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 Rating .Net version of CCS

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Edd


Posts: 547
Posted: 10/10/2005, 6:49 AM

I am an avid fan of CCS and the ASP version has been my saviour time and time again.

I am now notice I am getting left behind by a more mature .Net technology. So with CCS version 3 the time to grow up and play with bigger toys has come, which leads me to my question:

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being Crap, 10 being God mode) do you rate CCS.Net..

In your rating are there any smart methods in converting code from CCS ASP to CCS ASP,Net or is it a rewrite job.

Does anyone see the benefit of C# over VB.Net and why?

Also external component integration / deployment any major issues?

I am committed to .Net so it is not a matter of if but when.

Thanks in advance.
Edd

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GeorgeS

Posts: 206
Posted: 10/11/2005, 11:26 AM

I also would be interested in these comments.
I do ASP & PHP development in CCS and have done some .NET projects (VB) in VS 2003
Must say that I did not like .NET 1.1 - everything was too wordy, codebihind DLLs were not supported by the majority of hosters and a lot of other things that were consuming huge amount of time.
Now with .NET 2.0 we'll have 3 times less code and a lot more advanced controls.
Framework even includes a complete solution for authentication & authorization with all BD structure, stored procs & admin interface.
It is not clear to me if CCS 3 will have .NET 2 support.
If it will I'd like to find out if it would be possible to combine CCS project with some of MS's pre-packaged goodies.
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GeorgeS
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J
Posted: 10/13/2005, 4:49 PM

Just as I thought. .Net is sooooo good there's no reason to use CCS anymore. Seriously, does anyone have any opinion regarding .Net and CCS? I'm in the same boat as the two previous post. I use ASP and SQL Server but have been toying with .Net in my spare time but have yet to take a crack at a .Net web app inside CCS. I'm hoping that it's proves as beneficial to .Net dev as it has to my ASP apps. Please someone throw us a bone or atleast point us to any documents/links that detail the advantages of using CCS w/ .Net.

Thx J
LV
Posted: 10/28/2005, 1:14 PM

After playing with the Visual Web Developer Express Beta 2 for a few weeks now, I have to admit it is pretty dawn good, I used CCS starting version 2 for a few projects and thought it was good comparing to the old VS2003. With minimal coding you can have a full working site working in no time using CCS.

CCS helps quickly build a Database web driven with minimal efforts. I picked the .NET development and found very litte help under CCS user forum, luckily CCS customer support is great, most of my questions were answered by posting the questions directly to them instead of this forum.

VS2005 due to come out Nov which is a few days away, the VWD express costs under $50 this will make new customer thinks twice before gettting CCS. Intelisense, and vast of developers/community supports around the world is the key to any tools success, I have not testing the CCS V3 due to come out in Nov so I can't tell if it will be better than VWD, it's wait to be seen. However as a CCS customer, I will most likely upgrade to CCS V3 just to continue my RAD route while learning the new VWD at the same time. But to be honest unless the CCS V3 have great advantages over the VS2005/VWD many developers will choose VS2005/VWD instead. I wishes Yes software well, and hope they continues to stay ahead of Microsoft. I like CCS but will need to make a decision that will keep me employed a bit longer.

This is how Microsoft getting richer and old inventors getting zapped.
robertmann

Posts: 109
Posted: 11/01/2005, 4:51 PM

In my opinion the Visual Web Developer Express is just a simplified version of Visual Studio. The new .NET 2.0 adds value to both of them.
I noticed that VWD (or Visual Studio) is impressive at first but soon you may come to realize that it's not a code generator and not an application builder. It's a programming environment.
I suspect that Microsoft will never automatically generate the full application code because they cannot influence your way of coding and support specific coding standards. The whole purpose of Visual Studio and other coding IDEs is to let us have full control of the code and write applications the way we want or accoridng to our own standards. However, somebody needs to decide on those standards and write the code, and that's what I let CCS do for me.
.NET 2.0 Framework is great in the way that it provides many ready to use components and helps us do less coding around them. However, the development process is unchanged from .NET 1.0, Borland Delphi, and other development tools.
This is where CodeCharge comes in - by generating the whole application code for those who are unable or don't have time to design their application architecture, but are willing to use someone else's design and standards. CCS also saves the time since you can click on a few buttons and convert your whole database tables into an application. How long would it take you with VWD to create fifty Web pages based on twenty five database tables?
Both environments seem to have their own limitations when implementing more complex functionality. In some cases I find that .NET requires a lot more coding to implement the same functionaity that CCS already enables. In other cases CCS has serious limitations that might require switching to Visual Studio to develop a few complex pages, even though VS doesn't magically solve such problems either.

I see CCS as a complementary product to Visual Studio and .NET, and I would like to see even more integration between them.
I agree with LV that many programmers will be happy with Microsoft tools, for example if they are already experienced and want to have more control than speed. For me CCS works better in most cases and allows my clients to modify the application as well. It also generates extra money when someone wants to purchase the CCS project to make changes themselves, especially when I am not available. I'm not sure if they could do the same with VWD.
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Edd


Posts: 547
Posted: 11/01/2005, 6:36 PM

Robert & LV,
Thanks for your comments they are both very interesting and not far from what I expected.

I did some stats on CCS forum usage and have seen a decline in ASP comments but conversley not a conpensating increase in ASP.Net. Which leads us to believe that the shift is not from CCS.ASP to CCS.Net but CCS.ASP to MS.Net.

My concerns are growing on integration with .NET 2.0 and Core MS products such as Sharepoint (which someone pointed out CCS cannot integrate with any more)

The issue of MS building walls has been around for a zillion years but "if you wanna play da game you gotta play by der rules",

I will use CCS3 to springboard me into .Net but I will keep a keen eye on it's progress against it's competition. I already use Ajax products in ASP and have always purchaed .Net compatable controls so I think my ass is OK for the time being.

It is my clients that choose MS products and for good reasons, the fact that I am not compliant is going to be my problem.

I have never underestimated Yes Software, but this is critical times. I am a CCS zealot and proud of it, but the .Net version looks like it needs a lot of work .

Maybe PeterR can respond.

Edd

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peterr


Posts: 5971
Posted: 11/01/2005, 8:17 PM

Hi Edd,

I'm not completely sure what you'd like me to comment on. You initially asked about rating the .NET code generated by CodeCharge Studio, and of course I'd have to rate it the best :-)
You probably know that .NET is really a more powerful technology than ASP for creating Web applications, although that difference is minimal when using CCS. And ASP coding in CCS may even be simpler.

You can use .NET components within CCS, while the generated CCS code can be loaded into Visual Studio, thus I feel that these products work well together.
And our goal is not to compete with Visual Studio or replace it (because we can't) but to speed up your work and make the development easier.
When creating .NET Web pages with Visual Studio you need to go through some routine processes like creating datasource commands, assigning parameters and building the Where statement dynamically at runtime, and generally hand coding many parts of your application that tie the individual components together. It is almost critical to understand that VS.NET mostly helps by providing easily configurable components (like Grid), but it doesn't create the page flow or connects components through parameters. Some tasks are partially automated in VS.NET, like internationalization, but CCS3 already provides the same functionality with only a few clicks in the IDE. Some CCS controls like Editable Grid, Directory, Record, CCS3 Report and CCS3 Calendar don't have good equivalents in standard .NET controls (though there is a simple .NET Calendar in 2.0).
Also a strong benefit of CCS are its builders, which can automatically create forms and pages based on DB table structure. VS does this job differently and often just partially, by helping you to set the properties available with each .NET component.
Therefore a strong benefit of CCS is the automation of many aspects of the application development besides just setting component properties. VS.NET is also more specialized for low level tasks, but does not always provide high level of automation for its own features. For example the .NET Framework and VS.NET support internationalization, but you'll have to do more coding, figuring things out, tracking translation keys, and implementing own logic for detecting the user's preferred language. All this is visual in CCS and the code is automatically generated and transparent to your application.
And since you asked about "CCS.NET code" CCS takes advantage of the .NET's built-in internationalization and caching features, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Thus in many cases we generate less code than we'd need with ASP or PHP, for example.

In any case, the generated .NET code is just one way of creating an application. If you choose to manually create your applications with Visual Studio then your application code will be just different internally, but it can have the same functionality as you'd create with CCS, and the code can even be similar in many areas. You'll just spend more time on it in many cases.

I'm not sure about SharePoint but I guess whenever you want to support any other products then you may have to modify your own application, add a few integration points, etc. CCS is not a SharePoint development tool but SharePoint is not something that you need when creating own applications anyway. There are many MS products that you may want to integrate with, and that's a different topic. I might even recommend using Visual Studio for such integration work.

I'm also not aware that CCS is missing something in its rapid .NET Web development capabilities, while we're always looking for suggestions on what we can do better. Not counting that we also have internal (and confidential) plans to provide even more value for .NET developers, which in some cases should allow CCS to provide benefits even to hard-core manual coders.

Keep in mind that this is mostly my own opinion based on just a little feedback from our developers.
We can only recommend that you try Visual Studio and decide for yourself if and how it works for you.

BTW, there is no difference between .NET C# and VB. They are so similar that there are tools that can automatically convert one to another.

Cheers,

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Edd


Posts: 547
Posted: 11/01/2005, 9:56 PM

Peter,

Many, many thanks for the detailed response (and uplifting words). It is up to me to evaluate and apply the appropriate tool to the job. I have never yet had a job that CCS has not been able to crack at a significantly faster time than any other product.

My words, I suppose were pointed as a concern, I don't want my favourite product to be posted in the "was a great product at the time" basket, as so many have gone before.

I won't even broach the subject of what is in the pipeline, but can I ask (in pure ignorance).
Will CCS 3 be converted to .NET 2.0?
Also
Is there any possibilities of 3rd Party alliances where component manufacturers such as Telerik (http://www.telerik.com/ ), EBA (http://www.ebusiness-apps.com/) and InnovaStudio (http://www.innovastudio.com), etc could be encouraged to provide CCS snap ons?

Yes Software's task in this area appears to be daunting and I await with baited breath (and check book ).

Edd





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