Board index » delphi » Re: What Borland should stop wasting their time on

2006-02-01 03:04:44 PM
delphi41
Craig Stuntz writes:
"I can not tell why you want to convert to .NET at all"
Larry:
1. When Vista arrives, Win32 will be a legacy platform
2. We want to be ready to leverage off current and future .NET technologies such as ASP.NET, workflow, Avalon, SQL CLR integration, etc.
3. Sharing code/objects with other VS development teams in my organization
4. Managed code, Garbage Collection, should help with stability and testing
Of course, we could stick with Win32 for the time being, but timing wise, it makes sense for the direction of our product to do it now.
Craig Stuntz writes:
"I don't know why you'd concurrently use CDS and dbGo"
Larry:
Because this was BORLAND'S recommended data model for Delphi 7.
Craig Stuntz writes:
"Regarding currency symbols (and the like) I can not figure out why you want to do this manually in the IDE. That seems to be just asking for Create a DB domain for currency (or use an existing domain) and assign your display format in code to anything that matches."
Larry:
I use the SQL "money" format, which translates to a Delphi TBCDField. In the "Fields" collection, I set the "Currency" flag to True and my currency symbols appear automatically. Does this sound right?
 

Larry writes:
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Have questions?: www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Want answers?: support.borland.com
 

John Jacobson writes:
"I only realized the true downsides of cramming all SQL into stored procedures once I worked at a place where it was done. It seemed like a deceptively attractive idea before that."
LARRY:
In SQL Server these days, it makes little difference from a performance point of view to use Stored Procs, since commonly used SQL statements are treated as stored procs and precompiled. Also, if you have a web-based application, there are no real security benefits using stored procs either (as long as you're extra careful when checking user names and passswords).
The benefits to me of using stored procs are:
1. My app is a client/server app, so from a security and privacy aspect, I don't have to give read/write access to any of the base tables
2. I like having my SQL code isolated from my Delphi code and I can still debug my SPs using Query Analyzer. For me, this works best.
3. Less traffic to the Database.
4. In SQL Server you have a tracing tool to monitor every SQL command sent to the Database. If you're searching for occurrences of the same operations, you can search the trace for the SP name.
5. If you reuse SPs for common tasks, you maintain data integrity. E.g. a task requires an update to 3 tables. If you call the same SP to always do this task, you're guaranteed to not miss any of the steps.
6. SQL is basically source code, so if you sell apps and you dont' want to expose any source code, you can encrypt SPs.
7. I can modify SPs without recompiling my app (as long as the parameters and returned fields don't change).
There are downsides and the biggest is definitely version control. The way I handle this makes the whole process very manageable. I do the following:
1. All stored procs live in .SQL files in Visual SourceSafe
2. I never edit a SP directly on the Database. If I want to change a SP, I have to check it out of VSS and edit the SQL file.
3. I store a list of all SPs that I have added, modified, deleted in a text file. Eg.
+ sp1 (i.e. Added sp1)
- sp2 (i.e. Deleted sp2)
^ sp3 (i.e. Changed sp3)
4. When it comes to updating a prod database, I have written a little utility that takes the list of changes in step 3, reads the directory on my hard drive with all the SQL files, and generates 1 big SQL file with all the changes in it. This works great in SQL Server. Last time I used Interbase, you could only execute 1 sql statement at a time in a query window, so this step would be more complex if this is still the case.
It's important to make sure you manage your SPs correctly if you decide to go this route, otherwise it can become a real mess!
Larry.
 

"Dave Nottage [TeamB]" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes:
Tell Craig that. He's asking why I want to bother converting to .NET at all!
 

Larry writes:
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Have questions?: www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Want answers?: support.borland.com
 

"Dave Nottage [TeamB]" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes:
Larry.
 

.NET will not successor for Win32. At least in current edition. No one
commerce software, which can use term 'perfomance' in description was not
written on .NET since .NET was out (I think 5 years). Nor database nor games
no text processing nor math What else?
Correct me please, if I wrong
Is is good promotion for .NET? :)
Alex
"Larry" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes

"Alex Zencovich" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
Brendan StatLia : www.brendan.com/
ArenaWars: arenawars.krawall.de/eng/
Best Regards,
Jeroen Vandezande
 

Jeroen Vandezande writes:
then some) of memory in my machine...
The idea is good, the implementation seems to assume 1GB or more of RAM
is standard.
--
Anders Isaksson, Sweden
BlockCAD: web.telia.com/~u16122508/proglego.htm
Gallery: web.telia.com/~u16122508/gallery/index.htm
 

Hmmm
Nasa Worldwind
"NASA World Wind leverages Microsoft .NET technology for rapid development
and to easily access open standards such as XML, WMS, and other graphics
standards. [b] Real-time 3D graphics are driven by DirectX [/b] allowing a
wide base of compatibility with accelerated video hardware"
As far I understand - just .NET wrapper around DirectX functions (written on
low-level ASM)
Brendan StatLia - no one word about .NET and no way to download trial, could
not say any more.
ArenaWars: System requirements Win 98SE. Is it .NET platform too???
BTW - Do you think MS Visual Studio or MS Access written on .NET? If not -
why MS wrote OWN code in Win32, but suggest for all others to use .NET?
Alex
"Jeroen Vandezande" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes

"Alex Zencovich" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
If you use DirectX from Delphi it is also a pas file that is a "wrapper"...
you have to be crazy to write your own graphical framework.
So because you use DirectX suddenly the rest of the app does not matter
anymore?
had to install the .net framework in order to get it running.
So I asked them if it was written in C# and they said yes.
It's quite funny; I am using it in a Delphi 7 app via COM and I have to install
.net to get my Delphi 7 app running :)
for more info about .net and ArenaWars:
arenawars.krawall.de/com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php
here the developers are giving some comments about why they decided to use
.net instead of C++.
don't think they rewrite every office from scratch.
Some parts of the last SQL server are in .net though.
Best Regards,
Jeroen Vandezande
 

"Anders Isaksson" <i.rather@not>writes
FireFox = 65,992 K ram usage... (NATIVE CODE!!!!!!, No {*word*99}py VM, The REAL
thing)
Regards,
Jeroen
 

simple mathematic calculation in .NET will slower than corresponding in
Win32 in 25-45 times. Same for deep logic (parsing trees etc).
Of course youmay wrote very good application in .NET - import a lot of Win32
objects or unmaged dll's into .NET container and it will '.NET application'
But is it correct? Is it mean - .NET is future? Somebody will need to write
these objects for you.
networks abilities, but I do not think they use .NET for major game engine.
From AreanaWars forum
"but the actual AI code is still pretty small and not very complicated" -
said author.
I have no much expirience with games in last 10-15 years, but all games I
can see in last 5 years was written in Win32. Nevertheless.
"So if you've reached this far, you will get the impression that I have a
very cynical opinion of .NET. The framework has a lot of promise, but I
think Microsoft was far too ambitious releasing far too many assemblies much
too quickly. As a result design suffered, but to provide backward
compatibility, Microsoft could not simply redesign the whole library and
deprecate the old one. So we are stuck with the library we have. Microsoft
has allowed marketing to take precedence over technology: They created and
promoted VB.NET simply as an attempt to get the bulk of Windows developers
to use .NET, and not because there was any need for the language. The
framework has become Visual Basic—it's intended for users to develop
applications, but not for Microsoft to create operating systems or the
revenue generating products that they base their profits on."
www.ddj.com/documents/s=9204/ddj050201dnn/
Alex
 

wrong results for memory occupation if your software use external dll's or
OLE objects, like variant arrays ( will saved to ole32 account, not for your
app)
For example if I have exe and ole server, I can alllocate 1 Mb in exe and 1
GB in OLE server. Task manager will show may application only 1 Mb. OLE
server still invisible for task manager...
Alex
 

and I felt the need to offer my opinion on the subject.
Yes. That is correct. .NET not the same class of programming language as
C/C++. Take a minute answer the following question:
"What language is .NET written in?"
C/C++ programmers are on a different league as .NET. They program at a
much lower level. They have the choice to use predefined libraries but
they can also choose to ignore them completely. Plus lower level code is
much faster.
.NET programmers use a framework which sits on code that was written in
C/C++. The reason why they choose so is:
1. The framework is better organized and structured. .NET helps beginner
programmers in choosing the right libraries for the right tasks. This
concept is pioneered by Delphi and Java.
2. it is got all these advanced concepts out of the box(garbage
collection, etc). C/C++ programmers have to integrate such code into
their projects. Again, pioneered by Delphi and Java.
3. .NET code gets executed on a virtual machine. that is so that we don't
have random shutdown of Windows boxen because of bad code.. just a clean
termination of the program. Concept pioneered by Java.
Mr Grimes is basically saying: "Microsoft doesn't use .NET to write
Windows and Office, so .NET must suck".
Microsoft is absolutely correct not to use .NET for Windows or Office.
That's not what .NET is for.
.NET is for a whole lotta other things.
Basically, .NET is Microsoft's answer to Java, not Microsoft's
replacement for C/C++.
Moni