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Where do we go from here? Vulcan.net status
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jjgre...@gmail.com
Feb 4, 2016, 7:45:22 PM2/4/16
to
Hi, I have been involved with VO since version 1.0 came out and we migrated our Clipper applications to this enviroment.
Although we had some rough beginning with the resource management problems of the earlier VO versions it finally became a very stable and productive enviroment ans we have our family of applications running well in VO 2.8.
We are aware that the GrafxSoft web site is basically abandoned and have heard that most VO developers have left therefore VO is finally DEAD.
Not worried because we have been planning to migrate to Vulcan.net and have watched how this language has developed and is now in Version 4.0.
HOWEVER, we need to know if Brian Feldman and his GrafxSoft problems have affected Vulcan.net development, support and future growth as well. If this is the case then we need to look for other alternatives.
Anyone with knowledge on what is happening please advice. You may write to me directly as well jjgre...@gmail.com.
Thanks,
John J. Gregg
Although we had some rough beginning with the resource management problems of the earlier VO versions it finally became a very stable and productive enviroment ans we have our family of applications running well in VO 2.8.
We are aware that the GrafxSoft web site is basically abandoned and have heard that most VO developers have left therefore VO is finally DEAD.
Not worried because we have been planning to migrate to Vulcan.net and have watched how this language has developed and is now in Version 4.0.
HOWEVER, we need to know if Brian Feldman and his GrafxSoft problems have affected Vulcan.net development, support and future growth as well. If this is the case then we need to look for other alternatives.
Anyone with knowledge on what is happening please advice. You may write to me directly as well jjgre...@gmail.com.
Thanks,
John J. Gregg
Wolfgang Riedmann
Feb 5, 2016, 2:41:45 AM2/5/16
to
Hi John,
if you have a lot of VO code (like I), then of course actually
Vulcan.NET is the best way to go.
Now, several members of the last Vulcan.NET development team have built
a new company Xsharp with a new product called X#, and you should look
at this product now. They have rebuilt an Xbase compiler from scratch,
using a new Microsoft tecnology, and X# actually supports more .NET
features than Vulcan.NET, but is missing compatibility libraries from
VO, and in this early stage is also missing support for the "classic"
VO datatypes like array, codeblock, etc.
But they promise to make the libraries open source and also give out
the compiler sources to they subscribers, so I think there will be a
relative good code investment protection.
My recommendation would be to continue with Vulcan.NET because it is a
mature and good working product, and look at X#.
If Vulcan.NET development continues, you can continue with it, but if
it comes to a stop, you can continue with X#.
Personally, I cannot afford that VO code will not be compilable in the
.NET world, and so I'm using both.
Wolfgang
--
if you have a lot of VO code (like I), then of course actually
Vulcan.NET is the best way to go.
Now, several members of the last Vulcan.NET development team have built
a new company Xsharp with a new product called X#, and you should look
at this product now. They have rebuilt an Xbase compiler from scratch,
using a new Microsoft tecnology, and X# actually supports more .NET
features than Vulcan.NET, but is missing compatibility libraries from
VO, and in this early stage is also missing support for the "classic"
VO datatypes like array, codeblock, etc.
But they promise to make the libraries open source and also give out
the compiler sources to they subscribers, so I think there will be a
relative good code investment protection.
My recommendation would be to continue with Vulcan.NET because it is a
mature and good working product, and look at X#.
If Vulcan.NET development continues, you can continue with it, but if
it comes to a stop, you can continue with X#.
Personally, I cannot afford that VO code will not be compilable in the
.NET world, and so I'm using both.
Wolfgang
--
D.J.W. van Kooten
Feb 5, 2016, 6:38:55 AM2/5/16
to
On Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:45:20 -0800 (PST), jjgre...@gmail.com wrote:
Hello John,
>Anyone with knowledge on what is happening please advice. You may write to me directly as well jjgre...@gmail.com.
>
I agree largely with Wolfgang. To summarize what can be verified:
1 Current Vulcan is working quite well.
2 There is however a lot to be desired and the speed of progress the
last few years is low
3 Robert and his team have added the best functionality to both VO and
Vulcan when working for Grafx. According to their website, they are
well on schedule and if that continues you should have a working
product, with more chance of progress than Vulcan, well before the end
of this year. I've just downloaded the xSharp GDI demo.prg from
https://www.xsharp.info/itm-downloads?folder=general and that is quite
impressive from a compiler started only in August.
4 As the program starts as Open Source you can use/test it for free.
Although common sense is of course that, when you really start working
with it, you use it with the FOX program, to ensure that the team
actually can be financed.
5 Fox program is now half price, full price is comparable to VPS but
(promised) benefits are considerably more.
For 3+5 my remark is that these points still need to be proven, but
knowing Robert's past records (including what he has done with his
company here in Holland) I figure that the chance he can't fulfill his
promises is really low.
My advise would be:
1 Buy yourself a Vulcan license, use the transporter to convert VO
code and start to familiarize yourself with Vulcan.
2 Later this year, try X-Sharp and see if you could do there what you
need to do - or in other words: determine if X-Sharp is more value
than Vulcan.
I'd prefer that Vulcan would merge into X-Sharp to mimimalize effort
in development without dividing the community in pro or anti
Grafx/X-Sharp groups. The reality is that such an effort did not
succeed - yet. Time will learn if it wil some day....
Dick
Hello John,
>Anyone with knowledge on what is happening please advice. You may write to me directly as well jjgre...@gmail.com.
>
1 Current Vulcan is working quite well.
2 There is however a lot to be desired and the speed of progress the
last few years is low
3 Robert and his team have added the best functionality to both VO and
Vulcan when working for Grafx. According to their website, they are
well on schedule and if that continues you should have a working
product, with more chance of progress than Vulcan, well before the end
of this year. I've just downloaded the xSharp GDI demo.prg from
https://www.xsharp.info/itm-downloads?folder=general and that is quite
impressive from a compiler started only in August.
4 As the program starts as Open Source you can use/test it for free.
Although common sense is of course that, when you really start working
with it, you use it with the FOX program, to ensure that the team
actually can be financed.
5 Fox program is now half price, full price is comparable to VPS but
(promised) benefits are considerably more.
For 3+5 my remark is that these points still need to be proven, but
knowing Robert's past records (including what he has done with his
company here in Holland) I figure that the chance he can't fulfill his
promises is really low.
My advise would be:
1 Buy yourself a Vulcan license, use the transporter to convert VO
code and start to familiarize yourself with Vulcan.
2 Later this year, try X-Sharp and see if you could do there what you
need to do - or in other words: determine if X-Sharp is more value
than Vulcan.
I'd prefer that Vulcan would merge into X-Sharp to mimimalize effort
in development without dividing the community in pro or anti
Grafx/X-Sharp groups. The reality is that such an effort did not
succeed - yet. Time will learn if it wil some day....
Dick
Robert van der Hulst
Feb 5, 2016, 7:30:03 AM2/5/16
to
Greg,
I am not unbiased, but here is my personal answer to your question:
I have worked with GrafX between 2003 and 2010. I was responsible for producing VO 2.7 and VO 2.8 and also for major parts of Vulcan.NET. After Don Caton stopped working for GrafX in 2009 I did most of the work on Vulcan 2 (Framework 4 support for example).
Unfortunately Brian/GrafX decided that Don Caton would not be replaced, so the development team stayed very small. For me it was clear then under these circumstances there would be no real future for Vulcan.
So I stopped working for GrafX end of 2010 because I saw no future under the management of GrafX.
Technically both VO and Vulcan were/are fine, but nobody was/is really selling the products.
Brian Feldman seems to have lost interest in the products. All he really seems to care about is collecting the revenues from the Support Plan. Numerous times people have complained about poor visibility and lack of communication but nothing really has changed over the years. Like you said: the GrafX websites are almost abandoned. His own website announces "Coming soon: Vulcan.NET version 4". This product was released last September. Do I need to say more?
Last April I talked with the remaining developers from GrafX and learned that they were also planning to leave, and that they shared my feelings about the future of VO and Vulcan under the management of GrafX.
I talked with them and convinced them that we could use people like them in our xBase community and together we have developed the idea to start a new product XSharp (X#) which Wolfgang and Dick have mentioned.
I have also talked with GrafX about buying Vulcan, but GrafX was not really interested: Brian asked an unrealistically hight amount of money for his product and he could not prove the necessary paperwork that he is indeed the legal owner of the product.
At this moment GrafX has no real development team left. Brian announced one new team member, but no real progress has been shown since last September, when Vulcan 4 was released (which was produced by the people that are now working on the new X# product).
At this moment X# is in the development stage, and we are actually progressing really fast. Several Alpha builds have been delivered, and Chris Pyrgas (one of the X# developers) has been able to completely recompile his IDE product in X# (this product used to be compiled with Vulcan.NET). Chris did not use much of the VO compatible classes in Vulcan.NET, so his product is probably not the most representative example, but still we are talking about 21.000 lines of code
A first public beta of XSharp should be ready for download in the coming weeks.
The first "official" release, which supports full Vulcan Compatibility and contains many new features that will NEVER be available in Vulcan, is planned for April of this year.
We will be showing the new product at the xBase.Future conference in Cologne (April 19-20, see http://www.visualobjects.de/en/conference/ for more info)
I am sorry for the long reply, I got carried away a little but, but I am sooo excited about our new product that I wanted to share this with you.
Robert
Op vrijdag 5 februari 2016 01:45:22 UTC+1 schreef jjgre...@gmail.com:
> Anyone with knowledge on what is happening please advice. You may write to me directly as well .
>
> Thanks,
> John J. Gregg
I am not unbiased, but here is my personal answer to your question:
I have worked with GrafX between 2003 and 2010. I was responsible for producing VO 2.7 and VO 2.8 and also for major parts of Vulcan.NET. After Don Caton stopped working for GrafX in 2009 I did most of the work on Vulcan 2 (Framework 4 support for example).
Unfortunately Brian/GrafX decided that Don Caton would not be replaced, so the development team stayed very small. For me it was clear then under these circumstances there would be no real future for Vulcan.
So I stopped working for GrafX end of 2010 because I saw no future under the management of GrafX.
Technically both VO and Vulcan were/are fine, but nobody was/is really selling the products.
Brian Feldman seems to have lost interest in the products. All he really seems to care about is collecting the revenues from the Support Plan. Numerous times people have complained about poor visibility and lack of communication but nothing really has changed over the years. Like you said: the GrafX websites are almost abandoned. His own website announces "Coming soon: Vulcan.NET version 4". This product was released last September. Do I need to say more?
Last April I talked with the remaining developers from GrafX and learned that they were also planning to leave, and that they shared my feelings about the future of VO and Vulcan under the management of GrafX.
I talked with them and convinced them that we could use people like them in our xBase community and together we have developed the idea to start a new product XSharp (X#) which Wolfgang and Dick have mentioned.
I have also talked with GrafX about buying Vulcan, but GrafX was not really interested: Brian asked an unrealistically hight amount of money for his product and he could not prove the necessary paperwork that he is indeed the legal owner of the product.
At this moment GrafX has no real development team left. Brian announced one new team member, but no real progress has been shown since last September, when Vulcan 4 was released (which was produced by the people that are now working on the new X# product).
At this moment X# is in the development stage, and we are actually progressing really fast. Several Alpha builds have been delivered, and Chris Pyrgas (one of the X# developers) has been able to completely recompile his IDE product in X# (this product used to be compiled with Vulcan.NET). Chris did not use much of the VO compatible classes in Vulcan.NET, so his product is probably not the most representative example, but still we are talking about 21.000 lines of code
A first public beta of XSharp should be ready for download in the coming weeks.
The first "official" release, which supports full Vulcan Compatibility and contains many new features that will NEVER be available in Vulcan, is planned for April of this year.
We will be showing the new product at the xBase.Future conference in Cologne (April 19-20, see http://www.visualobjects.de/en/conference/ for more info)
I am sorry for the long reply, I got carried away a little but, but I am sooo excited about our new product that I wanted to share this with you.
Robert
Op vrijdag 5 februari 2016 01:45:22 UTC+1 schreef jjgre...@gmail.com:
>
> Thanks,
> John J. Gregg
b®ian_@g®afx_soft.com
Feb 5, 2016, 9:35:05 AM2/5/16
to
Hello John,
GrafX has been in business for over 20 years, and along the way we have learned some valuable lessons, and hope to continue to learn. Writing software, and managing a business, are two different skill sets. I can tell you that back in the FlexFile/Comix Days, we spent way too much money on advertising in DBA. When CA was ready to abandon Visual Objects, no one else was ready to step in and take the financial risk. GrafX did, and spent 100,000's of thousands of dollars to do so.
The move to .NET was a logical one. Vulcan.NET is here today in Version 4.0, and we have many successful applications running all over the world today. We have plans to continue to use the best practices to move Vulcan.NET forward. GrafX has never been a company that brags about what it is going to accomplish, rather, we let our software(our accomplishments) speak for itself. Our VOPS members know that one new Version of Vulcan.NET 4.0 has been released to fix various bugs since we released the original version 4.0
Software talent is available, to that end, our new team is making good progress, and of course we are still looking for qualified C programmers. Since we would be the first to admit, recent events took us completely by surprise. It happens in business. It was a "set back", that is all. In 2008 when the worlds economy collapsed, that was also a "set back", but we are still here,... because we are in business for the long run. We will be here for as long as the community wants to support our proven products. I think competition is a good motivating factor, and frankly I welcome it.
Bottom line is that we are moving ahead with our Vulcan.NET project, and looking forward to Vulcan.NET 5.0. I can say that technology moves at a furious pace, and because of that, we spend a lot of time keeping up with Microsoft. BTW, In case your not aware, Vulcan.NET 4.01e supports Visual Studio 2015. The community edition of Visual Studio 2015 is available on the web for free. So we are completely up to date, and looking towards the future.
It's not really NEWS, that the Development of Visual Objects 2.8 SP4 was the last version to be produced. For years in advance, I have made numerous posts, regarding this fact. (Development has stopped) Your VO program's will continue to run, as long as Microsoft's OS's support 32bit PE's (Portable Executables)
With regard to Vulcan.NET, PLEASE read my post at News.GoVulcan.NET with regard to the future of Vulcan.NET's next version. (Just point your news group reader to News.GoVulcan.NET and have a look in the public "Announcements" section for a post titled "VOPS new Benefits, and Vulcan.NET News").
I hope that answers your questions about our intentions. If not, Pease feel free to email me.
All the best,
Brian
P.S. For regular readers of this forum, we (GrafX) are no longer at news.cavo.com and support.cavo.com, or ftp.cavo.com
New improved, News Forums are located at News.GoVulcan.NET with NNTP reader and public areas are open to all. VPS subscribers must use their user name and password to gain access to the private forums. We also support http access.
Downloads are available from support.GoVulcan.NET with a browser. Again, VPS users must log on with user name and password to access VO 2.8 Service Pack 4 & Vulcan.NET 4.00.01e
GrafX has been in business for over 20 years, and along the way we have learned some valuable lessons, and hope to continue to learn. Writing software, and managing a business, are two different skill sets. I can tell you that back in the FlexFile/Comix Days, we spent way too much money on advertising in DBA. When CA was ready to abandon Visual Objects, no one else was ready to step in and take the financial risk. GrafX did, and spent 100,000's of thousands of dollars to do so.
The move to .NET was a logical one. Vulcan.NET is here today in Version 4.0, and we have many successful applications running all over the world today. We have plans to continue to use the best practices to move Vulcan.NET forward. GrafX has never been a company that brags about what it is going to accomplish, rather, we let our software(our accomplishments) speak for itself. Our VOPS members know that one new Version of Vulcan.NET 4.0 has been released to fix various bugs since we released the original version 4.0
Software talent is available, to that end, our new team is making good progress, and of course we are still looking for qualified C programmers. Since we would be the first to admit, recent events took us completely by surprise. It happens in business. It was a "set back", that is all. In 2008 when the worlds economy collapsed, that was also a "set back", but we are still here,... because we are in business for the long run. We will be here for as long as the community wants to support our proven products. I think competition is a good motivating factor, and frankly I welcome it.
Bottom line is that we are moving ahead with our Vulcan.NET project, and looking forward to Vulcan.NET 5.0. I can say that technology moves at a furious pace, and because of that, we spend a lot of time keeping up with Microsoft. BTW, In case your not aware, Vulcan.NET 4.01e supports Visual Studio 2015. The community edition of Visual Studio 2015 is available on the web for free. So we are completely up to date, and looking towards the future.
It's not really NEWS, that the Development of Visual Objects 2.8 SP4 was the last version to be produced. For years in advance, I have made numerous posts, regarding this fact. (Development has stopped) Your VO program's will continue to run, as long as Microsoft's OS's support 32bit PE's (Portable Executables)
With regard to Vulcan.NET, PLEASE read my post at News.GoVulcan.NET with regard to the future of Vulcan.NET's next version. (Just point your news group reader to News.GoVulcan.NET and have a look in the public "Announcements" section for a post titled "VOPS new Benefits, and Vulcan.NET News").
I hope that answers your questions about our intentions. If not, Pease feel free to email me.
All the best,
Brian
P.S. For regular readers of this forum, we (GrafX) are no longer at news.cavo.com and support.cavo.com, or ftp.cavo.com
New improved, News Forums are located at News.GoVulcan.NET with NNTP reader and public areas are open to all. VPS subscribers must use their user name and password to gain access to the private forums. We also support http access.
Downloads are available from support.GoVulcan.NET with a browser. Again, VPS users must log on with user name and password to access VO 2.8 Service Pack 4 & Vulcan.NET 4.00.01e
chris....@gmail.com
Feb 6, 2016, 4:43:48 AM2/6/16
to
Robert,
> At this moment X# is in the development stage, and we are actually progressing really fast. Several Alpha builds have been delivered, and Chris Pyrgas (one of the X# developers) has been able to completely recompile his IDE product in X# (this product used to be compiled with Vulcan.NET). Chris did not use much of the VO compatible classes in Vulcan.NET, so his product is probably not the most representative example, but still we are talking about 21.000 lines of code
>
Actually XIDE is about 135,000 lines of code! Had started creating it in the CULE days, further developed it in Vulcan, now recompiled it in X#, even with an alpha version of the compiler..
Chris
> At this moment X# is in the development stage, and we are actually progressing really fast. Several Alpha builds have been delivered, and Chris Pyrgas (one of the X# developers) has been able to completely recompile his IDE product in X# (this product used to be compiled with Vulcan.NET). Chris did not use much of the VO compatible classes in Vulcan.NET, so his product is probably not the most representative example, but still we are talking about 21.000 lines of code
>
Chris
Wolfgang Riedmann
Feb 7, 2016, 11:39:34 AM2/7/16
to
Hi Dick,
> I'd prefer that Vulcan would merge into X-Sharp to mimimalize effort
> in development without dividing the community in pro or anti
> Grafx/X-Sharp groups. The reality is that such an effort did not
> succeed - yet. Time will learn if it wil some day....
I strongly agree with you here - and I really hope that this will
succeed sometimes in the future.
Wolfgang
--
> I'd prefer that Vulcan would merge into X-Sharp to mimimalize effort
> in development without dividing the community in pro or anti
> Grafx/X-Sharp groups. The reality is that such an effort did not
> succeed - yet. Time will learn if it wil some day....
succeed sometimes in the future.
Wolfgang
--
Danilo Giuliani
Feb 7, 2016, 1:41:54 PM2/7/16
to
This would be desirable, but I see it unlikely, unfortunately.
Danilo Giuliani
"Wolfgang Riedmann" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:dhpaa3...@mid.individual.net...
Danilo Giuliani
"Wolfgang Riedmann" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:dhpaa3...@mid.individual.net...
Wolfgang Riedmann
Feb 8, 2016, 12:31:14 AM2/8/16
to
Hi Danilo,
> This would be desirable, but I see it unlikely, unfortunately.
la speranza č l'ultima a morire
(the hope dies last)
Wolfgang
> This would be desirable, but I see it unlikely, unfortunately.
(the hope dies last)
Wolfgang
D.J.W. van Kooten
Feb 8, 2016, 7:50:51 AM2/8/16
to
On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 06:35:03 -0800 (PST), bŽian_@gŽafx_soft.com
<br...@grafxsoft.com> wrote:
Hello Brian,
> Our VOPS members know that one new Version of Vulcan.NET 4.0 has been released to fix various bugs since we released the original version 4.0
Last news message of Vulcan on govulcan.net is August 20th, last year.
Announcement doesn't contain any news to the non VPS members about the
new version of Vulcan 4 your wrote about.
Compare this:
A In August 2014, Robert and his team started X#. Today, this compiler
can compile all well behaved Vulcan code, like Vide or the samples on
the X# site.
B On August 2014, Vulcan 4 was released. Today, there's apparently a
release with "bug fixes", a release kept secret except to VPS members.
Which development do you think current and future customers would
consider "at a furious pace"? Possible answers are A and B.
Really Brain, how can you expect users to regularely visit a website
which hasn't been updated since August last year? Or where
http://www.govulcan.net/portal/Community/Information/tabid/96/Default.aspx
for example (header 'Information" of that website) announces "plans to
simultaneously ship Vulcan.NET 2.0 with Visual Studio 2010". Or read
an announcement section, where the only news about Vulcan since August
last year has been the release of a 3rd party tool, the ADS RDD?
Yes, X# still has to prove itself. And yes, there's a very usuable
Vulcan version nowadays which has been a big achievement. But since
the release of Vulcan 3 in August 2013, now 2,5 years ago, the only
thing done - as far as a user visiting your website and NG can find-
is some bug fixing, a few small changes in Intellisense support and VS
2015 instead of VS 2013 integration. If anything more is done, the
visitor of
http://www.govulcan.net/portal/Updates/tabid/94/Default.aspx won't
know, because that info is now 1 year old.
This taken into account, I think most VO (and Vulcan) users will place
their bets on X#. Probably you should too to see how you can serve
yourself and customers best?
Dick
<br...@grafxsoft.com> wrote:
Hello Brian,
> Our VOPS members know that one new Version of Vulcan.NET 4.0 has been released to fix various bugs since we released the original version 4.0
>With regard to Vulcan.NET, PLEASE read my post at News.GoVulcan.NET with regard to the future of Vulcan.NET's next version.
>I hope that answers your questions about our intentions. If not, Pease feel free to email me.
>
Perhaps that is what Robert means with " Numerous times people have
>
complained about poor visibility and lack of communication but nothing
really has changed over the years. "?
Last news message of Vulcan on govulcan.net is August 20th, last year.
Announcement doesn't contain any news to the non VPS members about the
new version of Vulcan 4 your wrote about.
Compare this:
A In August 2014, Robert and his team started X#. Today, this compiler
can compile all well behaved Vulcan code, like Vide or the samples on
the X# site.
B On August 2014, Vulcan 4 was released. Today, there's apparently a
release with "bug fixes", a release kept secret except to VPS members.
Which development do you think current and future customers would
consider "at a furious pace"? Possible answers are A and B.
Really Brain, how can you expect users to regularely visit a website
which hasn't been updated since August last year? Or where
http://www.govulcan.net/portal/Community/Information/tabid/96/Default.aspx
for example (header 'Information" of that website) announces "plans to
simultaneously ship Vulcan.NET 2.0 with Visual Studio 2010". Or read
an announcement section, where the only news about Vulcan since August
last year has been the release of a 3rd party tool, the ADS RDD?
Yes, X# still has to prove itself. And yes, there's a very usuable
Vulcan version nowadays which has been a big achievement. But since
the release of Vulcan 3 in August 2013, now 2,5 years ago, the only
thing done - as far as a user visiting your website and NG can find-
is some bug fixing, a few small changes in Intellisense support and VS
2015 instead of VS 2013 integration. If anything more is done, the
visitor of
http://www.govulcan.net/portal/Updates/tabid/94/Default.aspx won't
know, because that info is now 1 year old.
This taken into account, I think most VO (and Vulcan) users will place
their bets on X#. Probably you should too to see how you can serve
yourself and customers best?
Dick
Marc Verkade [MITCon]
Feb 10, 2016, 10:29:25 AM2/10/16
to
Impressive!
CULE... Those were the days...
Regards, Marc
schreef in bericht
news:5e9b4ec5-98d8-4f54...@googlegroups.com...
CULE... Those were the days...
Regards, Marc
schreef in bericht
news:5e9b4ec5-98d8-4f54...@googlegroups.com...
Jamal Assaf
Feb 11, 2016, 11:42:21 AM2/11/16
to
John,
I just want to tell it like it is!
Several years ago, there were heated discussions at a time when Vulcan was
initially being developed and that it is a natural upgrade path to VO; some
developers argued in favor and others were adamant that C# or VB.NET were
better alternatives. Fists were ready to fly high <g>.
After those years and based on my observations, despite the fact I was one
of early adapters of Vulcan, then I abandon it since I was already
developing ASP.NET (via C# and VB.NET) web applications. Comparing the two,
Vulcan was a step backward and it did not have appeal or features that I
needed. The baggage that it decided to carry on from xBase syntax and
semantics was standing in it way to move ahead. Therefore, I have to say
that C# or VB.NET is the way to go and I can do both now easily.
Vulcan.NET and X# will always play the catch up game with Microsoft advances
and will always be behind. They may have good intentions but the execution
plans are flawed and lacking, especially with Grafxsoft. As far available
resources for C# or VB.NET components and tools, there are tons found on
Internet and Microsoft websites; the same cannot be said of Vulcan or the
infant X# which tries to suck money before it is even released or proven; a
written IDE is hardly a proof of its sustainability or usability in real
world applications.
Right now, if I need any task that can be done easier in .NET, I create COM
visible in C# (or VB.NET) and use it with VO.
Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
agree with this.
Jamal
wrote in message
news:210c1aeb-e39e-4235...@googlegroups.com...
I just want to tell it like it is!
Several years ago, there were heated discussions at a time when Vulcan was
initially being developed and that it is a natural upgrade path to VO; some
developers argued in favor and others were adamant that C# or VB.NET were
better alternatives. Fists were ready to fly high <g>.
After those years and based on my observations, despite the fact I was one
of early adapters of Vulcan, then I abandon it since I was already
developing ASP.NET (via C# and VB.NET) web applications. Comparing the two,
Vulcan was a step backward and it did not have appeal or features that I
needed. The baggage that it decided to carry on from xBase syntax and
semantics was standing in it way to move ahead. Therefore, I have to say
that C# or VB.NET is the way to go and I can do both now easily.
Vulcan.NET and X# will always play the catch up game with Microsoft advances
and will always be behind. They may have good intentions but the execution
plans are flawed and lacking, especially with Grafxsoft. As far available
resources for C# or VB.NET components and tools, there are tons found on
Internet and Microsoft websites; the same cannot be said of Vulcan or the
infant X# which tries to suck money before it is even released or proven; a
written IDE is hardly a proof of its sustainability or usability in real
world applications.
Right now, if I need any task that can be done easier in .NET, I create COM
visible in C# (or VB.NET) and use it with VO.
Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
agree with this.
Jamal
wrote in message
news:210c1aeb-e39e-4235...@googlegroups.com...
Carlos Rocha
Feb 11, 2016, 3:21:02 PM2/11/16
to
Jamal Assaf brought next idea :
to pay for VO enhancements.
Native unicode (UTF8 would be even better) and a more complete COM
support would make VO one of the best Win32 language around. VB6 is
still one of the most used languages in the world and is 15 years old
now.
--
Carlos Rocha
---
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>
> Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
> abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
> enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
> kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
> agree with this.
>
I do agree with you. I said many times before that I would be pleased
> Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
> abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
> enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
> kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
> agree with this.
>
to pay for VO enhancements.
Native unicode (UTF8 would be even better) and a more complete COM
support would make VO one of the best Win32 language around. VB6 is
still one of the most used languages in the world and is 15 years old
now.
--
Carlos Rocha
---
Este e-mail foi verificado em termos de vírus pelo software antivírus Avast.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
D.J.W. van Kooten
Feb 11, 2016, 6:28:29 PM2/11/16
to
On Thu, 11 Feb 2016 11:42:19 -0500, "Jamal Assaf"
<som...@example.com> wrote:
Hello Jamal,
>
>I just want to tell it like it is!
I think your opinion is interesting but has some flaws:
I think a lot of VO (and Vulcan) programmers have lots to gain with a
.Net language which is both familiair and can -without too much
effort- use the tons of VO code people already have.
Although I can write C# programs now, and I mainly use it for projects
unrelated to my VO projects, writing the same amount of Vulcan code
takes far less time because of >15 years VO experience. Translating
VO code to C# without Vulcan, Transporters or XPorters is a hell of a
job. These 2 arguments alone give Vulcan/X# a very good reason to be
on the market for many XBase developers, I am sure.
>Vulcan.NET and X# will always play the catch up game with Microsoft advances
>and will always be behind.
For Vulcan, I think yes. But if you have read how X# is being
developed (based upon Roslyn) I don't think that can be said of X#.
E.g. it will support creating Universal Apps.
>there are tons found on Internet and Microsoft websites; the same cannot be said of Vulcan or the
>infant X#
Instead there are tons found in one's own XBase code - that is where
X# is for. Creating something new right from a C# sample in a C# class
and directly using it in the same solution with Vulcan/X# code is the
most efficient way to go for code based on existing VO projects. No
cumbersome translations with Reflector but easy to combine with
Vulcan/X# code.
>which tries to suck money before it is even released or proven;
>a written IDE is hardly a proof of its sustainability or usability in real
>world applications.
Have you understood that it's Open Source? Nobody needs to pay for it
until convinced it is something worth paying. Some will contribute
right from the start, some later. For me: I expect a lot of it and as
soon as I see it's actually usable (that could be as early as April) I
will contribute to X# too. The fact that well behaved code apparently
already compiles may be no proof but at least an indication how well
this development seems to go.
>Right now, if I need any task that can be done easier in .NET, I create COM
>visible in C# (or VB.NET) and use it with VO.
Me too, in C# or Vulcan.
>Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
>abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
>enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
>kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
>agree with this.
Sure. If X# indeed works as promised, Grafx will have no future for
Vulcan, but can still make money with maintaining VO.
Dick
<som...@example.com> wrote:
Hello Jamal,
>
>I just want to tell it like it is!
I think a lot of VO (and Vulcan) programmers have lots to gain with a
.Net language which is both familiair and can -without too much
effort- use the tons of VO code people already have.
Although I can write C# programs now, and I mainly use it for projects
unrelated to my VO projects, writing the same amount of Vulcan code
takes far less time because of >15 years VO experience. Translating
VO code to C# without Vulcan, Transporters or XPorters is a hell of a
job. These 2 arguments alone give Vulcan/X# a very good reason to be
on the market for many XBase developers, I am sure.
>Vulcan.NET and X# will always play the catch up game with Microsoft advances
>and will always be behind.
developed (based upon Roslyn) I don't think that can be said of X#.
E.g. it will support creating Universal Apps.
>there are tons found on Internet and Microsoft websites; the same cannot be said of Vulcan or the
>infant X#
X# is for. Creating something new right from a C# sample in a C# class
and directly using it in the same solution with Vulcan/X# code is the
most efficient way to go for code based on existing VO projects. No
cumbersome translations with Reflector but easy to combine with
Vulcan/X# code.
>which tries to suck money before it is even released or proven;
>a written IDE is hardly a proof of its sustainability or usability in real
>world applications.
until convinced it is something worth paying. Some will contribute
right from the start, some later. For me: I expect a lot of it and as
soon as I see it's actually usable (that could be as early as April) I
will contribute to X# too. The fact that well behaved code apparently
already compiles may be no proof but at least an indication how well
this development seems to go.
>Right now, if I need any task that can be done easier in .NET, I create COM
>visible in C# (or VB.NET) and use it with VO.
>Grafxsoft mentioned that VO is dead but I think Brian made a BIG mistake by
>abandoning it; There is nothing to lose by maintaining VO via bug fixes or
>enhancements; Brian's said that 32bit is dead!! It is still alive and
>kicking, and if 32bit dies then Brian would be justified. I think many here
>agree with this.
Vulcan, but can still make money with maintaining VO.
Dick
Jamal Assaf
Feb 12, 2016, 4:57:19 PM2/12/16
to
Hi Dick,
The question was: "Where to go from here" not about future promises.
I see you have high hopes, but reality stinks.
Will Grafxsoft continue Vulcan.NET development at this rate and despite the
lack of interest?
Will X# face the same fate despite its promises of being better (in the
future)?
I guess you can wait and see and I wish Grafxsoft and X# the best of luck,
but in the mean time C# and VB.net are the way to go.
Jamal
"D.J.W. van Kooten" wrote in message
news:435qbbh7v17mj8a55...@4ax.com...
The question was: "Where to go from here" not about future promises.
I see you have high hopes, but reality stinks.
Will Grafxsoft continue Vulcan.NET development at this rate and despite the
lack of interest?
Will X# face the same fate despite its promises of being better (in the
future)?
I guess you can wait and see and I wish Grafxsoft and X# the best of luck,
but in the mean time C# and VB.net are the way to go.
Jamal
"D.J.W. van Kooten" wrote in message
news:435qbbh7v17mj8a55...@4ax.com...
Wolfgang Riedmann
Feb 13, 2016, 5:39:18 AM2/13/16
to
Hi Jamal,
> The question was: "Where to go from here" not about future promises.
>
> I see you have high hopes, but reality stinks.
> Will Grafxsoft continue Vulcan.NET development at this rate and
> despite the lack of interest? Will X# face the same fate despite its
> promises of being better (in the future)?
for me productivity is the top request, and with VO I'm very, very
productive, and I hope that with Vulcan.NET/X# my productivity will
increase.
And my programming style is very code-oriented, so I like VIDE/XIDE a
lot more than VS with its painters.
And then, I need some language to move my VO applications there (I have
one application with more than 200.000 lines of code, with weekly
enhancements - so a rewrite is not an option, and several other
applications that need to be moved to .NET, where rewrite is not an
option also).
And after all, I like the Xbase language a lot, and I feel code written
in a Xbase language is much more readable than C# code (I have any sort
of VB, but that is another story).
> I guess you can wait and see and I wish Grafxsoft and X# the best of
> luck, but in the mean time C# and VB.net are the way to go.
again, personally I see sense only in a union of these two products.
Vulcan.NET is usable now, and works now, but I think it cannot fullfill
future expectations (it would need a completely rewritten compiler,
using Roslyn), and X# at this moment lacks compatibility to Vulcan.NET
and VO.
So I'm working now in Vulcan.NET, hoping to switch to X# when it is
ready (but I'm doing some work also in X#, mainly code where I don't
need any compatibility or code that cannot be done in Vulcan.NET).
Wolfgang
P.S. I could see another business model for GrafX: sell the
VO/Vulcan.NET compatible libraries as addon to X#. That could be a
win-win situation, and people could use the RDDs and the runtime
libraries from Vulcan.NET with the X# compiler
--
> The question was: "Where to go from here" not about future promises.
>
> I see you have high hopes, but reality stinks.
> Will Grafxsoft continue Vulcan.NET development at this rate and
> despite the lack of interest? Will X# face the same fate despite its
> promises of being better (in the future)?
productive, and I hope that with Vulcan.NET/X# my productivity will
increase.
And my programming style is very code-oriented, so I like VIDE/XIDE a
lot more than VS with its painters.
And then, I need some language to move my VO applications there (I have
one application with more than 200.000 lines of code, with weekly
enhancements - so a rewrite is not an option, and several other
applications that need to be moved to .NET, where rewrite is not an
option also).
And after all, I like the Xbase language a lot, and I feel code written
in a Xbase language is much more readable than C# code (I have any sort
of VB, but that is another story).
> I guess you can wait and see and I wish Grafxsoft and X# the best of
> luck, but in the mean time C# and VB.net are the way to go.
Vulcan.NET is usable now, and works now, but I think it cannot fullfill
future expectations (it would need a completely rewritten compiler,
using Roslyn), and X# at this moment lacks compatibility to Vulcan.NET
and VO.
So I'm working now in Vulcan.NET, hoping to switch to X# when it is
ready (but I'm doing some work also in X#, mainly code where I don't
need any compatibility or code that cannot be done in Vulcan.NET).
Wolfgang
P.S. I could see another business model for GrafX: sell the
VO/Vulcan.NET compatible libraries as addon to X#. That could be a
win-win situation, and people could use the RDDs and the runtime
libraries from Vulcan.NET with the X# compiler
--
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