.HTA/.HTB/PHP v. DotNet - was RE: [AccessD]OT: C# was no-ip.com (is now an apology)

Bruce Bruen bbruen at bigpond.com
Fri Aug 1 07:45:33 CDT 2003


Scott and List,

On re-reading the whole of the thread, it is I who should apologise.

Recently, I have been reviewing technology choices for a friend who is
embarking on a new product development.  As it involves a base of
multiple database flavours and internet deployment of the finished app
he was interested in the development "issues" of various languages with
view to understanding his risks if he chose one or more off the newer
offerings.  We looked at .net (VB, ASP and C#), php (and pear), ruby,
Kylix, Delphi, Java and python.  

Somehow, I lost the central issue of the AccessD thread and gave vent to
my frustrations with the "bells and whistles" marketing disinformation
that goes with the currently avialable literature on the commercial
languages.  In short, I plead "toxic feature overload", m'lud.  Or
perhaps, as Lloyd Bridges said in Flying High, "I guess I picked the
wrong week to give up sniffing glue".

Regarding C#, and given that I have only given it a cursory look as I
will explain, we were singularly unimpressed.

According to a very technical and ex-M$ acquaintance, C# still retains
the the dangerous features of C++, notably no array bound limiting,
pointer arithmetic and inadequate garbage collection.  These, IMHO, are
total no-no's  in a business application development language.  This was
a point I quite unadmirably did not make in that rave, so I apologise
for losing my own way in that respect.  Some may argue that these
"features" are strenghts of C. For a mainstream business application
development, I disgree.  They well may have uses in extremely technical
coding situations, like operating systems, DBMS engines, device drivers
and even embedded devices.  But not in mainstream business application
development.  They are, as far as I'm concerned as a development manager
interested in reducing risk and lowering maintenance costs, the
equivalent of the 1970's GOTO.

Given those comments from the technical man, and the previous separate
and joint experiences of both my client and myself in C++ development
shops (both of us having experienced never-never delivery schedules and
delivery of code with incredibly expensive maintenance costs), C# was
the first cull.

Note VB.net and ASP.net are both still in the race.  As are the Borland
and non-commercial languages.

So, again I apologise for hijacking the thread, and also apologise for
the latish apology.  I have just landed another gig and took a quick day
off - fishing - before starting work.  This time its development of a
RAD methodology - hmmm - should keep me off the rant for a few months at
least, so we'll just have to wait for JC's return (second coming????)

Bruce
<snip>...

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcus, Scott (GEAE, Contractor) [mailto:scott.marcus at ae.ge.com] 
Sent: Thursday 2003 Jul 31 07:48
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD]OT: C# was no-ip.com

Bruce,

I reread my post and am offering an apology for sounding rude. The
discussion is interesting, I just wish it had a different subject line.

Scott

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