Re: Reporting tools

Tony

As always, you've clarified my post...

I wasn't belittling Mono, but perhaps I was seeking to state that it's not
the full framework running on Linux... I know it's doesn't support all
Win32 stuff, which can be a problem.

I don't know how successful Mono can be (with add-ins) in running Windows
Forms... IMHO until it can duplicate the main functionality of Windows forms
as well as web forms, then it will be useless to me and I won't find out
more.... Though to be honest, I've not got the requirement (today) to run
on anything other than Windows.... but it would be nice to know I *could*.

Regards
Simon
"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5holu1t8acg1r475m88gfna0nig9ka6kl7@xxxxxxxxxx
"dawn" wrote:
"much like java apps are distribute and run within a browser" -- you
mean like Java web start where the jre and app are launched from the
browser, but don't actually run in the browser window?

Yes. I tend to cite the example of programs like antivirus programs
which run in the tray and update themselves and their data definitions
automatically. When you start a SmartClient application it will check
the server for updates. The user can install the updates immediately
or whenever they want. Deployment with this model is really
outstanding because MIS and VARs don't need to run around to cities
and offices and PCs to update software. This is something the MV
market needs to understand desperately. I'll do some writing on this
as time permits and will have some software in a few months that shows
how this works.

Something else to note. SmartClients are deployed using the Code
Access Security model. CAS is relatively easy to administer compared
to other thich code that runs in the browser, and it's very secure.


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.

If I understand correctly, this would be analogous to running tomcat on
a web server for a java servlet environment

In another post you'll notice I mention compiling .NET code to Java
and running it over Tomcat - exactly the same model.


What does it mean if a vendor makes their software available with a
.NET plug? Does that mean that it runs in a .NET thick client?

My use of the term "plug" meant that .NET can use other products and
technologies, and other products and technologies can use .NET code as
they would their own native componets. .NET of course works with .NET
seamlessly. .NET can run COM code, and COM can run .NET, all through
a concept called "COM Interop". Also via COM Interop, .NET components
can be hosted in Java, FoxPro, Delphi, PHP, and Perl. Yes, you must
run your code over Windows.

So... If someone holds a gun to my head (or a stack of money) I'm sure
I can interface .NET to just about anything you have. If it can't be
done directly then it should be pretty straightforward to create a
wrapper through which anything can interoperate with .NET code, either
on the local system or anywhere on the LAN or Internet - welcome to
the world of the the Service Oriented Architecture.


... .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.

Sure, sure, but for all intents and purposes, it really is a Windows
solution with some people who have been working really hard for quite
some time to try to make it successful on linux with some
not-overwhelming successes, right?

That's a significant write-off without justification and (disagreement
with Simon) it's not accurate at all. I recommend some research.

Mono is an implementation of the framework which runs on Windows,
Linux, Mac, and to some extent on other platforms.

Mono has major financial and development support from Novell and
others. Many companies have invested money or dedicated resources
toward making Mono what it needs to be. The development community is
in the hundreds compared to many other Open Source projects where even
wildly popular components die from lack of community support.

As of now Mono supports the features that most .NET developers need.
It's pretty much .NET 1.1 compliant and they're now working on .NET
2.0 hooks. For a long time now Mono is self-hosting, which means,
like Microsoft .NET, Mono is written in Mono/C# and developers "eat
their own food" when they're developing with the software. It fully
supports ASP.NET and Web Services, ADO.NET, and all of the major
namespaces.

It does not support WindowsForms because Microsoft relies on Win32API
hooks as part of their implementation, but you can use Gtk# for thick
client apps over any platform. (Admittedly thick client is not a
strong point here.) Mono also does not support use of the Registry
for obvious reasons, and some of the File IO routines don't conform to
Microsoft-specific filesystems.


Looking at the next version of sql server, this will have the ability to
write stored procedures using .net technology...

This is where my brain gets muddled. Does this mean that you can write
a stored procedure (or user-defined function?) for SQL Server using a
.NET language such as C#

Yes.

or does it mean that SQL Server will be
running in a .NET run-time environment so that stored procedures,
whatever the language, will be compiled to p-code/bytecode and
everthing will be running in .NET much like DataBASIC and I-descriptors
run in a PICK p-code environment? The second implies the first, so I
suspect it is yes to both of these?

Interesting question there and I don't know the answer. I could be
wrong but I'd say there's a good chance that SQL Server 2005 is
written in managed .NET code - I don't remember if I needed to install
.NET first before I installed SQL Server, but there's always the
question of whether it just uses .NET for some functions or whether
it's all written in .NET. When you ask about everything running in
p-code, I can tell you that the next version of Windows
(Vista=Longhorn) has .NET completely integrated as part of the OS. So
maybe the answer to this second question is Yes.


Basically, dotnet is all about learning the basic technology once (the
dotnet framework

learning the framework means learning the library API's, perhaps?

Lots and lots of them. It's too vast to grok in any short amount of
time. I've spent a couple years on this and there are still facets
that I haven't even looked at. And then .NET 2.0 comes along,
deprecates some functions and adds completely new functionality - it's
a never-ending learning process. I won't minimize it, this stuff
isn't for the casual hobbyist, you either get serious about it or
accept that there will be easy ways to do things that you'll never
find without research. It's all a lot like Java, only nicer. :)

(Watch the pundits pounce on all of that fresh meat.)


Here is another place I'm lost. How do you deploy C#, for example,
straight through to a generic run-of-the-mill browser and get a rich UI
out of it? Don't you need ECMAScript (JScript/JavaScript)?

With Visual Basic you've always needed the VB Runtime libraries:
msvbvm60.dll, vb40032.dll, etc. For .NET, you install the .NET
Framework. v1.1 was 23MB, I don't remember what v2.0 is. It's much
like installing the J2SE Runtime Environment. Once you have that you
can run anything as a server or thick client. Browsers never get any
.NET code (unless you deploy SmartClients), they only get W3C XHTML,
scripts, CSS, etc.

There are standard components that come with .NET (and can be easily
manipulated in Visual Studio) but the more sophisticated "rich"
components come from the third-party market. VS2005 came with a lot
of new and enhanced components but the open market is where the really
nice stuff comes from - hey, it's all free, what do you expect? Once
again, if you want the "really" nice stuff, you can write it yourself
using all the free tools, or you can pay someone else for it.

In case there is any confusion: a "rich" UI can only be had through
thick client or through SmartClient deployment of a thick client
through a browser (requires .NET on the client). Standard controls
give you an average UI but you can get a BUI that looks like a thick
client with components from companies like Telerik, Infragistics, and
ComponentOne - unless you write some super controls for yourself.

T


.

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