Quote: ". 'cuz W2000/XP only, and even then you need to get your hands on the .NET Framework (30 meg?)"
.NET Framework 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 are available on Microsoft Windows 98 / 98se / Millenium Edition / 2000 / XP / XP 64-bit / .NET 2003 / Media Center 2004 / Media Center 2004
.NET Framework 1.0 - 16MB
.NET Framework 1.1 - 21MB
.NET Framework 2.0 - 23MB
Quote: ". So bloody SLOW! To show a blank form in VB.NET, it takes about 3 seconds. On a P4 3.2GHz, with 1GB RAM. A blank VB6 form would've been instant, as far as the human eye can tell..."
Visual Basic 6 Applications take quite a while to load every time, on most systems. Althon64 FX-53 just a blank window for me takes around 3seconds, which is 3seconds faster than a native Win32 Application and on my AthlonXP 2600+ it takes 8seconds.
.NET Blank Frame loads instantly on both, when I specify the processor type (ie x86-32 or x86-64) however when running it on a system for the first time using Any CPU it can take a few seconds.
Loading speed on both Visual Basic 6 and .NET Applications ANY CPU are generally the same, the determination of speed is down to more the internals of the program. This is where .NET shines, because it it will work around 95% the speed a native application does (again only on Any CPU setting). Visual Basic 6 applications however run at around 60-70% of a native application.
I call it native, because .NET is capable of exporting Native, Managed, and Unmanaged code. Unmanaged is Win32 format, Native is natively compiled .NET for a specific system type.
The bonus of .NET is that it will run on *ANY* system completely independant of what Operating System it is using, provided you have the framework there. Early-2006 we are going to be seeing Red Hat 11 and MacOS 11 both incorporating .NET into thier systems.
It is predicted currently that the growth of .NET will mean that it is likely to become the industry standard for executable formats by 2010.
It will be nice to finally be able to create an application and not have to worry about creating several versions for several platforms. While you can already do this with Java, the speed difference in a nut-shell is like trying to make Half-Life 2 in DarkBASIC.. It's a nice dream for Sun though, heh.
I bet the guy at Sun is kicking himself now. If they hadn't stopped Microsoft from using Java almost a decade ago now, they would never have created thier own variation that hell even hardened Linux users have to admit just truely 'owns' heh
Tell ya what, XNA was released to the beta area a few days ago. As a home developer I'm finally seeing what this can do. I created something within a few minutes, created something and tested on my PC.. liked it so burnt to DVD and put it in my 'aquired from work' Developer X-Box. Booted up and ran without any problems.
What's even better is if the guys who made Forza Motorsport had this available, they'd never have got the BSOD because when you export the runtime it tells you what resources your using. If you set to X-Box test environment it deliberately limits the system to what the X-Box is capable of and access everything in the same way as well. When a scene takes up too much ram, it'll indicate on the screen what is causing it allowing you to go into your code and alter it so that it is within the limits of the hardware.
It's pretty hard at the moment to bash Microsoft for what they're developing, because they're not making innovation in terms of ideas, but they're making the ideas a reality. Something everyone else has failed to do so far. With the development environments becomming something that developers have had a say in how they look and perform. Microsoft are quite obviously happy with Windows as it is and are focusing alot more on the problems people are talking about while moving forward the driving software rather than trying to push Windows ahead of everyone else.
Smart move to monopolise the industry through the one thing everyone wants
