.net

[reinaldocrespo]

Hi everyone;

I wonder if there is any development in the harbour, xharbour, i.e. xbase community towards .net.

I realize how .net is a bit slow and sometimes seems not to be a crucial tool in our world. However, the day will come when it will rule the development world. Already you must develop win32 combined with web apps (java, php, xscript) that access the same data.

There used to be a time when any GUI was too slow to even compare to clipper development (remember windows 3.11?). But then hardware caught up to the need for more speed. It got faster, multithreaded, more and more RAM, Cache, huge HDs that are measured in TB... Likewise, the day will come when VERY wide broadband will be taken for granted and .net will be "forced" upon us. That day will be here before we might expect.

So, the question is: Is anybody working with .net yet? News? Ideas? Path to follow?



Reinaldo.

[Antonio Linares]

Reinaldo,

I started a very early prototype of a .Net version of Harbour, but there was very little interest about it

You may review Cule:
http://www.softwareperspectives.com/cul ... x?tabid=54

[Colin Haig]

You can also check out Vulcan.net - this is by the same company that
now does Visual Objects - there is a demo verson.

Cheers

Colin

[Rick Lipkin]

Reinaldo

I hope you realize the .net framework is a run time and you MUST have the correct version of that framework on each workstation for your app.

Dot net for client\server is just not practical especially when you work in State gov like I do and your client base is over 5000 desktops.

There are versions of the framework from 1,1.1, 2, 2x .. 3 .. lets see .. just pick a number and mulitply that times the number of workstations that have to have the correct version installed.

I hope you see .. dot net is only effective in a Web scenario or in a very small office or client base where making sure the desktops all have the correct version of the framework installed .. and God forbid .. the client does a Microsoft update and modifys their version of their runtime and breaks your app ..

Just not a practical solution for me .. 5000 desktops .. a shear infrastructure nitemare !!

Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Health, USA

[Enrico Maria Giordano]

Isn't enough to keep the PCs updated?

EMG

[nageswaragunupudi]

All these are issues as long as we still stick to our old habits of client-server architecture.

Today its all three-tier architecture everywhere, with web enabled applications (intranet or internet). Dot-net is only one of the platforms for 3-tier web enabled applications (it does 2-tier also). There are many other alternatives, In this scenario, it matters little whether the client is pc or mac or linux box. All the client needs is to have a web-browser. Future is only for web enabled 3-tier applications. Many client-orgainsations now a days are not accepting client-server applications though we offer better looking rich gui.

All the business logic of the application is coded in the serverside procedures ( procedures. functions and packages ). Any front end ( webenabled or rich windows applications like ours ) only talk to the serverside procedures and provides user interaction only. As a policy, client organisations insist that the front ends do not contain any business logic.

As an example, even in a country like India, which is still not a developed country, our state information technology department is advising all state government organisations to move on to 3-tier architecture. Not only that, they further advise all inter-modular and inter-corporate communications to be through web-services (SOAP) only.

All major software development in our country now is on 3-tier architecture only. All major software comapanies stopped client server applications, except where a client asks for it for some legacy reasons. Now the client-server development is only done by small developers for small customers.

Mr. Antonio, in his great wisdom did make an effort to develop a .Net version of Harbour. True we did not encourage him. May be dot.net may not be the only way we keep a great language like Harbour useful for future. If there is some way Harbour can be made to play a role in three tier architecture.

Some thoughts: After we design the screens or forms, why cant FWH generate generate an asp page ( or set of asp pages) to show the same screens on webbrowser (also using azax) ? Possible we can give better interface than other tools available. No present tool in the world can beat the way we show browses. Can we not do that in the new environment?

I am not talking about something like xbscript. Even with that gui on web-browser is still to be developed by us. if we can use xbscript we can as well use vbscript.

I am sure if a genius like Mr. Antonio turns his mind in this direction, we can proudly develop 3-tier applications with better user interface than others.

I am yet to see cule and the other mentioned above. I am interested in looking at them.

We need to catch up with the present day developments.

Humbly yours

Nageswara Rao

[Otto]

Hello Rick,

I think all the different versions of Netframework are in different folders
and if you build an application you setup a specific Framework version?
Your application is not touched if a user makes an update.

Regards,
Otto

[Rick Lipkin]

Otto

I do realize that .. I just hate having to deal with the infrastructure and making sure all the desktops have the correct framework installed.

To be quite honest with you .. I have chosen the ADO route with my applications placing the data on a MS Sql server...

Ado is supported 'naitively' on every Windows OS since at least Win98 .. no clients to install, no run-times .. just create your single executable and prev32.dll and copy it out to each local lan .. and it just works !!

Just my 2 cents worth

Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Health, USA