You are correct, Neil. You can do it, but look carefully first. You can "wrap" old style COM code in a .NET wrapper. This is what ESRI has had to do with ArcObjects, for example. The wrapper can be more or less "thick". ESRI has made their wrapper as thick as they can, as there is a performance hit every time you cross the .NET -> COM boundary; thus they don't want you to have to make a zillion calls to COM objects. If I were them, I'd be REALLY P.O. ed, having just made a (several million dollar?) investment in a complete re-write to COM, when MSoft announced .NET...
On the other hand, you need to think carefully about what you're trying to do. While you Could use an ActiveX GUI control in .NET, it's ugly and it's mother dresses it funny. It's better to convert to a fully native .NET equivalent. On the other hand, I think that what Eric B. describes as their approach -- re-using a lot of back-end, non-visual code might make a lot of sense so long as you don't have to jump that fence very often (as measured in computer, not human, time). On the other other hand, our considered opinion is that in general you shouldn't be thinking about converting COM (e.g., VB code) to .NET; you should be thinking re-architect and re-write. You COULD do it; you just get so much better results if you go with the flow and do truly native .NET. -----Original Message----- From: Neil Havermale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 8:48 PM 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: 13334 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 13337
