Robert Crossley wrote: > Hi all, > > > > Am faced with a strategic decision at present. We are getting bigger and > need to move off the VB and MapBasic path that I have been happy in for a > long time. > > > > We are about to develop some server based applications with thick or thin > clients. These won't necessarily be spatial apps. > > > > Two options present themselves to me, VB.NET or Java. > > We have one programmer who is doing good things in VB.NET on desktops and > WINCE devices, and two are trained in Java, but not experienced. > > > > I have a desire to put some stuff onto linux servers, but this is not an > essential path (as it would make the decision for me). > > > > I haven't been impressed with the success of .NET projects that I have > observed, but maybe that has changed. > > > > Would appreciate comments, traps to avoid with either path, strengths of > either. > > > > TIA > > R > > >
I've developed in both Java and .Net over the past few years. Technically they are very similar, with .Net supposedly edging out Java in raw performance, but since MapInfo seems to be going the .Net direction then perhaps this is the sensible choice. Another poster mentioned Visual Studio is a nice IDE for .Net, on the Java front you might want to check out Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org/) which in IMHO is on par (or even better) than Visual Studio and open source so available for a lot less ;-) (also MyEclipse may be a cheap but easier to configure option http://www.myeclipseide.com/) >From a development language point of view both C# and Java are very nice languages (in fact they are very similar in syntax), I haven't used VB.Net but my impression is that it's an improvement over VB6 (which lacks proper object orientation features such as inheritance, and also lacks decent exception handling). Java seems a lot more flexible in the sense that there are a lot of alternative frameworks to choose from whereas .Net is a little limited in this respect, but for less complex things .Net is possibly simpler, if only because there are less options to choose from. There are also lot of mature open source projects related to Java (Hibernate, JBoss, Apache Tomcat, etc.) I'll be embarking on a MapExtreme Java project soon (mainly because we need Unix support) but for client side applications .Net has much nicer GUI and I imagine will become a lot more standard on the Windows platform in the next few years. Also Oracle seems set up to provide more support for Java than .Net but that's only a consideration when using Oracle. In general as a developer I would prefer .Net for client side (non-web) clients and J2EE for server side work. Michael -- Michael Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Insight.GIS +61-3-6234-5833 Suite 6, Level 1, 175 Collins Street, Hobart, Tasmania _______________________________________________ MapInfo-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.directionsmag.com/mailman/listinfo/mapinfo-l
