Re: .NET vs Win32

On 2006-06-30, Brian Ellul <brianellul.nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm evaluating the idea of migrating a win32 application to .NET.
Besides the advantages of .NET such as no installations + accessible
wherever there is an Internet connection, what other advantages are there?

I'm mostly concerned about speed! in that Win32 is faster. Are there any
documents or links which will help me take a good decision.

If you are prepared to make it a webapp, speed will not be that much of a
problem. Since most speed issues will be less significant than network
round trip anyway.

I think the major question is more that you have to ask yourself is if you
want a webapp or a client.

- webapps require a connection (and a permanent one), while for a win32 app
a simple "update data" at the beginning and a "sent data" at the end might
suffice.
- webapps require a better connection (better speed, but usually anything
broadband is good, and better latency. the latter can be a problem if you
have many transcontinental users)
- webapps are reasonably OS independant (make sure you are browser
independant though. At least support mozilla/firefox, and preferably also
opera and safari. ASP.NET 2 should improve on this).
- webapps are more readily updatable.
- the UI in webapps is not as free as in the win32 app.
- usually all data in the webapp will be backed up centrally.
- webapps are harder to automate for the user, import batch data into etc
A separate webservice might remedy this somewhat.


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