I’ve just downloaded the GoWin eval. I’m from the Linux world and the only Windows programming I’ve done dates to VB6. My customers are predominantly Windows desktop users and there is no web functionality in my product, so I have (tentatively) decided to develop in Visual C# .NET 2.0 as opposed to Java.
Which edition of Visual Studio 2005 is recommended for GoWin - Standard or Professional? Are there GoWin features that will require me to use VS Professional? I know Professional costs much more, but I don’t want any messy upgrades midstream.
Do I need this thing called ASP.NET? It looks like a separate Microsoft product but their website is useless for making any kind of intelligent purchase decision.
Finally, can I eval GoWin using the Visual C# Express edition?
I’d appreciate any answers to the questions, even those questioning my choice of .NET over Java.
Any of the editions and versions (2003 or 2005) of Visual Studio will work fine. You don’t even need to use Visual Studio at all – nothing in our kit requires the use of Visual Studio or even another IDE. Although I personally haven’t tried it, I am very confident you should be able to use the Visual C# Express edition.
If you want to build stand-alone Windows applications, as you did with VB6, you’ll want to use .NET Windows Forms. These applications can either be installed in the traditional manner, or can be installed over the web. If the target machines are running the .NET 2.0 run-time, you will be able to use ClickOnce deployment of your Windows Forms applications.
If you want to build web applications, you’ll want to use ASP.NET. For comparison, JSP was modeled on ASP. Java Server Faces roughly corresponds to ASP.NET Web Forms. ASP.NET code runs on the server and generates HTML. You’ll use GoDiagram Web (aka GoWeb) instead of GoDiagram Win. GoDiagram Web generates images that any browser can display, along with some JavaScript to handle mouse up and mouse down events that get sent back to the server to be interpreted as if they had happened locally on a GoDiagram Win (Windows Forms) application.
If you want to build web applications and can assume the clients will be running on Windows with Internet Explorer and will have the .NET runtime installed, then you can use Windows Forms controls embedded in your web pages.
Thanks very much for your reply, you have answered all my questions. I have perused the forum postings extensively, and I am happy to note that the claim of strong customer support on your company website is fully justified. I can see where small companies have the edge over big ones!
BTW, I found GoDiagram through an obscure message board. It needs to show up near the top of Google’s sponsored links.
Suggested keywords: development, block/diagram/ming, flow/chart/ing, SVG, XML
Thanks, in particular for suggesting keywords.
Actually, I never addressed the issue of C# and Java. I prefer C# to Java, mostly due to the presence of property syntax (in expressions; but I actually don’t like C# property definitions much since they tie the get{} and set{} too closely together semantically).
As a long-time Java programmer I very much shun all Microsoft “Java”, to avoid confusion/corruption. That started long before .NET, of course.
As far as choosing between them for a project, I think it depends entirely on the platform you have chosen. If it’s Windows only, choose .NET. Otherwise choose Java. That’s a bit simplistic, of course, since there are many other potential considerations. But that’s what it boils down to.