Thread: A Little Overwhelmed..

MS installers are surely slower than they should be. Compare Win2000 installation time to WinXP. I was guiding my friend through installation of 2000 and it was finished before I hang off. XP takes a life time like Vista and 7. I am really curious to know what VS installer does during installation. Just try to write an installer that slow and you'll see.

I also think .NET options are confuzing. They are designed to pull you from unmanaged to managed projects. I have seen so many C/C++ learners starting a CLI project by mistake. I myself added .net components to native projects mistakenly so many times and faced a Yes/No message box saying that by adding this component your project will be converted to managed.

I am afraid of 2010 IDE crashes. Not tried it just heared of it.

Originally Posted by siavoshkc

MS installers are surely slower than they should be. Compare Win2000 installation time to WinXP. I was guiding my friend through installation of 2000 and it was finished before I hang off. XP takes a life time like Vista and 7. I am really curious to know what VS installer does during installation. Just try to write an installer that slow and you'll see.

I don't remember how long 2k takes to install, but XP takes about an hour.
Vista takes about half an hour.
7 maybe 20 minutes.
But those are just preliminary figures. It depends on a lot of factors.
But I agree that MS installers are slow. So are their software.

I am afraid of 2010 IDE crashes. Not tried it just heared of it.

It does crash sometimes, but the IntelliSense and C++0x features make up for it IMO.

Originally Posted by Elysia

I don't remember how long 2k takes to install, but XP takes about an hour.
Vista takes about half an hour.
7 maybe 20 minutes.
But those are just preliminary figures. It depends on a lot of factors.
But I agree that MS installers are slow. So are their software.


It does crash sometimes, but the IntelliSense and C++0x features make up for it IMO.

I don't want to start a war here, but I don't think IntelliSense (I mean that little listbox that appears when you write a dot after an object) is worth of load-up the harddrive.

I think, as programmers, we must be more efficient about the tools we use. An IDE that uses more the 3 GB of harddrive, plus the service packs, plus producing binaries around a 500 KB (or less) is not that "worth".

How about get only the PSDK (Platform Software development kit), some good compiler (VS 2003 toolkit is around the internet) and good ide (codeblocks, even the damn notepad)...and focus only in make good binaries, and not worring about the "next" release of the IDE or service pack...

I don't remember how long 2k takes to install, but XP takes about an hour.
Vista takes about half an hour.
7 maybe 20 minutes.

Its computers getting faster not setups.

Originally Posted by Joelito

I don't want to start a war here, but I don't think IntelliSense (I mean that little listbox that appears when you write a dot after an object) is worth of load-up the harddrive.

Yes, it is. It is one of the niftiest tools there ever was.
And no, that's not all there is to IntelliSense.
Hover over a variable and see its type.
Call a function and see its parameter list.
Hover over a macro and see its contents.
Press F12 on an identifier and jump to its definition.
Also, related to IntelliSense, but not exactly IntelliSense, live compile, like Java. The IDE compiles the code in the background and pops up red identifiers on errors it sees. It's nice. And it also makes it worth it.

I think, as programmers, we must be more efficient about the tools we use. An IDE that uses more the 3 GB of harddrive, plus the service packs, plus producing binaries around a 500 KB (or less) is not that "worth".

The space it takes up is irrelevant.
And I hope you aren't suggesting the binaries are bloated, because they're not. In fact, the VS compiler is pretty darn good as far as compilers go in terms of optimization.
What the hell is there to be efficient about!? In the end, the binaries will be the same.

How about get only the PSDK (Platform Software development kit), some good compiler (VS 2003 toolkit is around the internet) and good ide (codeblocks, even the damn notepad)...and focus only in make good binaries, and not worring about the "next" release of the IDE or service pack...

Listen to yourself! Notepad! Gawd! Seriously!
And just because we're using VS doesn't mean we have to be worrywarts of when the "next" release or service pack comes out. I worry about only being able to create higher quality code, and to make things easier for me, as a programmer.
Visual Studio makes this true. It has all I need. Editor, compiler, debugger, test framework (albeit plugin), Windows SDK, MFC, etc, etc. The list goes on. Perhaps I'm a little fuzzy in utilizing all the features, but whatever.

Originally Posted by siavoshkc

Its computers getting faster not setups.

Ha. Every Windows increases in size and installation time just as fast as computers. The fact is that they optimized the installer in Vista & 7.

Size? Take a look at Windows distros from XP and up. They keep increasing.
Installation time? That's very Microsoft to make everything slower and slower. Pretty much what they do with any new release. Compare 98 to XP. Compare 95 to 98. Slower. Slower.
The fact that they optimized it? Take a look at the Windows engineering blogs and news.

2000 is fastest of all. I think their design has foundamental problems.

Yes their programs get slower but don't do more.