In the next few weeks I'll be doing several webcasts for Microsoft Latin America. They are about Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET migrations, and will be given in spanish.
The first presentation will be this Friday, and it is called Why consider a project to upgrade from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET?. In this presentation, we'll talk about the business and technological factors that influence the decision to upgrade an application. The second one is about Understanding the Upgrade Wizard, in which we'll talk about the process of upgrading an application from Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET.
Some other webcasts are planned, but there's no date assigned yet. As soon as there is, I'll post all the information here.
We have been aware of that fact for a while, but we tried anyway - and it doesn't work. The main issue is that the components were implemented separately, and respond to different object hierarchies. Windows Forms receive components that extend the System.Windows.Forms.Control class, while Java containers receive objects that extend from javax.swing.JComponent. This causes an incompatibility, as the code will not even compile when you add an object from the "other" hierarchy, as shown in the following example. Trying to compile this code:
JFrame frame = new JFrame("HelloWorldSwing");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
...
ComboBox cb = new ComboBox();
frame.getContentPane().add(cb);
will give you this compilation error:
Cannot find method 'add(System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox)' in 'java.awt.Container'
The exact same thing happens when you try to add a J# Component to a Windows Form. There are of course technical reasons for this, like the fact that the J# runtime was developed independently, thus components expect a different environment when being drawn, and that it uses a different event handling mechanism (based on Java instead of .NET). But it is a bummer not being able to use a JTable and, for example, a DateTimePicker side-by-side.
A colleague of mine passed me this great link, which details the differences in API support between the different versions of Java, including J#. This is a great resource if you're considering moving your Java application to J# 2005, as it will tell you exactly which packages will give you a headache.
It is also worth mentioning that if you're working with Visual J#, the Supplemental UI Library is a must. This library includes an implementation of several Swing classes and packages, plus some support for additional classes added to the java.util.* package since JDK 1.2 (remember that J# supports the JDK up to 1.1.4). This Supplemental Library is already included in the Microsoft Visual J# Version 2.0 Redistributable Package.
And don't forget that there's a Visual J# 2005 Express Edition as well!!
You can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles or all other major book chains.
I highly recommend it!
0-7356-2298-1
Microsoft Press 073562298104/2006
List Price: $49.99Paperback694 pagesCD or DVD included.
Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 Applications to Visual Basic .NET and Visual Basic 2005 was jointly developed jointly by the Microsoft patterns & practices team and ArtinSoft, a company with vast experience in Visual Basic upgrades and developer of the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard and the Visual Basic Upgrade Wizard Companion. This guide provides proven practices to upgrade applications that were developed with Visual Basic 6.0 and reach functional equivalence with a minimal amount of effort and cost. The guide also includes guidance for common advancements after the upgraded applications are running on the .NET Framework.
Did you know that you can get Intel's suite of tools such as VTune, the C/C++ compilers, and threading tools for free? These tools, when purchased are worth every cent. So how can you get them? Go to the
Intel Early Access program webpage at the Intel site and read on.
So we have mentioned that using the Intel compiler to generate 32 or 64-bit binaries is possible with Visual Studio, but we have not mentioned how to do it...until now.
I have found a web page on the Intel site that shows you step by step instructions on how to use it. The link can be found here.
Of course this brings the immediate question on whether this will work with Visual Studio 2005. Furthermore, if it does work, will it be a supported scenario? Stick around and I may have the answer to these and other questions on my next blog entry.
Even though we have talked quite a bit about POGO on our 64-bit sessions, we seldom have mentioned how you can actually weigh down the profiles that you use. In order to find this information, check
this link at the MSDN site that explains everything.
If you want to 'take it up a notch' when it comes to POGO and find exactly what is happening with your scenarios, check
this blog post from Kang Su Gatlin.
If there is anything you would like to know about POGO, just let me know and I'll more than happy to research it for you!
Today Microsoft announced the release of Powershell RC1. This is a task-oriented shell, formerly known as Monad. I saw a very impressive demo a couple of weeks ago at the Longhorn Server SDR, and, as a UNIX shell geek, I have to admit that I am in love with it.
I definitely love the way you work with objects and properties, instead of having to parse a text entry to obtain some information. I always keep forgetting if it is cut -c 10-17 or 9-16 or some other variation.. I can now do a File.Name on a shell script - how cool is that!!
Another thing is that it really enforces the naming conventions when you create a new command, or CmdLet as they’re know in MonadSpeak. ALL cmdlets have to be named in the form verb-noun, so they are easy to remember and you can also figure out what they do very easily. For example, if you want you cmdlet to be called get-ewis, you create a .NET class and define it in the following way:
namespace ais.samples
{
[Cmdlet(VerbsCommon.Get, "ewis")]
public class GetEWIsCommand: Cmdlet
...
By doing it this way, there is no possibility of creating strange-sounding names - you never name you cmdlet explicitly, you just describe the verb and noun that you'll use. You could still create a cmdlet with a weird combination of verb-noun, but it would require a deliberate effort to mislead your users.
And, finally, you are working with the complete .NET object model. This gives all the power of the .NET framework on the command line.
We were also told at the SDR that new servers coming out of Redmond will have their admin tools based on Powershell (can't get used to the name..), starting with Exchange 12. Servers that are currently close to release won’t support it because of scheduling issues, but we were assured future versions will. At last, Windows will be manageable from the command line - and with the Server Core capability coming out, that will become a big deal.
The press release for Mon..Powershell is here, and you can download RC1 here.
An version of the JLCA training is still available online from Microsoft's website here. It has a chapter on the JLCA Companion, and also includes a chapter on migrating BEA's technologies.
Check it out.
SWT is a commonly used Java GUI framework, brought to the masses by the Eclipse project. Every once in a while there is customer that wants to migrate from a SWT-based application to C# using the JLCA, but so far this conversion required a significant effort in order to build the necessary infrastructure.
Well, now there's hope. I just noticed that the good guys at ICSharpCode have a version of SWT for .NET, called the Sharp Widget Toolkit (SharpWT or #WT). With this library and the JLCA Companion, we should be able to automate the conversion of a significant portion of SWT-based application, and get them up and running on .NET very quickly. Based on their previous work, the SharpWT library should be very high quality - they also developed the #ziplib library, to which we've often converted the java.util.zip.* classes, and other projects you can check out on their website.
So, there you have it - there is hope for SWT to .NET migrations. ;o)
Today Microsoft released Sql Server 2005 SP1. Along with fixed issues, they added:
- Support for Database Mirroring
- SQL Server Management Studio Express
- Additional options for ISVs
You can check out the press release here, and download it here. The link takes you to the x86, x64 and IA64 editions of the update.
Microsoft announced today that all Visual Studio Express editions will be available at no extra cost. Up until today, you could download them for free, but they would be available for a price (around $50) later in the year. I recommend that you check them out - after all, they're free and almost fully featured.
There's also some interesting stuff being done with those editions. You can check out the press release here.
The Longhorn Server conference finishes today but we had to part yesterday since we had to be in Costa Rica today :( This means that we missed some of the sessions on the last day. The one we regret the most was the second part of Virtualization which has some cool stuff for the future. I will not dive into specifics because I am sure Jose will probably blog about this so keep visiting often to read about how virtualziation on Longhorn will change the ways things are done.
I also had the chance to attend the HPC session. This deals specifically with Windows Server Cluster Edition 2003 which is slated to be released in Summer 06. What does this have to do with 64-bit, you might ask? Well, this version of Windows Server only runs on x64 hardware. It is really cool to see everything pointing towards 64-bit. Applications have been starving for more memory for a long time, and now that we have the tools and OS to get things up and running, we just have to stand back and watch the transition happens.
One session we most definitely enjoyed was Monad, which is a shell that will ship with Longhorn Server. This environment makes it so easy to carry out many tasks that in Unix would require several visits to the man pages again and again. What makes Monad so special is that its a shell in which you type commands that actually make sense from a human perspective - no AWK, GREP. For instance, a Monad command 'get-services', does what you expect, gets the list of services. Once you get this listing, there is a plethora of things you can do by piping to other Monad commands. One that blew me (and the audience as well) was a command to output the result as a series of bar graphs in IE - pretty neat stuff!
I am writing this blog as I sit and am listening to the Virtualization session at the Longhorn Software Review. This one has been particularly interesting. The presenter has talked about what Longhorn develpers have done to make sure that the OS takes advantage of the Virtualization technology that is now offered with most mayor chip vendors.
If you want to take advantage of Virtualization with Longhorn, you will *NEED* a 64-bit box (x64) as this technology will not be supported in Longhorn 32-bit. Running Virtual machines does require a lot of memory and 64-bit is the way to go when you are going to be hosting lots of guest OS. There are many, many things that have happened under the hood to make sure Virtual Machines will run almost at full speed when running under Virtualization. This will definitely make things very interesting in the future for datacenter administrators and test servers. Can't wait to get my hands on one of those development versions
Some have asked in the past about building for 64-bit using previous IDEs such as Visual Studio 2003 and Visual C++ 6.0. Even though this is not a supported scenario, it is possible. Please follow this
link in order to get instructions on how to accomplish this.
I cannot stress this enough: if you need to build 64-bit binaries, please use Visual Studio 2005. By doing so, you know that you are dealing with a supported scenario, are most likely to find answers to your problems online, and will make sure you are using the most stable versions of several programming libraries such as ATL, MFC, etc.
It has been mentioned in the past that we use
Acronis True Image in order to manage our x64 imaging needs. The procedure on how this was done, involved a mix of boot disks and the 32-bit version of True Image.
A couple of weeks ago, TrueImage announced the 64-bit version of both its workstation and server software. I just imaged an x64 server on the fly and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind that TrueImage allows you to create images without the need to reboot, which is a real time saver.
Now if only we could get an Itanium version...
In our sessions, we have taught you to how to use the PSDK compiler and the compiler included with Visual Studio 2005. The Intel sessions have also taught you how to use the Intel compiler and many have asked me lately why would someone use the Intel compiler given that there is a Microsoft C/C++ compiler?
First off, do not think of the Intel and Microsoft compilers are mutually exclusive when it comes to writing code for the EM64T or the Itanium. The libraries and even debugging tools that are generated by both compilers can be used interchangeably without any problems. That being said, you may now start to think that these two compilers compliment each other instead of compete with each other - this is the mayor key giveaway that we want to teach during our sessions.
If you are ever working with matrix multiplication or code that has to do with products between arrays, you might want to give the Intel compiler a try. It can easily vectorize your loops and you will be taking advantage of the 16 SSE3 registers that are now available in the EM64T. Furthermore, if you need to write inline assembly in code that will compile for 64-bit, the Intel compiler will allow you to do this as well.
Hopefully this will clear some doubts...remember, you can use both compilers to your advantage and make them work together so that your code will run a lot faster than it did before.
The 64-bit workshop in Dallas last week was a great success. We had 7 people porting their applications to Itanium systems. Of the seven, three managed to port their apps - one was a C# application that was ported in 15 minutes!! Another participant ported his C++ application to Visual Studio .NET 2005, but didn't have the Itanium compilers installed. So let's make it 3.5 ports. :o)
So we can say we had a 50% success rate. Great workshop, can't wait for the next one!!
The recording for the webcast I gave last week, titled "Proven Techniques to automatically convert your J2EE code to C# and .NET", is now available! You can check it out here.
The webcast is mostly about the techniques we have developed here at ArtinSoft to succesfully peform migration projects using the Java Language Conversion Assitant and the JLCA Companion. When performing J2EE to .NET migration there are several things that you have to keep in mind - for example, J2EE applications often rely on third-party components. These components are usually not migrated automatically by the JLCA, since there is no way to include all these APIs in it. By using product like the JLCA Companion, you can automate the migration of these components, siginificantly speeding up your migration efforts by reducing the amount of manual work you need to perform. In the webcast, we show you a smalll demo of the JLCA Companion, how it works, and how it can be used in your migratino projects.
In the web cast, we also cover:
- An overview of the nxt initiative by Microsoft
- An overview of ArtinSoft and ArtinSoft's migration expertise
- Why should ISV consider automated software migration when moving to a new platform
- A summary of various Java to .NET concepts
- A detailed description of the migration process followed here at ArtinSoft, using the JLCA Companion
- And, finally, we have two live demos, one about using the JLCA Companion, and another one about a complete migration of a web application that is accomplished in just a few minutes!!
So, check it out, and enjoy :-).
ArtinSoft has been involved with 64-bit awareness and training programs for well over a year now - last year we worked on the Route 64 program, and we are currently working on the succesor to Route 64, called 64-bit Advantage. Because of our involvement in this programs, we're also doing the Windows 64-bit tracks of both the Itanium Solutions Alliance's Developer Days and for the HP and Intel Itanium workshops.
Next week there's one such workshop in Dallas. I'll be at the HP and Intel® Developer Workshop, taking place in Dallas, TX, from April 4-6, doing the Windows track.
Some of the perks of the workshop include (from their website):
- Three days of interactive lectures
- An HP Integrity rx2620 server (yes, you get a server with the registration fee)
- A license for the Intel Development Tools
- Addtional developer resources
The cost of the registration is well worth it, in my opinion. And the subjects we cover during the sessions are very interesting as well - you should learn quite a bit, plus you get the oportunity to try to port your own code to 64-bit, using native hardware!