Re: [BLACKBOX] April 18 , 2014 deadline for Windows 7 fixes

From: [at]} <Wojtek>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 23:39:29 -0400

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Chris and Marc (who also moved to C# and .NET years ago):

Another objective technical fact is that the latest BlackBox installation
package from Ominc is less than 7 MB, and it lets you install and run a
fairly complete and competent development system. A few great additions
from the CP collection will inflate the size to maybe 20 MB, giving you
good quality graphics and one of the best collections of math procedures
by Robert. These 20 MB will contain ~95% of the tools that a scientist
needs for signal processing and Monte Carlo modelling.

Now what is the size of the .NET plus everything else?

I do not mean the above as bashing thousands of man-years spent on .NET
software development. I only want to remind that BlackBox is offering a
tremendous value in a very small package. The BB learning curve, though
not entirely trivial, is fairly manageable. In my opinion these two facts
translate into a a very favorable ratio of invested effort to productivity
payoff. I am not sure if any other software comes close to BB in this
area.

We should not base our assessment solely on this or that feature of the BB
GUI or BB editor. These are secondary for most BB users. I do understand
that professional SW developers need more capable GUI for the customers. I
do understand that a SW professional cannot use BB as the only tool. I do
understand that the very concept that BB lives in its own sandbox is an
impediment for a professional SW developer. However, the very same concept
can be a big bonus for a scientist.

In the effort of keeping the BB alive we should first ask "for whom"? Then
we can decide whether the BB community is sufficiently determined to keep
this tool alive and whether we want to retain its original philosophy.

We should not complain that BB is not too well integrated with the rest of
Windows, .NET or whatever, because it was in fact its original goal. BB
was a great achievement because it fulfilled its original design
objectives. The question that we need to ask is whether these original
objectives are still valid? Do we still need a relatively simple
productivity environment that keeps all the bloatware away? If the answer
is positive then BB is worth keeping alive under Windows 7 and its future
successors.

Thank you,
W.

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Received on Sat Jul 27 2013 - 05:39:29 UTC