Great information Thom. Thanks a bunch! Jennifer Shwajlyk Clinical Programmer Analyst BS, RN (518)775-4185 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 2:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [talkbws] C# and BWS Hi, Since there were a few specific questions, I figured it worth sending out some more general information about C#. First, it is worth dispelling any misunderstandings regarding the future of VBA lest that be driving a move to C#. Here is a link / quote from Microsoft: (note the below link is well worth a visit - lots of good information / examples there!) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ff688774.aspx -"Which technology―VBA macros, managed add-ins built with Visual Studio, or apps for Office―is the best choice for your solution? It's important to note that all three technologies will be supported in the foreseeable future. This means that if you have an existing VBA project that you are satisfied with, you can be confident your investment is safe." For stand-alone automations, we nearly always recommend using Boston WorkStation's built in VBA environment due to the numerous productivity /portability benefits. There isn't much in the way of magic to calling BWS within C#. BWS in that world is simply a set of COM objects (I am generalizing here blurring Active X and COM together) , and Visual Studio in general fully supports the use of COM. In our world, COM is heavily used by nearly all major EMR's, and a large portion of Microsoft's software stack as well. I won't go into tremendous practical C# usage detail here because there is a section of our documentation that describes which references and classes to use - (Developing with Other Languages). We don't go into detail regarding C# syntax for calling our methods etc. as there is nothing intrinsically different syntax wise to call BWS class methods etc. vs non BWS ones. We are assuming prior knowledge of C# - objects are objects as they say... There are only two BWS specific gotcha's - The Connect command's enumerations are stored in a separate library, you can use ConnectEX to see them in intellisense. And the Smart().method convention syntax is not supported by .NET (see above doc section for details here). C# syntax has been described to look very much like C or Java. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_syntax http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z1zx9t92.aspx As someone with no formal programming training, no experience in Java, and only very recently having done anything in C, I find C# syntax challenging to read, so I got a chuckle out of Microsoft's statement that C# is "simple and easy to learn". I found VBA to have a gentler learning curve and the examples online were far easier to understand. Regards, Thom Thom C. Blackwell, VP Technical Services Boston Software Systems, Inc. Phone: 866.653.5105 x807 Mobile: 508.423.8463 Fax: 508.319.3015 www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com<http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/> Healthcare Automation - Revolutionizing How You Work. The information contained in this message may be confidential and legally protected under applicable law. The message is intended solely for the addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, forwarding, dissemination, or reproduction of this message is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by return e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. --- To post a message to this list, send mail to: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> You are currently subscribed as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Unsubscribe in the customer center on our website: http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/Customers/ListServe.aspx --- To post a message to this list, send mail to: [email protected] You are currently subscribed as: [email protected] Unsubscribe in the customer center on our website: http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/Customers/ListServe.aspx
