XYplorer Beta Club

unix wrote:
It's 2013, albeit 1-day :-) how goes the 64-bit version of XYplorer? I'm looking forward to this as well.

Is Microsoft not releasing a 64-bit compiler for Visual Basic? I'm guessing Visual Studio 2010/2012 contains a 64-bit compiler or an option to do as such?

That's not the issue. The current versions of Visual Basic are no longer unmanaged languages. And many people (myself included) do not like working with managed languages.

Mesh wrote:

unix wrote:
It's 2013, albeit 1-day :-) how goes the 64-bit version of XYplorer? I'm looking forward to this as well.

Is Microsoft not releasing a 64-bit compiler for Visual Basic? I'm guessing Visual Studio 2010/2012 contains a 64-bit compiler or an option to do as such?

That's not the issue. The current versions of Visual Basic are no longer unmanaged languages. And many people (myself included) do not like working with managed languages.

Unmanaged and managed, you mean standardization of VB? Where many developers agreed upon certain syntax, library calls, garbage collection, etc.

unix wrote:
Unmanaged and managed, you mean standardization of VB? Where many developers agreed upon certain syntax, library calls, garbage collection, etc.

No, not standardization - I mean managed, as in code requires a framework runtime seperately installed in order to run (which for microsoft usually means .NET). An unmanaged language is capable of being completely self sustaining - for example, C++.

Mesh wrote:

unix wrote:
Unmanaged and managed, you mean standardization of VB? Where many developers agreed upon certain syntax, library calls, garbage collection, etc.

No, not standardization - I mean managed, as in code requires a framework runtime seperately installed in order to run (which for microsoft usually means .NET). An unmanaged language is capable of being completely self sustaining - for example, C++.

I see, where anything that has to do with Microsoft requires .Net installation before the app can function properly. Then to C++ or try it with .Net and see how it goes. Many users running Windows has .Net installed nowadays, especially users running XYplorer and not your typical users.

If I recall correctly, Windows 7 comes with .Net framework installed. Perhaps a poll by Don/admin to get users feedback?

Mesh wrote:

unix wrote:
Unmanaged and managed, you mean standardization of VB? Where many developers agreed upon certain syntax, library calls, garbage collection, etc.

No, not standardization - I mean managed, as in code requires a framework runtime seperately installed in order to run (which for microsoft usually means .NET). An unmanaged language is capable of being completely self sustaining - for example, C++.

Seen this way VB is managed - as it needs a VB runtime?

unix wrote:
I see, where anything that has to do with Microsoft requires .Net installation before the app can function properly. Then to C++ or try it with .Net and see how it goes. Many users running Windows has .Net installed nowadays, especially users running XYplorer and not your typical users.

If I recall correctly, Windows 7 comes with .Net framework installed. Perhaps a poll by Don/admin to get users feedback?

You're right that people running XY are not typical users. I use XY in recovery environments all the time - and in such situations, there is no framework running or no guarantee that there will be framework (let alone a functioning framework) running.

It is especially vital that any app that is portable, as XY is, remains self contained as much as possible. Managed languages are thus a poor choice for scenarios such as this one.

PeterH wrote:
Seen this way VB is managed - as it needs a VB runtime?

To my knowledge, all the .NET languages require a framework of some sort. VB, C#, etc... If you want code to stand on its own, you have to use an unmanaged language - and for VB, the last version that fit this bill was VB 6.

PeterH wrote:No, not standardization - I mean managed, as in code requires a framework runtime seperately installed in order to run (which for microsoft usually means .NET). An unmanaged language is capable of being completely self sustaining - for example, C++.

Seen this way VB is managed - as it needs a VB runtime?[/quote]
"Managed" doesn't just mean generally requiring a framework. These days almost anything requires some kind of framework. "Managed" specifically means that it requires the .net framework (or equivalent). Which I would personally have no problem with at all, as it's driving me crazy not having various context menu items on folders/files that I used to have, that I have to drop back into Explorer to see.

Still, I can agree that while most computers these days will have .net installed, it does make sense that if you were using it in a recovery environment, you wouldn't be able to count on that so much.

neminem wrote:

PeterH wrote:No, not standardization - I mean managed, as in code requires a framework runtime seperately installed in order to run (which for microsoft usually means .NET). An unmanaged language is capable of being completely self sustaining - for example, C++.

Seen this way VB is managed - as it needs a VB runtime?

"Managed" doesn't just mean generally requiring a framework. These days almost anything requires some kind of framework. "Managed" specifically means that it requires the .net framework (or equivalent). Which I would personally have no problem with at all, as it's driving me crazy not having various context menu items on folders/files that I used to have, that I have to drop back into Explorer to see.

Still, I can agree that while most computers these days will have .net installed, it does make sense that if you were using it in a recovery environment, you wouldn't be able to count on that so much.[/quote]

Why not have a 32-bit version and 64-bit version? Give customers option, retain your current user base and attracting new ones.

unix wrote:Why not have a 32-bit version and 64-bit version? Give customers option, retain your current user base and attracting new ones.

That's generally how it's done, but that's because generally providing both versions just means flipping a switch in your compiler to be 32 or 64. If on the other hand, one was written in VB6 and one was written in VB.net... there are certainly similarities, but VB.net is a much better language, which of course also means it's a moderately different language. Which means you can't generally just write VB6 code, call it a VB.net solution and compile it in VB.net, it doesn't work like that.

neminem wrote:
That's generally how it's done, but that's because generally providing both versions just means flipping a switch in your compiler to be 32 or 64. If on the other hand, one was written in VB6 and one was written in VB.net... there are certainly similarities, but VB.net is a much better language, which of course also means it's a moderately different language. Which means you can't generally just write VB6 code, call it a VB.net solution and compile it in VB.net, it doesn't work like that.

It's a more modern language, I wouldn't say it was better. But I admit that that's in part because I am heavily biased against languages that require a framework to run.

Mesh wrote:It's a more modern language, I wouldn't say it was better. But I admit that that's in part because I am heavily biased against languages that require a framework to run.

Strictly speaking, I'm pretty sure vb6 requires a framework, too. I recall back in the day discovering I lacked various dlls that required download, for running vb applications. Just only needed to discover that once, then you had them. (Of course the difference is back then, a few megs of disk space for a shared framework was a lot, comparatively, while now MS felt totally fine having you download and install a couple hundred.

But other than that... I say .net is a prettier language in that it's easier to read, and it's certainly more powerful in that there's a far larger library of built-in classes and objects, that do a lot more. (Granted, I'm totally speaking out of my butt on that, having never actually had to write any vb6 code; I've just heard things :p. (I do know the library got much bigger, though - being the reason the framework is way bigger :p)).

XY does not require any framework. It just needs one runtime library, that's not the same as a framework. If that runtime library is not found in Windows System, you can simply copy it to the folder of XY and it will work. The lib just has to be found.