Mario,

From my point of view, for the app I'm writing and delivering, I don't *want* the customers who refuse to come into the 21st century. There is nothing wrong with requiring that their workstations run W2K or better ... I don't want the headaches of trying to explain to a customer that it *should* run on a Win98 machine, but I'm not going to guarantee it. There's nothing wrong with requiring decently fast boxes with lots of RAM for their app/server, web/server and SQL Server and that the SQL Server has to be SQL 2000. Having these kinds of requirements may eliminate some potential customers, but to those small headaches, I say good riddance!! <g>

~~Bonnie


>>>Those are absolute statements but people like you help to prove these >>conclusions to be incorrect.
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>I don't put a ABSOLUTE statement.Is possible do a good GUI app with Winforms in .NET? Yes. That can "perform" well? Yes, depend on how much "performance" you need and what kind of "performance" your talk about. In the same terms, is possible do a decent GUI program in allmost any language...
>
>My point was
>>>Use .NET in client for uncrontroled deployment (ie: not departamental app for internal use) is a lose move. Simply not have sense.
>
>and
>>>Plus, take in account that the large cost is in the deployment phase. >>Deploy to server is insignificant but deploy .NET to a lot of clients that >>can hurts.
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>Uncontroled deployment: You don't have control of politic, apps instaled, security, base hardware, etc... like in the market of horizontal products, shareware, ERP system for general use and that. In a controled environment (ie: a departamental app) can be do the move, like some do with Java.
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>But when you put the cost of deploy&maintain your app in i-dont-know computer and where you don't can force a hardware upgrade: IS NOT SENSE.
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>.NET perform well in *proper*=mostly new, hardware. Put that in Win98, 128-256 MB RAM and the app is BAD (the customers not care about have that .net thing, anyway). You can say "move to best hardware, is cheap!" but that statement not take in account that a company need money for more IMPORTANT things that upgrade a machine that work rigth now, and where the competitors provide similar solutions that *look* best if i go to the .net road. That is a kind of customers, some have other kind of customers with no problem of upgrading. Go .NET, is fine. For my, is a cost that can be avoided, and not put .NET in client *now* not imply a big loss anyway. That not meaning that .NET must be ignored at all for rich client apps.
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>The cost of deploy is commonly forget. Deploy a 20MB runtime with IE, FrontPage extension, J# runtime, bla bla in a CD...not problem. But i have experience in the past deploying for more than +2000 customers with LOW dependencies and the phone not stop the first 2-3 months, we have a slow start because things related to failed upgrades, reinstall customers OS, and things like that...and yes, we know how do a setup program before you think bad about us, if not, that can be broke my company and provide solutions (like put 2-3 IE in diferent languages, diferent SP, diferent version of diferent components, bla) help us in solve it quickly. But, then the people crash your system, and need reinstall so...(and, i don't talk about a program for internet deployment)
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>Maybe you think in the fact that .NET solve the dll hell but the requieriments are fragile by now (that its, the requeriment programs are .NET). Plus, we live our first 2 week-nightmare with the first .NET runtime hell when move from 1.0 to 1.1 ...
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>>>I think the reason we get such comments is that people have not been >>successful with the technology.
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>Using .NET in production from +2years ago, using almost any big area of .NET: XML, Web Services, Reflection, On-the-fly code generation&compilation, On-the-fly loading custom DLL code&execution, Security, RegEx, Crypto, User controls, Custom clases, ASP.NET & JScript injection, COM+ integration, try "upgrading" BIG rich-client to .NET (failed: Requiere more time than convert it to ASP.NET directly ;( ), all of this for a ERP system, no taking in account report generation, PDF generation and OLAP interface+reporting+custom made olap reporting made by other guys in my company....
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>For myself, using sucesfully ASP.NET for my own website, portal & online sales included..
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>The point is, putting cost, .NET in client for non-controled deployment not provide enough value for the money&effort specially when i use a very capable tool like Delphi, or VFoxPro by the way (i can see how much value that bring to a VB developer or a C developer ...) and when Winforms is deprecated by Avalon...Also, Winforms is surely slow: you don't know that the GDI+ no use hardware acceleration ????
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>But i hope for the succes of the whole plataform (and mono too;) ), and i see with much expectation the new NET 2 plataform (i hope no other runtime hell for us).