Please update Libs to VS 2010 /2011 express edition

[Foz]

Yup - the software I write has to work on customers machines - no quibbles - that was why .net 1.1 was chosen over .net 2.0 - it had the lowest OS compatibility. There isn't a "most" users option for us - it's all or nothing.

We are now making moves to use .net 3.5, possibly .net 4, because as soon as there are no more 98, ME & 2000 machines logged in over a year, we can then start the roll out.

[rsts]

Yup - the software I write has to work on customers machines - no quibbles - that was why .net 1.1 was chosen over .net 2.0 - it had the lowest OS compatibility. There isn't a "most" users option for us - it's all or nothing.

We are now making moves to use .net 3.5, possibly .net 4, because as soon as there are no more 98, ME & 2000 machines logged in over a year, we can then start the roll out.

And older systems can be supported using older versions of PB. No sense restricting the language to the lowest common denominator forever.

[Tenaja]

And older systems can be supported using older versions of PB. No sense restricting the language to the lowest common denominator forever.

It makes a LOT of sense in two situations when you don't want multiple versions: for in-house software AND if you have commercial software for use in a business environment...and that commercial software is inexpensive. (With expensive software, like CAD, it is expected to buy a "modern" computer.)

What does NOT make sense is for all of us to be forced to use slow and outdated libraries just for those tiny few percent who cater to the tiny percent of their customers too cheap to buy a modern PC. Like the guy a few posts ago said, there may be 1/6th of the PC's of a large business using a 3-version old OS, and we all know that those large businesses are a tiny percent of all of our cumulative customers. But to that one guy who sells to them, and the one guy who develops in-house for them, it matters a lot. So maybe they can have legacy libraries, in a separate folder, with a compiler setting to use them?

[Foz]

I just had a thought:

If the libraries were updated to the latest visual studio, would we actually lose the ability to develop for all the older platforms, or just on the older platforms?

[IceSoft]

I just had a thought:

If the libraries were updated to the latest visual studio, would we actually lose the ability to develop for all the older platforms, or just on the older platforms?

An update is always a new PB Version.
Use the PB version with no update for your Windows 98.

But you speak always from .Net 1.1.
And this is not a PureBasic lib
So I think you don't use PureBasic on your Windows98 system but Visual Studio of course.

[Foz]

I think you misunderstand me:

Visual Studio 2005 will not work on Win98 or ME, and yet the libs in PureBasic work all the way down to Win95.

If the libs were updated to Visual Studio 2010/2011, would the same be true? If so, then I have no argument, go ahead.

I don't develop on 98, ME or 2000, only for.

[IceSoft]

I think you misunderstand me:

Visual Studio 2005 will not work on Win98 or ME, and yet the libs in PureBasic work all the way down to Win95.

If the libs were updated to Visual Studio 2010/2011, would the same be true? If so, then I have no argument, go ahead.

I don't develop on 98, ME or 2000, only for.

You can use the PureBasic Version which has the VS 2005 libs. Maybe Fred can create a Subsystem 'VS2005' for you and all others which realy develope for Windows OS older as Windows XP.

[void]

In the last year, we have had users (customers company machines!) log in from Windows 98 (3 companies) and ME (1 company). In the company I work for there are still about 40 machines (out of 300) that still use Win 2k.

Please don't write them off just yet...

At this point, those are very much niche target platforms in the same way that ms-dos has been a niche target platform for a very long time. No, they haven't magically stopped existing in the intervening years, but there DOES come a point where attempting to support sufficiently old targets with a forward-moving development environment is not sensible.

When you have a special environment you're targeting, you use special tools. In this case, that would easily be an older version of purebasic. PB handles multiple versions installed on a single machine very well, so there is no reason you can't continue to use an older version until such a time as you no longer need to support that platform.

Scope of support is a very important thing to manage for anyone who has users, and it's difficult enough for a company with a lot of employees. Fantaisie is not a large company with many engineers.

It's not like your license for older versions is going to be suddenly revoked. After all, I can right now download versions from years before I ever heard of PureBasic.

[Foz]

Yes, there is a point of eventually having a cut off - and I can see it coming... I have no doubt that one day, Fred will say, "we're adding XYZ to PureBasic, but to do so will drop support for anything less than Windows XXXX". But at the same time, I love the new stuff.

Lets face it - the new Canvas gadget has opened a massive new door of functionality, one that with the older versions of PureBasic would involve a lot of API.

On the other hand, it could be that the backwards compatibility of the windows platforms is entirely down to the cross platform nature of PureBasic to the other OS platforms, and nothing intentional, it's just luck.

At the end of the day, let the team do whatever they want. They have a plan, and it's coming together, slowly but surely. Hang onto your seats and lets see just how far down this rabbit hole goes.