Hi,

I'm sorry to bother but I don't understand the logic of switching to .NET Framework. Google'ing .NET shows that it is mostly compared/related to Java (the most compatible yet performancewise the most crippled language IMHO) because of the JIT compilation. I'm not an expert of the .NET but a programmer seen enough. Feel free to correct me if I'm anywhere wrong within the concepts I'm going to mention without being a fanatic of .NET...

I'd like to ask what's a time-critical (since it's a Broadcast) application like ProgDVB has to do with .NET? I have looked at it enough to see it's 'really' easier to use the .NET Framework rather than using ATL, MFC, WinAPI, Asm or others. But I still don't see the point since performancewise AFAIK; .NET (bytecode) < ATL < MFC < WinAPI < Asm...

I know some people won't like these but; I never liked the Visual Basic's dependency-hell. You have to install VB-Runtimes for application to work. Even Microsoft Windows XP SP2 doesn't come equipped with these Runtimes (Micro$oft contradicting itself). Now same is applied with .NET Framework. First v1.1, then v2.0 and now v3.0 which is mandatory in Vista. The easier the coding gets, the farther you shift away from performance. Of course many don't feel a thing since slower the Window$ gets, the faster the hardware become (to compare install XP vs 2000 on minimum requirements for 2000). For the same task of showing a simple message box; Asm (fastest) needs the most LOC (unless you use HLA), .NET needs only few Lines-Of-Code. Choice of coding language is a double-edged sword where the programmer has to balance between performance vs ease of coding...

I would really appreciate if someone with inside knowledge to answer:
1) What was v4x series written in? My best guess is; Visual C++ v6 or higher with MFC since there's no VB dependency-hell, no VCL (Delphi/Builder) looking objects & so on...
2) What's the logic of the shifting to .NET Framework? Ease of coding (at the cost of performance)? (Already demanding) Vista Compatibility? To stop memory leaks (because of .NET's automatic garbage collector)? Or others...?

According to Wikipedia:
I must emphasis on;

Applications running in a managed environment such as the Microsoft Framework's CLR or Java's JVM tend to require more system resources than functionally similar applications that access machine resources more directly.

This is because of the Just-In-Time (JIT) approach of the bytecode (non-native) of .NET Framework which can be improved sligthly with NGEN conversion to native code...

See this from CLR in Wikipedia: I already posted in the forum about the significant memory consumption in v4x series. Can .NET request more? My preliminary test shows that the consumption is close with the fact that v5x is still in beta/test stages. Even if the .NET Framework might decrease GUI memory heap, already performance dependant ProgDVB (which should be 'high priority' by default) can stand .NET? Majority of the computers today still don't migrate to "X2 - SLI - RAID - Memory Monster"s which Micro$oft Vista demanded. Please do compare both programs within your "Old" system something like in the minimum requirements page of ProgDVB which would suffer noticably...

IMHO .NET reqs (for reasonable speeds) + min.reqs for ProgDVB are contradicting. This is why I question the use of .NET. This can be solved easily by updating min.reqs for ProgDVB to today's standards where .NET will happily work within. I apologize if I offended anyone but this is what I think, feel free to convince me otherwise by stating facts (site referring) rather than speculating...

Also comparing v4x & v5x series, both can exchange good things from one another. I can't seem to find "Channel List on Right" in v5x which I still use in v4x. And "Channel Properties" enhancements on v5x are absent in v4x. And so forth... I guess, soon v4x series to be abandoned but all good features of it could be implemented/improved within v5x series...

Thanks for reading...

P.S.1: If the coding/shifting choice is affected due the fact that Visual C++ Express Edition is powerful and 'free' (yet MFC/ATL crippled) to develop .NET ProgDVB (my guess), similarly strong free software compared to .NET Framework can be suggested such as Ultimate++ & etc...
P.S.2: Latest v5.09 has minor english typo mistakes in menu and so forth...

Plus, did you ever find out how much disk space .Net uses? In more than one place, of course...

Well, disk space is not expensive anymore, but this load increases backup ressoures as well.

And how many runtime environments does a normal computer user need to have, these days?


However, that's Prog's descition.
We have to live with it, or simply let it be...
Same with the OS aspect, Win9x support already was ended once, between 4.48.x and 4.55.x
Now, the modern .NET test versions don't work here at all.
But I won't go for another (default) M$ OS, just for staying comaptble with a DVB software.
Unicode is included in my OS patches, so that's not an issue anymore. I don't need the unicows.dlls of the update versions here.

Discussed a lot on changes and OS limitations on the old forums ages ago, but repeating all that does not seem to make sense.

So again, Prog decided, and of course he can do so.
He's the programmer, he's our host and admin here, and we are getting free software from him, for years now.

And there may be good reasons, e.g. regarding hardware or BDA related SDK limitations or alike...

We have to take it as it is, obviously.
Like it or not...

Regards

Juergen