Neil It's standard practise, and as Eric Blasenheim says it's used by Microsoft within their own systems, anyway. This is the "unsafeness" issue, really - I guess that the way I would look at it is that .NET offers a degree of "protection" from (non-MapInfo) programming that inadvertently stuffs up its own internal operations and doesn't conform to what the Windows platform expects, that we haven't seen before. What's great about actually writing stuff in the .NET environment (and particularly Visual Studio) is that it's smart enough to catch your goofs at that stage. Even runtime errors seems to exit "gracefully".
I'm using a different GIS (as well as MapInfo) called Manifold, which is written in and runs under .NET, and has well-integrated multiple language support. That means that very simple "scripts" - like Excel macros, really - can be written and are stored with other Manifold "components" (like layers, layouts, legends, data tables, etc) within its single "project" package file. These scripts can be in VBScript or VB.NET or C# or JScript. Also, you can write external applications in a supported language (under Win32 or .NET) which instructs Manifold to do GIS stuff, and these can run either entirely outside or can be like MapInfo's MBX running as tools or menu options. The languages include all the usual Win32 and .NET variants, as well as Python and R and a few more (I think). Ian Thomas GeoSciSoft - Perth, Australia > -----Original Message----- > From: Neil Havermale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, 15 September 2004 11:48 AM > To: SCISOFT; 'MapInfo-L' > Subject: RE: MI-L MapBasic vs VisualStudio .NET ... MapXtreme 2004 > > Up the learning curve... without cramps? I have a follow-on question. > From > our software engineers I have been told that there may be some sort of > intermediate step that essentially puts a .NET-wrapper around WIN32 code > permitting such legacy code to be used in the NET environments? Is this a > safe and reliable "first move" for legacy code or is this more like buying > re-treaded tires? They look great on the rack, have a low cost, but tend > to > fly apart under stress and fast speeds. > > MidNight Mapper > Aka neil > > -----Original Message----- > From: SCISOFT [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 1:26 PM > To: 'MapInfo-L' > Subject: RE: MI-L MapBasic vs VisualStudio .NET ... MapXtreme 2004 > > It's gratifying to see some accurate info about .NET being presented by > Eric > Blasenheim, and I'm sure his comments about MapInfo's conversion to the > platform / framework will be well received. > > Something that has been discussed (well, more along the lines of > conjecture > really) is how the MapBasic language and the MBX package will fit into the > .NET versions of MapInfo Professional and MapXtreme 2004. > > Personally, I find .NET amazingly rich and powerful compared with Win32 > programming, and (while I appreciate that MI will continue to use existing > "Win32" components) it's my guess and hope that the "new" geometry > language > for MapInfo products will be light years ahead in its ease of use, > compared > with the arcane MB. > > I guess it's the transition from the weirdness of MB to the facility of > the > "new" geometry language that worries people. > > Ian Thomas > GeoSciSoft - Perth, Australia > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Wednesday, 15 September 2004 11:00 AM > > To: Ian Tidy > > Cc: MapInfo-L; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: RE: MI-L MapBasic vs VisualStudio .NET ... MapXtreme 2004 > > > > Interesting thread. Let me try and squash a few misconceptions. > > > (BIG SNIP) > > > > Keep the information coming. > > > > Eric Blasenheim > > Software Architect > > MapInfo Corporation > > (EVEN BIGGER SNIP) > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message number: 13333 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 13335
