.NET

[sohfeyr]

Very nice. You get drunk in the v3 Developers forum and the Moderators get to clean it up. "Off-topic posts" is definitely going on my list of things not to do in the forums...

[SDX2000]

A general question....why did you decide on using a BASIC like syntax? I think you (AutoIt guys) are C++ developers....IMHO it would have been more worth while if your syntax was closer to C++ akin to Javascript, C#, Java etc....would have made things a lot less verbose and a much more consistent.

[Jon]

BASIC stands for Beginners All Purpose Blah. C stands for ClusterFuck.

[Richard Robertson]

AutoIt is meant to work for beginners up to experts.

[mrcdsix]

Hey big_daddy, do you still have any of the code to drive your Verinex scanner. I got one off of ebay and am trying to get it to work. Verinex does not even have a website anymore so no hope there.

I sure hope the company that you work for provides a better product! When we first got these things it was supposed to reduce the amount of support calls we got for resetting passwords. However I think the call volume has doubled or tripled do to the damn software loosing their credentials all the time. Our logon scripts no longer run before the desktop is loaded. RDP Connections render the finger print devices unusable until after a reboot. Oh, and did I mention they require 100MB of RAM to operate!

As you can see I am very unhappy with what we invested over 30,000 dollars in.

[jvanegmond]

Since this topic has been dug up anyway..

I would love to see, or create, AutoIt.Net in C#. Changing the syntax to make it part of the C-family. The new language will be, event-driven, object oriented and will have data types for variables. It will also have the option for multi-threading, since it is so very easy in C#.

[Richard Robertson]

Why would the syntax of AutoIt change? I'm writing AutoIt.Net to copy the existing syntax, while only adding some interop functionality. A couple new keywords like new, etc.

[Valik]

I think an AutoIt.NET is missing the point of what AutoIt is about. The idea is to have a small, fast, stand-alone scripting language. What benefit does making a .NET version of AutoIt offer you? You take the "small, stand-lone" out of it. You also take the "fast" out of it as you just add yet another layer between the metal and the code. Why else would you write a version of AutoIt in .NET? To make things difficult for yourself? We use a lot of fairly low-level Windows stuff. .NET, from what I've seen, tries to keep you away from that as convenience. So it can't be for rapid development not that this is a good reason, anyway, as it's not supposed to be easy to develop AutoIt. Certainly it would be nice to develop AutoIt easily, but then, if it were that easy to develop the features, we wouldn't have AutoIt anyway because the things we'd be doing would be easier to do in other languages.

The only somewhat valid argument I can see for a .NET version of AutoIt is for .NET GUI automation. However, I imagine this can be done with a DLL (written in .NET if you so choose, but with a C interface). Presumably it's easier to work with .NET GUIs from within a .NET application than from without.

And as far as a new syntax with new features, well, is it really AutoIt then or just another BASIC-like language?

At any rate, if you're actively developing something, what's your focus on? Is it one of the bad reasons or is it the one good reason in the whole lot? If it's the good one, then focus on that instead of re-inventing the wheel. Put a little chrome on the already existing wheel rather than make a new one.

[Richard Robertson]

I was only wanting to add a few things like .Net object interaction (which would include any assembly you feel like loading), compiling and producing smaller executables, compile-what-you-need for built in functions, multithreading possibly, and a couple other things like that.

Also, if I can pull it off, it's a hell of learning experience, wouldn't you say?

[Valik]

I was only wanting to add a few things like ... compiling and producing smaller executables

We can give you smaller executables. We can force you to install Visual C++ run-times to do so. Does that really mean we've given you smaller executables when we force you to download runtime libraries several times larger than the amount of savings you'd gain? And force you to have those libraries on each and every machine you want to run on?

compile-what-you-need for built in functions,

Which breaks the notion that every script is a stand-alone interpreter (Execute, /AutoIt3ExecuteScript, /AutoIt3ExecuteLine). While it'd be nice if there was an option to only bring along what you need, since AutoIt itself is written in a language which compiles to native code directly, it's a pipe dream. Beside, given that you're forcing hundreds of MB of library dependancy onto users, a couple hundred kilobytes of unused code in the binary seems a bit... trivial.

multithreading possibly,

To this day, after several years working on and in AutoIt and having written hundreds of scripts with over a dozen large projects, I've never needed multi-threading in AutoIt. In 90% of the cases where users think they need multi-threading - they don't.

Also, if I can pull it off, it's a hell of learning experience, wouldn't you say?

Ehh. I think you can learn doing something more productive. An AutoIt to .NET bridge for easier manipulation of .NET forms would be a welcome contribution to the community.

[GEOSoft]

I would prefer that nothing be done in .NET personally. That has been another MS nightmare. OK so I'm from the .NOT generation but I've never been able to understand why .NET 2 was not an upgrade to .NET 1 and .NET 3 an upgrade to .NET 2. No way! If you have 3 apps each written using a different version of .NET then you have to have all 3 versions installed. Talk about extreme bloat.

[Richard Robertson]

I can't understand why everyone seems to complain about requiring the .Net runtime. Why doesn't anyone complain about the VB runtime?

Is 30 mb really that bad? Compared to the thousands of megabytes that many users already download, 30 mb doesn't seem that bad to me.

Can .Net forms really be automated though? I'll see what I can do there, because apparently that sounds like something people are wanting.

[Lazycat]

I would prefer that nothing be done in .NET personally. That has been another MS nightmare. OK so I'm from the .NOT generation but I've never been able to understand why .NET 2 was not an upgrade to .NET 1 and .NET 3 an upgrade to .NET 2. No way! If you have 3 apps each written using a different version of .NET then you have to have all 3 versions installed. Talk about extreme bloat.

I'm fully agree with it.

About two years ago I'm posted here, that I'm not seen even single good program written in .NET - all slow like turtles and quite unstable. Since that I'm prefer to avoid to deal with NET programs, but sometimes I was forced to do - it always was a very bad expirience.

Two years passed, but my opinion is still the same. Already .NET 3 is out, but no decent programs yet. Show me couple - maybe I'll change my mind... until that, Autoit.NET will be my nightmare

[Valik]

I can't understand why everyone seems to complain about requiring the .Net runtime. Why doesn't anyone complain about the VB runtime?

Is 30 mb really that bad? Compared to the thousands of megabytes that many users already download, 30 mb doesn't seem that bad to me.

Can .Net forms really be automated though? I'll see what I can do there, because apparently that sounds like something people are wanting.

Because VB is ancient? Because people did complain, didn't understand how to get it installed, or did without? And where do you get the figure "30 MB"? Add a 0, maybe. .NET isn't small.

Do you want to know why .NET is on my PC at all? Because Visual Studio requires it (given that it's written in it). Outside of that, I have absolutely no use for it. Which leads me to...

I'm fully agree with it.

About two years ago I'm posted here, that I'm not seen even single good program written in .NET - all slow like turtles and quite unstable. Since that I'm prefer to avoid to deal with NET programs, but sometimes I was forced to do - it always was a very bad expirience.

Two years passed, but my opinion is still the same. Already .NET 3 is out, but no decent programs yet. Show me couple - maybe I'll change my mind... until that, Autoit.NET will be my nightmare

I can name you 1 application (4 if you count all the versions). Visual Studio. I like Visual Studio and have since 2002 (7.0). 2003 (7.1), 2005 (8.0) and 2008 (9.0) have all been solid improvements. It's written in .NET and does not suffer for it. However, that is the only product that I've seen which doesn't suck (It's also one of only a few Microsoft products I like). Everything else is terribly slow, at best.

Of course, there's always excepts. I've seen a couple utilities for games I play which were written in .NET. They weren't really complex enough programs to suffer from the usual drawbacks, however.

[GEOSoft]

DOWNLOAD sizes before expansion.

23.1 MB .NET 1.1

22.4 MB .NET 2.0

28 MB .NET 3.0

Thats ~ 73.5 MB of drive real estate that belongs to ME. And that's before expansion. I get really sick and tired of companies assuming that I want to reserve drive space just for them. Like I don't need drive space for things I really want saved? And yes we did complain about the space of the VB runtimes, MS just took the highroad and said buy bigger drives and use it. Now we go from MS playing free with MY drive space to MS playing free with MY money. That's an attitude that has done MS a lot of damage over the years.

[Valik]

Oh yeah, I have to have development versions of .NET installed, that probably is bigger than just the end-user runtime. So okay, 30MB or so a pop per framework version.

[jvanegmond]

I enjoy reading this discussion. I do not have anything sensible to say, other then that this discussion is beginning to look like the Microsoft versus Linux discussion. Only, this discussion has transcended in it's level of geekiness.

[GEOSoft]

Oh yeah, I have to have development versions of .NET installed, that probably is bigger than just the end-user runtime. So okay, 30MB or so a pop per framework version.

The SDKs are about 10x the sizes I posted but none the less the major problem is that each new version of the framework is not end-user compatible with the previous versions so you have to install each in turn. .NET 4 will bring the total download size to ~ 100 MB.

@Manadar

It's not the MS vs. Linux situation. That being said, it does point out some problems with the way MS does things. Linux will never (in my lifetime) overtake MS as the predominant OS just like FF, Opera and all the rest will never overtake IE as the predominant browser. Hence the fact that the majority of software is developed for the Windows environment and now we are getting .NET forced on us because of that.

Edit: MS has the attitude that your computer belongs to them and you will use it the way they want you to. In reality the copy of Windows that you have installed does belong to them, you only paid for the license to use it. They have extended that to mean your computer is theirs and that's where I get into a problem with them. You can bet the next version of Windows is going to require further hardware upgrades.

Edited December 19, 2007 by GEOSoft

[Richard Robertson]

I've written and run tons of .Net applications and have never had problem with speed. Other than first run, they run as smoothly as native programs. I assume you all understand the JIT compiler that .Net uses, and it works just like the java system. What about java? That's a pretty huge runtime too. I didn't get the developer runtime, I'm sure it's even worse.

[Valik]

FWIW, I hate Java as well.