Best development product?

[xoggoth]

Semi retiring from crap contracting at end of this week to concentrate on my and my wife's businesses.

Want to update current products e.g.Animals UK and write new. I don't need great computing speed (most delay is opening large images which I geuss is pretty langage independent) but I want something that makes it fairly easy to provide attractive progs with text, lots of graphics and some simple animation for primary children, plus max integration with the web. Currently it is in VB6 with additional material in HTML/jscript in a webbrowser that also independently runs in IE, eg these . (Only work in IE currently)

Question is what to get? Am told VB.net and C#.net are virtually indistinguishable not just in object use but in syntax. Also are there any major advantages in the pro edition of Visual Studio over standard? On http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700921.aspx I can't see anything important missing from the standard edition that seem relevant apart from simplified "menus and defaults". I dont need SQL server, XSL or remote debugging.

Grateful for any suggestions.

[DimPrawn]

but I want something that makes it fairly easy to provide attractive progs with text, lots of graphics and some simple animation for primary children, plus max integration with the web.

That sounds like Flash programming to me?

[VectraMan]

I've yet to find any benefit to VS professional over standard.

It does sound like Flash. Maybe you want something like this:

http://www.digitalworkshop.com/products/Pro.shtml

More of a point and click interface with added scripting.

[Buffoon]

I understand from people in education that the quality of PC isn’t up to much and neither is the support. So would going the .NET route be a bit of a mistake as it might restrict the customer base? The same applies to using Flash. I know that you could put the installation of .NET or Flash in with the installation of your package, but is that going to add to your support problems?

Could it be that sticking with VB6 for the medium term be the way to go?

I would suggest that we are the wrong people to ask. Have you asked your existing customers about the platforms they would run your products on? Finding out the capacity and policies of the schools and education authorities may help you answer your questions.

[DimPrawn]

Flash runs on almost any PC, Mac, Linux. Can be hosted in any web browser or standalone as an exe. Can do games, interactive, animations, forms almost anything and is good even on old PC's.

My vote would be Flash.

[timh]

Yep, sounds like Flash to me.. To my eternal shame it's my speciality, so if you want a hand with anything (or indeed a consultant/contractor) give me a shout - tim{at}muton.co.uk

[VectraMan]

Flash runs on almost any PC, Mac, Linux. Can be hosted in any web browser or standalone as an exe. Can do games, interactive, animations, forms almost anything and is good even on old PC's.

And some mobile phones too.

Flash is great. It's such a shame that people keep persisting with clunky old HTML.

But don't fall into the trap of thinking you need Flash to create Flash.

[xoggoth]

Cheers chaps but the animations are just extras, the main programs are for identification and do quite a lot of number crunching and sorting to identify the best match to the choices made. (You can't use exact matching methods like SQL 'cos kids insist on geussing and entering some wrong answers) Could really use some comments on C#.net vs VB.net.

Done a fair bit in Flash and found it great with clipart style images but it does not seem to cope properly with the large high resolution images we use - every time you make a small change and hit run, you have to sit there for two minutes while it thinks. Forget the details but there were also limitations on traced bitmap images that you do not get in objects. All reasons I gave up and went for jscript with animated gifs.

Not that I may not make some use of it though so if any way round above probelms I would be interested. What was that last comment about Dim?

[DimPrawn]

Okay, if you are not into Flash and want to go .NET

How well do you know the C style of syntax (similar to JavaScript also)? If you are comfortable with this, I'd go for C# everytime. VB.NET is really only there for the VB6 brigade that know no other style of programming.

C# is the premium Microsoft dev language.
When MS adds new features to the languages, it adds them to C# first.
There are many many resources on the web for C# compared to VB.NET
Most professional applications are written in C#
The worlds top .Netters are all C# experts.
There are many more top paying contracts out there for C# compared to VB.NET

Conclusion. C# is the way to go.

PS. For what you want to do VS.NET Standard is fine.

[xoggoth]

Cheers DIM. Yes done C and VC++, so no probs with syntax, just dont want to be stick with a complicated horror like MFC. Come to think of it, I do have the prospect of a C# job anyway, VC++ thing I did previously will need upgrading in about two years.