Re: Newbie question

"Matthias Moetje" <moetje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23LPGQV2rFHA.2272@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Well, I didn't want to start a discussion about COM against .NET. I just
> wanted to say that if someone using VB should use TAPI3, because TAPI2
> is really a pain with VB. (e.g. VB doesn't do well handling callbacks
> etc.)

The fault is not with TAPI but rather VB. Get used to it. VB falls short in
many respects.

> It wouldn't be a helpful suggestion to a VB programmer which is new to
> TAPI to suggest to use TAPI2 with VB. And that's what this topic was
> about.

The only one who suggested TAPI in this thread was _you_.

> This is not true. Large parts of Windows are built on COM.

That's not even close to the truth. Rather it is COM that is built on
Windows.

(not the core components, but a huge amount of stuff).

Some things, such as SAPI, but not the core. David Cutler, after all, is a
smart guy.

> Do you think we will see MS Office developed in .NET soon? I don't.

First, Office is not Windows. Second, no one is going to re-write tens of
millions of lines of code just because. Third, it demonstrates just how much
damage one bad idea can have. And fourth, smart people don't undertake new
COM based development now.

> Why not use the best technology for each individual purpose?

I do. Every day. It's a lesson I learned from Grimm's Three Little Pigs
fairy tale - to build with bricks not straw.

> Our software (TERAVoice) is a mixture of VB COM components and
> a C++ service handling threading and several other low-level tasks.

Yeah, and as I recall you once mentioned that you resorted to using
imtermediate files to do speech. So what?

> This allows efficient and quick programming of business logic stuff
> while having a robust base for critical parts of the application;

LOL. Everything in a server is critical.

> our internal database frontends are done with MS Access.

Your choice of database is completely foreign to this discussion. And oh by
the way, you might want to consider MSDE if not SQL Server. It's the real
deal.

> I don't think it's wise to follow any kind
> of hype statements like "only C++ programmers are real programmers",

It is politically incorrect to make the statement. It is also the prevailing
wisdom. And its true.

Just Google for

Mort Elvis Einstein

which are the names used at MS to denote three prototypical classes of
developers. The choice of the names is quite telling. :-)

> "COM is dead,

Yup.

> .NET is the only future",

Well, native code is not going away any time soon. But if nothing else, .Net
ought to bury COM. The jury is still out. We'll see.

> "VB is just for script kiddies",

Yup.

> "C is for beginners, I'm programming microcontrollers in assembler",

It used to be true. I know I have had to work in environments where I'd look
various ways of writing stretches of code to determine which one would fit
into the space at hand. That was a long time ago, when memory was expensive
and hand optimization could beat the compiler. I don't know if the
perspective is anachronistic or not though I expect so.

> but rather a neutral assessment of available and suitable technologies.

The choice depends a lot on the metric. Where quality is the determining
factor, the choice is clear.

Finally, while he didn't weigh in on the merits of COM, Edsger Dykstra
certainly had a lot to say about BASIC:

<quote>
Secondly, I am sorry to say, both the computer industry and the education
business contributed more than their fair share of misleading the public. I
think of the company advertizing "Thought Processors" or the college
pretending that learning BASIC suffices or at least helps, whereas the
teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the
mind beyond recovery.
</quote>

Regards,
Will


.

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