVI's and Wav files.

Besides - the point of my post was to figure an average size as I have never done anything this big before - not to "brag" about how many forms I have!

[This message has been edited by chrisjk (edited 01-31-2000).]

[joey o.]

The pride of any developer should be the conciseness of their code not how large it is. The coolest things I see are when someone takes about 20 lines of code and reduces them to 3. That gives me a big kick!
Joey o

[chrisjk]

Will people stop misunderstanding me!!! I'M NOT BRAGGING ABOUT HAVING TONNES OF FORMS AND A HUGE EXE!!!! I am wondering how big they are on average. It seems large to me, and like I said, it ain't a good thing, so can we dispense with the "nothing to be proud of" comments and be nice and jolly and fluffy with each other.

I only used the subject to attract interest/attention.

Thank you!

[This message has been edited by chrisjk (edited 01-31-2000).]

[Turin]

From what I've seen, the average size is from 1 to 3 MB. You Exe is rather large.

Just as a word of caution, if you need more forms, .bas modules, res files, etc, VB has a limit on the amount of code modules it will allow in an application. I think it is around 500 total.

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Seth

[Juan Carlos Rey]

This is a HOT topic, so I'll take my chance to lit the icon!
(This is answer nro 15)
P.S. None of my apps got higher than 100 - 200 KiloBytes!

Well, I and a couple guys have a two form app that is 350K so far. It will grow bigger soon once the resource file has all the graphics installed into it. But two forms only, will make this a fast program.


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John T. Mieske
Star Trek LCARS programmer

Knight Vision Enterprises
[email protected]

[lumin]

The Larges app that I ever made was an DX7 training thing for my own use. it was 12,5 mb. when Compiled, but I only used 3 forms
thats enough for my bragging (I just had to)

well i think that an average app. should be betwene 0-3 mb. since it should be Possible to open it on a not high end computer.
you could consider puting some of the graphics outside the exe to save space but then again it will probably take more prossesor cycles to load the pictures.


-Lumin

Tcsh! Tcsh! (And Bash and...)

Children, children...calm down. I've made a program that was 22MB!! Beat that!

It's a sorta photo store/browser. It has only one form but a RES file containing a few hunders pictures.

I know this is rediculous, but I only did it to take the piss and see if VB could handle it.

Anyone got any bigger programs?

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Matthew Ralston
E-Mail: [email protected]
ICQ: 31422892
Web Site: My Home Page
AKA: ...::: The Fragmeinster :::... (On Quake 3 World Forums)

Sorry about my English, but my Scouse is dead good!

[This message has been edited by matthewralston (edited 02-01-2000).]

my biggest app was 8,5 .. it contains wav's and bitmaps..
without all graphic & sound stuff it only needs 2,8 mb of my diskspace

btw: matthewralston, it's easy to create a bigger exe .. only need to implement tons of pictures and waves...

but i think , that we must try to make the appz small as possible, than who wants to d/l a 22 mb exe ?? ( + ca. 2 - 3 mb runtime lib's)
taLON

------
Teenage Programmer
[email protected]

What do you want to code today ?

excuse, but my englisch iss nod the beast


[This message has been edited by taLON (edited 02-01-2000).]

[SME]

almost can match you with our current project. It has 70 forms, 11 modules, 23 class modules, and 16 report forms, but it's EXE is only 4.7mb. Oh well, :P , what can you do.

[mystiq]

FYI, this is going to make me sound like an old man, im not, im only 17 This also could be large, it's first period in school and im really bored.

When i started makin VB apps (coming from QBasic) i hated that my programs were small (no exe larger than a couple kilos), so i'd purposely fluff em up, stick unneeded loops in the startup procedures, throw in a fancy LARGE picture, make em spit out stupid text that only confused the user (Quake engines, anyone), etc. But my latest incantation is so big, i have to take all those OUT and im still not rid of them lol.

Forms: 7
Modules: 3
Media: 0
Exe: 586k

Im hoping you didn't do that to your app, it largely increased the exe size to my older programs (all of which are sitting in D:\Stuff\VB), and now im a sucker for optimization. My program is a telnet client, and i rewrote the color engine at least 5 times because it was so slow (now it rivals zMud).

-Like someone said, it may take more cpu cycles to get media from an outside directory, but it does shrink the exe and the compiler doesn't have to chug around the media when it's stored. Have them come in a separate zip (or something).

-Reuse forms, my app has several form templates that get set into a form array. The most forms i ever used was 7, even my database programs.

-Seeing the exe size for MS Access scares me to think what you're program does, hehe.

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-Mystiq

[Gimpster]

I think this posting is a perfect example of a time when you would want to "Disable Smilies"!

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Ryan


[This message has been edited by Gimpster (edited 02-02-2000).]

My largest app was around 250MB...
So I guess I did blow it outta the water!!!
It held 3 full song wav files, ranging from 60-70MB each. Then it had around 250 .jpg pics. Needless to say it was slow as he11.

[Phobic]

Well, just so I can annoy everyone, I'm going to make a project and fill with pictures, sounds, wav's, you name it, and make a 251 MB project just so I win. How about dem apples?

[DiGiTaIErRoR]

Why are you people trying to make BIG apps? People hate big apps (or atleast I do) they run slowly, long download times, plus with most you lose flexibility and ease of use. Like you say you put three wavs in your exe why don't you just link to the wav files? Then they could use an external viewer if they want. Or make them MiDi files so they are small! The biggest exe I have made currently is 50 KB and it has 5 forms.

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DiGiTaIErRoR
VB, QBasic, Iptscrae, HTML
Quote: There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.

[JeffSM]

My largest APP have 103 forms and 302 modules and 10 classes and the exe are 6.2MB. To make it not so large I created more 9 dlls and 30 ocxs.

Jefferson

Well after it crashed my PC I did just that, I linked everything...cut it down to around 75K. ...251MB....very funny Phobic...

[Pentax]

If a question from a beginner is excused:
How *do* you include wave-files so the app starts playing them at certain events?
What are the advantages/disadvantages for including thehm in the exe vs sending them along with the app?

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Wilhelm Tunemyr,
Sweden

[email protected]

"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menchen"
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Pravda zvítezi!

The size is the main disadvantage to using a wav file inside the program. It is always best to link to the wave file outside the program, and have the code call it.

[Yomama]

You might want to consider some of the following ...

1. Create separate EXE's for each of the distinct modules in your application (i.e. billing, reporting, etc.)

2. Use class modules for code re-use.

3. Use ActiveX components (dll's or exe's) to handle some of the business logic. If a component in the project only gets used once and a while, keep it separate and your exe size will be reduced.

If you have any questions <[email protected]>

[Jimlin41]

I just compiled a VB program with nothing but a module and an empty Main(). It was still 16KB.

[dksmith]

An EXE file can grow substantially when Forms include graphics on them. To reduce the size of your exe load your graphics from an external file at runtime. This way your exe will load faster and consume less resources. Your graphic files will only be loaded in memory when the Form they are on is loaded.

[jritchie]

Yeah, the suggestions about adding links to wav and picture files is a good one.
Currently have an app that is 32 forms, 10 classes, and a couple of bas modules. Compiles to 1.8 mg, (just enough to need a couple of floppies to distribuite).

As to number of forms it depends on the application, the one discribed above is an Aged Debtors app which requires a large number of forms. However the latest project l am on is even more complex but will only require 10 or so forms.

[XinMan]

I try to keep my apps below 1.5 Megs, damn that's a lot of forms. Maybe you should try to cut down on it.

XinMan

[Majordad]

Ha!ha!Small talk

The company I work has a 21,3 meg vb.exe.
A lot of copy & paste programming. And it works and is in production. And takes over an hour to compile on my mmx166 with 96 ram

[pcsmith]

Well you guys have me beat on the shear number of forms but I must say I hold the record for executable size. But again I can't brag to much. This proggy is %100 graphical and (the version where the graphics aren't loaded from HD) the exe is around 20 MB... That's using bitmaps though... I'm currently working on converting to JPEG as wel speak.

*NOTE* I'm not bragging, heh, just seemed appropriate form this topic. God forbid I get flamed lol...

[Trumpeter_Chris]

My smallest useful and used app is only 36kb and could be smaller without the posh interface!

If anyone's interested it generates hypercubes.

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"Trust No One, Including Yourself"

[joey o.]

Sorry for misunderstanding. Most that I see are also between 1 and 5 mb. I guess it's comparative to the task it accomplishes.

[gash_c]

64 forms !! not a big deal.

we have worked on nearly 100 forms with 26 custom functions. the exe size is not greater than 5mb. something wrong with your project.

ganesh c
software consultant
NJ