Re: C# runtime version

Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] <mvp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> See inline:
>
> > 1) Visual Studio 2005 is a better environment in general
>
> Agreed.
>
> > 2) Visual Studio Team System provides many features which are
> > unavailable in VS.NET 2003 - why should I have to go without those
> > features just because I'm working on pre-2.0 code?
>
> Because there are a good number of those features which are dependent on
> new classes in the .NET 2.0 distribution. Take data binding, for example.
> The BindingSource class does not exist in .NET 1.1.
>
> Things like refactoring, however, I can understand. It depends on what
> specific things the OP is looking to take advantage of.

Indeed - and I would guess that as the OP has said he's not using any
2.0 features, that's not an issue. It's certainly not an issue for
*me*, and I want to be able to do this too :)

> > 3) It seems unreasonable to have to have two different IDEs installed,
> > just to target two different runtimes with the same language.
>
> When dealing with minor revisions, I agree, but with the changes from
> 1.1 to 2.0, I think that the expectation of backwards compatability is just
> outrageous.

All I want is for the IDE to be able to target a compiler for one
runtime while working with another. I don't even mind if it lets me
type in 2.0 syntax and then only complain when it's building.

> > 4) There are times it's useful to be able to produce two different
> > outputs from the same source code - one for 1.1 and one for 2.0. Using
> > a different project configuration from the same IDE is much more
> > convenient than having to change IDEs.
>
> I'll give you that, it's convenient, yes, but not horribly inefficient,
> especially with the price of processors, memory, and disk space nowadays.
> That's not to say that this is an excuse, but because of these factors,
> having to switch between two environments isn't a nightmare scenario.

No, but it's pretty inconvenient.

> > A lot of people will have to do maintenance on code which is pre-2.0
> > for some time to come. I don't see why they should have to work with
> > old tools, when various other development platforms (eg Java IDEs) have
> > coped with this problem for a long time.
>
> Java has a little bit of an advantage in this little niche area.
> Because they have been so reluctant to actually change the underlying
> runtime drastically (unlike the change to the runtime from 1.1 to 2.0), they
> get huge advantages in terms of maintaining backwards compatability with
> previous frameworks.

Well, you still need to build different versions of bytecode, and
target different runtime libraries. Leaving designers etc aside, I
don't see that it's *that* different.

> >> Basically, I would take the code and try to compile it in the 1.1
> >> ide.
> >> If it works, great, but all in all, I think the amount of checking you
> >> would
> >> have to do in order to get code developed in the 2.0 IDE to compile in
> >> 1.1
> >> is excessive.
> >
> > Fortunately MS disagrees, hence the tool it's building :)
>
> I disagree with that. If they truly agreed, it would have been in the
> product to begin with. We both know that if they thought that it was
> important enough, it would have been in there, but they didn't see it as
> such. The fact that they are doing it now is because they are bowing to
> customer demand, not because they actually think that it is viable enough.
> Of course, that doesn't mean they are right, but it doesn't mean that they
> agree with it.

Actually, they *wanted* it to begin with, according to a softie website
I was reading. They tried it and found it hard. I suspect they then
underestimated just how much demand there is for it (supposedly it's
one of the most requested features), and made the decision to cut it as
a feature based on that underestimate.

They're also trying to make it easier for the future, by the sounds of
it. I wish I could find the page which spoke about this. I was looking
at it just the other day...

--
Jon Skeet - <skeet@xxxxxxxxx>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Downgrading to D7
    ... I'm not worried about IDE or VCL features, ... to spend so much money on it and being unable to used it. ... I don't buy clichet like "...But you wont be helping the delphi community, industry, ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: Oracle buys Sun, owns Java
    ... replicate this (how would you go about analyzing a source ... as often if not more often outside Eclipse than in the IDE. ... The "Integration" in IDE simply means that I can access operations through a single application. ... These features were made by very smart people, ...
    (comp.lang.java.programmer)
  • Re: Questions about the DLR
    ... References, declarations, etc. were all indexed, and there was even a macro that would refer to the source management database and show you the exact check-in and diff where the line was added or changed. ... I can see how the features you're talking about would be useful. ... Even the stuff that can be measured in seconds, I'm just not compiling often enough for it to be a big deal. ... obviously this is as much about .NET as it is about a specific IDE. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework)
  • Re: C# vs VB.Net
    ... In VB.NET you have to ~remember to put in "namespace ... Also, in VB 6, you could have the IDE ... Status unknown - I haven't used the serialize features of dotNET. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet)
  • C++ IDE for Linux
    ... IDE you'd suggest. ... and possibly code formatting so my code ... compile and use makefiles and such myself. ... I want an IDE that has features to format my code so it's ...
    (comp.os.linux.development.apps)