Re: Reporting tools

Dawn..

Ok.. some explanations...

..Net is a concept really...

The basis is the .Net framework, which is a library of functions and objects
that sits on top of windows. It encompasses most of the old Win32 c calls
plus lots of others.

On top of this is the CLR - which is the common language environment - you
might think this as similar to the java runtime environment.

The programming languages include c# and vb.net. These are both compiled to
psuedo code which is interpreted by the CLR and make numerous calls into the
..Net framework to do anything. These programming languages are all fully
object orientated. Programmers can pick pretty much any of them to do the
job - the language is largely unimportant as they mostly compile to the same
pseudo code. vb.net is "basic like" and c# is actually more like java
(curly braces and the like).

So far, I've only talked about the programming languages - I've not talked
about presentation or environment.

Currently, there are two main ways of writing .net applications ....

1. Windows Forms

This is the windows "thick" client application. It compiles to a win32
based executable that needs to run inside a windows environment. Therefore
will only run on a windows PC. The application does not necessary need
to be preinstalled on a pc as it can be installed on the client on a
just-in-time basis, much like java apps are distributed and run within a
browser.

2. Asp.Net

Asp - active server pages are asp pages on steroids. They use the full
windows framework to provide automatic stuff like session state handling,
persistence, database access etc. This can be very powerful. Runs within a
Windows based web server (IIS) with the .net framework installed. The
actual client can pretty much be any html4/css compliant browser.


Thats pretty much it.. in a nutshell.

Obviously, I've oversimplified everything.. For example, .Net doesn't
actually need Windows to run. The framework standards and the standards for
coding in languages such as c# are independent standards. The Mono project
seeks to provide the .net framework running in Linux and is gaining more
success all the time. I believe it also supports asp.net in apache.

Looking at the next version of sql server, this will have the ability to
write stored procedures using .net technology... It's easy to see where
microsoft is going with the technology.

Basically, dotnet is all about learning the basic technology once (the
dotnet framework plus one or more of the programming languages) and then
deploying this same skill set right through the enterprise - from database
through to browser... I like the concept and find it very powerful.

Apologies in advance for any mistakes I've made whilst trying to
oversimplify... Particularly, I apologise for using the wrong terminology to
describe things - but I hope that the overall meanings are clear.

Hope this helps!

Simon




"dawn" <dawnwolthuis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1139345760.410304.291890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Glen B wrote:
"dawn" <dawnwolthuis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1139321976.946339.324680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I really need to get a clue on .NET. When you say "a .NET plug" does
that mean that a product can be accessed by other products running in a
.NET virtual machine or that there is a .NET API for data exchange
between products or what? This is a ".NET for Dummies" question.


.NET is fine, unless you happen to be in a *nix environment and want to
build the reports there.

Now let's say I have a software application with the UI in a browser
(e.g. AJAX front-end) and I want to give it a .NET plug. What would I
do to the application to allow it to play in the .NET world?


It's not that simple because .NET is a local Windows service and client
architecture. Javascript is a platform independant technology, so you
wouldn't be able to build a cross-browser/cross-platform product with it
and
.NET.

It sounds like instead of running an application using a browser
application as your run-time client, you would have the .NET Windows
service (what would be a daemon in unix) as your run-time environment.
Each of these run-time environments sits on top of Windows, while the
browser also runs on any OS.

So, instead of writing for a browser, you need to write your
applications for .NET. Ugh. Who is going to come up with a way to
write the front-end UI so that it can run in either a a browser or
.NET?

That's not to say you can't make them all work together with ASP.NET.

ASP.NET is .NET in a browser or what? Sorry to be so bloomin'
ignorant, but I have probably ignored .NET for too long.

However, that limits your HTTP services options.


But these products "think like" SQL. They think in terms of putting
rows of corresponding data on a page. If you want to show multiple
multivalues you need to do (virtually) cross-products and subsequent
groupings, never getting the same output as you can get with MV. I
didn't say that well, but an example might be

PizzaName.....Crust.........Meats...............Cheeses
OurFamous.....DeepDish...Pepperoni.........Parmesan
.......................................Sausage...........Moz
.......................................Ham

This is just one example of what is either impossible or extremely hard
to get with any SQL-thinking tools.


I proposed an RFC for communication of MV data, back in 2000. It got
zero
interest, apart from a few other propeller heads. The basis was to
preserve
the relationships of multi-layered data segments, but allow for a
flattened
communications layer over any medium(HTTP, Telnet, raw socket, e-mail,
IRC,
etc). Full access to sort, list, select, read, write, etc was discussed.
If
you are interested, I may be able to dig up a dusty copy of the
incomplete
RFC.

I agree that something like this sounds like a good idea. I'm likely
not enough of a propeller-head to understand it. Along with ".NET" my
eyes glaze over as soon as someone says "socket." ;-)

I do think something like this will come of the XML efforts one way or
another. While SQL has ODBC wrapping it (among other things), is there
an analogous standard wrapper for XQuery or will there be? Web
services and related standards might also provide something here.

I wrote a sample services application in BASIC and provided a VB
example of how to talk to the service and obtain data through various
request methods. I'm sure the applications are long gone by now. For your
AJAX addiction,

I think "interest" would be a better description. If it were an
addiction, perhaps I would have done more by now.

you could even write a client in Javascript as long as you
have access to remote web services. It'd be easy to build local objects
of
the remote data with a few commands to the services.

My thinking is that if there is some open source tool that is so cool
that every MV database would like to be able to claim that it works
with their product and it defines the adapter/service interface that it
will work with, then perhaps each vendor or perhaps just one 3rd party
would make work of standardizing on that service. Otherwise each
vendor will just continue to do their own thing which either fragments
the community more or introduces opportunities for 3rd parties to step
up to the plate as jBASE (IIRC) seems to have done with mv.NET


I'm an Excel fan too. It is an incredibly powerful tool that almost
everyone with Windows has on their desktop.


It used to blow chunks. Only since 2000 came out, has it acutally
gotten
to be a decent tool.

That release definitely helped in making it a very viable tool in the
BI toolset.

I remember when Quattro Pro was 5 times more powerful
and easier to use. That wasn't that long ago either.

Agreed. Cheers! --dawn



.

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