Tell me it ain't so

[Jethro]

Ok got the vb.net beta one CD on the way. Finally. Er, there is a nasty rumour that when you install the thing, you have to download all sorts of crap from MS.

Is this true?

[kovan]

didnt hear that one yet..
but if your planning on UNINSTALLING IT
have fun

why didnt ya wait for 2?
your an assuie, that much is expected from you i guess

we canadians wait for people to go through all the troubles
then we get a nice n clean beta after other people go through all different sorts of troubles

[Jethro]

We thought we might get a head start on it. You know learn all the things in 1 that wont be in 2 or any of the release candidates.

[kovan]

i have a lot of friends of mine that installed it
its SLOW and its buggy
i usually jump on these things and get started on them right away
but as you said
a LOT of things that they put in beta one are not even gonna show up in the next beta, so no point

but i tell you, i played with it a little
it REALLY will change the way we program

one thing i like the most is collapse and open of procedures and fuctions AND you can write macros to have IDE obey you
just love it

so i cant wait til 2 is released

[Jethro]

The demos we have seen rock!!!!

But hey it probably doesn't have as many bugs as the one they actually release.

If you hear an explosion of swearing over the weekend, it's us trying to install

[parksie]

I like it. Dead simple to program for, even in C++, and that garbage collection kicks Java any day.

[Jethro]

Still "Fanatic" how many more posts do you need.

[kovan]

i just cant WAIT to write one macro i want so bad..

you know how in vb, the project explorer shows all your forms..
well to find a method in a form
click the project explorer, find the form, then go in the form searching for the method
now you can write macros that when you click the form, in a treeview thingy, it shows methods, variables ect as childs to that form
and you can click it to go directly there

this is one of the things i wanna write when i get beta 2

[Jethro]

One of the cool things in Delphi, (hate to admitt it), is that you get this little notepad thingy for each project where you can jot down ideas etc for the project you are working on. Have requested this from MS every show l have been too. You would think this would be an easy ask.

The macros sound cool, so cool in fact that they will can it from Beta 2.

[kovan]

they BETTER NOT
cus i will be SUPER pissed
weill with this new macro thingy
you can write your own notepad believe it or not

if you look at the actual macro code
its VB
so if you can make a notepad in vb
then you can make one for your projects..
i am telling you man
this macro thing is gonna REALLY make it stand out

[parksie]

Originally posted by Jethro
The macros sound cool, so cool in fact that they will can it from Beta 2.

I like the TODO style error messages, where you can check them off as you fix them

[kovan]

parksie, ohh ya thanks for reminding me
that was the first thing that made me go "wow ms, i want you, i love you"
ha ha

ya that is one COOL feature

[parksie]

Huh? Someone agreeing with me? That's never happened before

Things I like:
TODO errors
Customisable samples displayed in docs
VSI (woo hoo!)
I love the look of those menus

[kovan]

there is a LOT of COOL things in that thing
i just wanna see what they put in beta 2

[Jethro]

Apparently there are going to be quite a few changes for beta 2. Renaming of some functions etc. Forget which, but they dumped something from vb6 that was really cool, the guy noted that the whole room wanted it back. Or it could have been, wanted a beer l forget which.

The xml support looks awesome. And WEB PAGES

[parksie]

I'm not so enthused by XML as everyone else seems to be Am I missing some major point here? It just doesn't seem all that fantastic.

[Jethro]

For B2B the best thing since condoms came in ribbed.

You can post up sales figures etc on a web page, and make your own sections, rather than relying on the sections in HTML. Also most excellent for poking things in and out of unix.

We are still expeirmenting with it.

[kovan]

parksie ever thought of writing something that ANYONE in ANY language would undrestand?

write something in xml
all languages undrestand it

[matthewralston]

I bet it's not compatible with double dutch...that's my second...no...fourth language.

Huh? What was I talking about...? Don't answer that.

[gijsj]

Parksie, if you want to get a feeling why XML is having such a major impact on the industry and why it's so great take a look at BizTalk Server. How fast and easy you can integrate businesses/systems.

[ender_pete]

one of my favorites features of .net ( if microsoft can do it )
is the fact that it will be platform independent.
you are supposed to be able to build and exe and run it on unix,linux,solaris,mac.. etc..
you are supposed to be able to import pretty much any language and run it in the .net environment..
didn't say if you could recompile it though???

well i guess we will see

[parksie]

That depends on the availability of a port of the .NET framework for the target OS.

[ender_pete]

i read in a .net beta book that in the final realease there would be options when you build the program of what platform to build it for.

so you scould select to build an exe for solaris 7.. or build one for
mac osx...

but you never know with microsoft...

[Jethro]

Was wondering why they were cutting out all this API call stuff. I mean l don't have a problem with it, great super, no longer have to worry about the stuff. Are you sure they are going to offer multi OS support, and not just DOS/WIndows deployment.

[JoshT]

I have trouble believing that MS would implement non-Windows support in such a manner that it would be usable in real-life.

[ender_pete]

That is what i read in the .net beta book. Now it isn't in stone that there will be multi OS support.. it's just a feature they are trying to get in there...
Microsoft is leveraging the power of XML to make it cross platform independent.

AS for the API's there will still be the ability to use api calls...but
you really won't need to since most any function you will need will be in the .net runtime..... they combined all of the languages into one runtime so you can import most any library you would need to do api calls

it's really nice how they did it.....

but cell see how it turns out in the end....

[Jethro]

Went to another seminar last night on vb.net in Sydney. Ask the guy demonstrating about multiOS support, he didn't know. Mind you he couldn't show us any of the extended ADO features that they keep on about.

Am hoping for the multi OS deployment option though, as we have an Apple client and you guessed it all C++ work being done, (which l know next to nothing about).

[ender_pete]

I hope so to...
it would be so sweet...
I'll try and find that book and see who wrote it see if i can send him some email and get further details....

[PinkPanther]

The way I understand it from the 2-day course I went on is that your code gets compiled into an Intermediate Language ( IL ) thingy and that this is translated at runtime by the Common Language Runtime. All that is needed to run your code on say a Unix box is the .Net SDK for Unix, which I'm sure someone is working on right now because it'll be worth big money.

All .Net languages are compiled into this IL, which is why there's no real speed difference between any of them - they're all the same when it comes down to it.

I think that's right

[kovan]

alright, this is what will happen
according to MS

they obviously got sick of java
its slowness n stuff
so .net was born

ms's plans are
since JVM is not optimized for different operating systems and different hardward configurations..
they decided to take advantage of this

so here is their plan
every combination of the cpu chip and os people are running
they will release a different Runtime DLL
which will make every one of them optimized
according to their tests
c# runs at 40% of c++(WITHOUT this optimization)
where java runs at 10% of c++
their plan is to do this optimization thing and boost c# to 80%

now they are going to release a runtime dll for all combinations
and thus will give us the ability to write for all plateforms

from what i heard
you make ONE .exe
and it runs on ALL platforms automatically
if this is true
then .net is truely GREAT

[Jethro]

Kovan

Do you know if the differing OS dlls will ship with vb.net or is the plan to make ya buy them as you need them..

Am already thinking....

Apple OS 10
Linux Redhat 7.0
Solarius

This could be huge.

[kovan]

i believe they will be free
just like JVM
now to license them to use in the operating system for os developers it might cost them HUGE
but they will be available for download

this is what i heard
i dont know what they are going to do with their final release

but if thats the case
developing will be EASY

[Jethro]

The thought of the entirety of the Chit Chat Forum guys let lose on the Apple community is frightening. Expect a number of Apple T-Shirts with blowup sheep on them.

[parksie]

One problem...DLLs are only on Windows, so they'd have to find some completely different way of handling it on a non-Windows system. For example, the assembly metadata is stored in the PE header, which ELF programs don't have.

[Frans C]

The idea is that all .net programs are compiled into Intermediate Language (IL). When the user runs the program, the IL is compiled into native code by a JIT compiler (Just in Time). So all you need is a JIT compiler for the platform you use, and you can run .net programs.
I don't know if there are plans for creating JIT compilers for non microsoft platforms, but in theory they can be made.

[parksie]

You can run the programs themselves, but it'll immediately terminate due to a total lack of system libraries You still need a .NET framework (all the System.xxx namespaces, usually in mscorlib.dll)