Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Chris Owens" <internetworkers_box AT reality-v2-dev.com>]

        Encouraged or discouraged, isn't that speculation and a bit
irrelevant?  Regardless of whether the programmer elects to create
cross-platform code (which is his choice in this scenario or when using
Java) or take advantage of the increased ROI a designated platform can
give, the CLR can be ported to other platforms as the JVM is currently. 

        I would think that it would hard to cost justify spending
additional hours developing something cross-platform if it will
demonstrably save time and effort by utilizing a feature particular to
the intended environment.  This is only relevant if the app is never
intended to be deployed on multiple platforms though...  I'd rather have
the ability there and easily accessible even if I never use it.  

        It is an unfortunate scene that I am regularly faced with as
anti-MS'ers proselytize the perils of using anything MS as a religious
endeavor, rather than exercise a technology-agnostic approach and
determine the best tool/platform for the job based on ROI and speed to
market.


Chris Owens
chris.owens AT reality-v2.com
919.345.4339 mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael S Czeiszperger [mailto:czei AT webperformanceinc.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:33 PM
To: InterNetWorkers
Subject: [internetworkers] Re: The list isn't blowing up yet?

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On Friday 07 September 2001 01:23 pm, you wrote:
> Regarding the C# standards, isn't it following a similar model to that
> of Java and other products such as AppForge?  The published plan is to
> allow for the Common Language Runtime (CLR) to be ported as necessary
or
> desired to other platforms.  This would allow code written in C# to
run
> on other platforms.  The JVM operates in a similar fashion does it
not?
>

Both Java and C# allow native operating system calls to be made from
within 
the virtual machine. Those calls execute the actual compiled code for
the 
operating system, and are not executed by CLR bytecodes. In Java, the
process 
is discouraged for the obvious reason that it kills cross platform 
capabilities; in C# it is encouraged for the same reason. 

Here's sample C# code from the specification showing how easy it is to
manage 
your own Windows heap directly from C#:

        // Frees a memory block.
        public static void Free(void* block) {
                if (!HeapFree(ph, 0, block)) throw new
InvalidOperationException();
        }
        // Re-allocates a memory block. If the reallocation request is
for a
        // larger size, the additional region of memory is automatically
        // initialized to zero.
        public static void* ReAlloc(void* block, int size) {
                void* result = HeapReAlloc(ph, HEAP_ZERO_MEMORY, block,
size);
                if (result == null) throw new OutOfMemoryException();
                return result;
        }
        // Returns the size of a memory block.
        public static int SizeOf(void* block) {
                int result = HeapSize(ph, 0, block);
                if (result == -1) throw new InvalidOperationException();
                return result;
        }

This shows direct calls to WIN32 functions HeapFree(), HeapReAlloc(),
and 
HeapSize(). See, its easy and fun to make low level Windows calls from
C#!

- -- 
Michael S Czeiszperger
czei AT webperformanceinc.com

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