So, let’s let Flavio know the user’s thoughts. 
Maybe you can add an option to your poll, something like “I would like have the option to install or not this feature” or “Net like an optional Add-on”
Maybe you can add an option to your poll, something like "I would like have the option to install or not this feature" or "Net like an optional Add-on"
Sorry Marce, but I can't figure out how to edit a poll. But I'm sure Flavio will read your post anywho.
Sorry Marce, but I can't figure out how to edit a poll. But I'm sure Flavio will read your post anywho.
Hrm, I’m not sure if I understand your poll…
The n-Track beta’s implementation of .NET Framework has nothing to do with collaboration/networking/the internet (don’t confuse it with ASP.NET and the like). Instead, it’s required for the new Navigator component.
I’m using Windows XP SP2, so it hasn’t created any problems for me. Build 1831 is as stable and fast as 1811 on all my machines (which is pretty darn good - approaching the standard set by build 1516).
If you’re using an older operating system, I see how this installation could be annoying. I’m not sure if it’ll have adverse effects on your system’s performance or not.
| Quote (Former Member Gone @ April 23 2005,23:56) |
| Hrm, I'm not sure if I understand your poll... The n-Track beta's implementation of .NET Framework has nothing to do with collaboration/networking/the internet (don't confuse it with ASP.NET and the like). Instead, it's required for the new Navigator component. |
.NET is the Microsoft Web services strategy to connect information, people, systems, and devices through software. Integrated across the Microsoft platform, .NET technology provides the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions with Web services. .NET-connected solutions enable businesses to integrate their systems more rapidly and in a more agile manner and help them realize the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.
The Microsoft platform includes everything a business needs to develop and deploy a Web service-connected IT architecture: servers to host Web services, development tools to create them, applications to use them, and a worldwide network of more than 35,000 Microsoft Certified Partner organizations to provide any help you need.
What Are Web Services?
If you ask a developer what Web services are, you'll hear something like, "self-describing software modules, semantically encapsulating discrete functionality, wrapped in and accessible via standard Internet communication protocols like XML and SOAP."
But if you ask a business leader who has implemented Web service-based solutions, you'll get a different kind of answer. You'll hear that Web services are an approach that helps the business connect with its customers, partners, and employees. They enable the business to extend existing services to new customers. They help the business work more efficiently with its partners and suppliers. They unlock information so it can flow to every employee who needs it. They reduce development time and expense for new projects. You'll hear less about what Web services are and more about what they enable the business to do.
Benefits of Web Services
By enabling applications to share data across different hardware platforms and operating systems, Web services provide many benefits, including:
•
Opening the door to new business opportunities by making it easy to connect with partners.
•
Delivering dramatically more personal, integrated experiences to users through the new breed of smart devices—including PCs.
•
Saving time and money by cutting development time.
•
Increasing revenue streams by enabling businesses to easily make their own Web services available to others.
Connecting Applications Through Web Services
Web services are revolutionizing how applications talk to other applications—or, more broadly, how computers talk to other computers—by providing a universal data format that lets data be easily adapted or transformed. Based on XML, the universal language of Internet data exchange, Web services can communicate across platforms and operating systems, regardless of the programming language in which the applications are written.
Each Web service is a discrete unit of code that handles a limited set of tasks. However, although Web services remain independent of each other, they can loosely link themselves into a collaborating group that performs a particular task.
Example: Your Inventory System
Say you have a stand-alone inventory system. If you don't connect it to anything else, it's not as valuable as it could be. The system can track inventory, but not much more. You may have to enter inventory information twice—once in your accounting system and once in your customer relationship management system. The inventory system may be unable to automatically place orders to suppliers. The benefits of such an inventory system are diminished by high overhead costs.
However, if you connect your inventory system to your accounting system, it gets more interesting. Now, whenever you buy or sell something, the implications for your inventory and your cash flow can be tracked in one step. If you go further, and connect your warehouse management system, customer ordering system, supplier ordering systems, and your shipping company, suddenly that inventory management system is worth a lot. You can do end-to-end management of your business while dealing with each transaction only once, instead of once for every system it affects. That's a lot less work—and a lot less opportunity for errors.
These connections can be made easily using Web services. Web services allow the applications to share information through the Internet, regardless of the operating system or back-end software that the application is using.
Web Services Use Industry-Standard Protocols
Web services also make it possible for developers to choose between building all pieces of their applications, or consuming (using) Web services created by others. This means that an individual company doesn't have to supply every piece for a complete solution. The ability to expose (announce and offer) your own Web services creates new revenue streams for your company.
Web services are invoked over the Internet by means of industry-standard protocols including SOAP; XML; and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). They are defined through public standards organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
SOAP is an XML-based messaging technology standardized by the W3C, which specifies all the necessary rules for locating Web services, integrating them into applications, and communicating between them. UDDI is a public registry, offered at no cost, where one can publish and inquire about Web services.
I had to vote no, at the slightest chance that I had to connect to install it. I recently almost lost yrs of work becuas of the internet. Marcy's got the right idea!
I’m with Tom, on the stay off the net thing with your DAW! lol…
I have a laptop to cruise the net, my music is too much of a time investment to roll the dice on every tom dick and harry virus or spyware that desides to invade my system. 
And the rest of his post was very informative as well. I have been long interested in collabing in real time Verses the slow post and reply methods I’ve grown used to. There’s just something about chemistry and timing that you get with live recording, just get’s lost some times in the delayed digital world of collab.
Thanks again Tom for the info…
jerm 
| Quote (Former Member Gone @ April 23 2005,20:56) |
| If you're using an older operating system, I see how this installation could be annoying. I'm not sure if it'll have adverse effects on your system's performance or not. |
I have 4.05 Beta up and running on a Win98SE box. The one-time installation of the .NET 1.1 runtime wasn't a big deal--it was just as easy as in Win 2K and XP--and N-track performance and stability hasn't seemed to take a hit at all, though it wasn't really super stable to begin with under 98 (talking 4.x here). I can understand the dial-up users suffering to get the initial installation of .NET completed, but after that, it's pretty much been business as usual, in my experience.
Tony
| Quote (Scantee @ April 24 2005,00:39) | ||
I have 4.05 Beta up and running on a Win98 box. The one-time installation of the .NET 1.1 runtime wasn't a big deal--it was just as easy as in Win 2K and XP--and N-track performance and stability hasn't seemed to take a hit at all, though it wasn't really super stable to begin with under 98 (talking 4.x here). I can understand the dial-up users suffering to get the initial installation of .NET completed, but after that, it's pretty much business as usual in my experience. Tony |
Hey Tony,
I'm on DSL....so it staring to look like more of a possiblity than a probability.
Didn't notice a link in the thread though....
ehh...google to the rescue!
jerm
Tom, Jerm - reread my post! The .NET runtime has nothing to do with collaboration, and everything to do with the Navigator feature. (Notice that the newest n-Track builds do not include any new or enhanced collaboration features.) Every single version of n-Track 4 was programmed in Visual Studio.NET - the beta is the first to require the .NET Framework.
Thanks for the info, Tony.
| Quote (Former Member Gone @ April 24 2005,00:45) |
| Tom, Jerm - reread my post! This has nothing to do with collaboration, and everything to do with the Navigator feature. (Notice that the newest n-Track builds do not include any new or enhanced collaboration features.) Every single version of n-Track 4 was programmed in Visual Studio.NET - the beta is the first to require the .NET Framework. Thanks for the info, Tony. |
Hi Jason,
The definition I posted of .NET was from microsoft.com what are you basing your information on?
I hope your right, but even if one has to connect to install .net I'll have to pass.
DSL and CABLE create even higher security risks, there is also the threat of remote access regardless if one is connected or not because of something you might receive unnoticed via ample bandwidth. I'll stand back on additional instalations and controll my own. Nothing worse than trying to fight off some pesty program trying to connect while your workning a mixdown! I guess you might have to fight the battles I recently fought to understand. In my openion the net is infested, infact the little computer I surfe here with had windows reinstalled just a few weeks ago and I see that it's alredy buggy! I keep this one lite and simple, and simply reinstall W98 when needed. My DAW will never be gong online again lol It just takes one instance of spyware, addware, or worse a trojin or virus to really mess up your schedual!
Hrm… There still seems to be some confusion about .NET. Part of that is Microsoft’s fault, where they sort of advertised .NET as all things to all people.
Despite the name, .NET has nothing to do with the Internet. At least, not in this context.
Think of it this way: the CPU (central processing unit) chip in your computer is the brains of your computer, and executes the instructions of various programs your want to run. Let’s say that you’ve got a Windows PC with an Intel 586 processor. That’s equivalent to a computer that speaks Spanish. Your friend has a computer that’s running Mac OS X with a Motorola PowerPC. That’s akin to it speaking French. The two computers speak different languages, so programs written for one computer won’t work on the other.
For reasons far too mind-numbingly boring to explain here, Microsoft decided to create a sort of new CPU language, called .NET. It’s akin to “Esperanto”. There’s no .NET computer chip out there (just like there’s no native Esperanto speakers). Instead of compiling to Spanish or French, Microsoft programs are now compiled into Esperanto.
Only your computer doesn’t speak .NET (Esperanto). So you need this bit of “middleware” to convert computer programs from .NET to Intel 586 (ooops… from Esperanto to Spanish).
That’s what .NET is: it’s a computer program that converts programs complied for .NET into instructions your computer understands. (Basically, the same sort of thing that Java does, but on a larger scale).
| Quote (Tom @ April 24 2005,01:09) |
| what are you basing your information on? |
1. I've used the new beta, and there are no new collaboration features, nor are there any enhancements to the Net Transfer feature that Flavio added about a year ago.
2. I've developed Windows applications in Visual Studio for about four years and have first hand experience with .NET in a stand-alone context. (Never did anything nearly as elaborate as n-Track, though.) .NET is for a whooooole lot more than web applications!
3. I've done plenty of reading. Microsoft provides tons of documentation about the .NET platform's benefits in Windows apps - ranging from enhancements in graphics, debugging, security, performance, deployment, etc.... If you're truly interested, here's a sampling:
Introduction to Windows Applications
Creating Windows Applications
GDI+ Graphics
Graphics Changes in Visual Basic .NET
Fact of the matter: The last non-.NET version of Visual Studio was released in the late 90s, and that Flavio has been using Visual Studio.NET since version 4 came out. This new beta isn't the huge departure people thought it was, and that's becoming more and more apparent with each and every build (when 1825 dropped, people were flipping out - they're now realizing it's the same ol' thing with a couple new features and enhancements).
If you're using the latest version of Windows (I'm almost completely certain that the .NET Framework is included with XP SP2 by default - and it's most definitely going to be included in the next version of Windows), you're good to go.
If you're using an outdated version of Windows, the installation of .NET Framework may be a pain - but that happens when you're using an outdated operating system.
I hope your right, but even if one has to connect to install .net I'll have to pass.
You can burn a copy of the .NET Framework to a disc, just like you do with n-Track. Install .NET first so n-Track doesn't prompt you.
Our studio doesn't have any kind of internet connection (not worth the cost), so we do all our upgrades that way.
Thanks for the great explination and links guys!
I for one am glad Flav is writing new components of N on .NET. There’s nothing wrong with writing components in the old COM style, but eventually it will be ancient history, because MS is focussing all new development work in the .NET direction. Eventually, .NET runtimes will be available for other OS’s (like Java is now) - which means that any program written on .NET could run on any supported OS. There are many other benefits to moving to .NET (performance included) and the windows developer community is in the middle of doing just that at this time (me included). So if you’re running older windows versions, you can expect to deal with this requirement more and more, as software providers make the switch. If nothing else, .NET allows the developer to be more productive than before. This means N gets better, faster. So think of it as a good thing
Hi Guys:
I have little or no knowledge of what this matter is gonna mean to me and how it might bennefitt the product I end up with…
I like’n all this to how well my Bata VCR worked, and then all of a sudden I couldn’t get anymore Bata Blank Tapes, no matter where I looked for them…
Or, are you really on the Baseball Team if you don’t throw the ball to the other guys or get the bat to swing with?
It takes a matter of a month to get so far behind the Pace, that it’ll all be worth nothing to even comtemplate continuing forward or for trying to catch up with whatever is new to all this stuff…
I downloaded the 23 meg. file and I’ll be writing it to a CD… It took 1:17 hrs. on my 56 k modem…
… But should I load it on my operating system now, or wait till I upgrade to the latest build of n-Track? I’m useing build 1516 at the present time… 
Bill…
| Quote (woxnerw @ April 24 2005,08:17) |
| .. But should I load it on my operating system now, or wait till I upgrade to the latest build of n-Track? I'm useing build 1516 at the present time..
|
No need to install it until you actually have a program that requires it, e.g. N-track 4.05. Otherwise, it's just an unnecessary item in your configuration, and though you may be 99.99999999% safe in installing it now, why take a chance on something going wrong with your current setup when there's nothing to gain, even theoretically? I'd just keep that CD handy for if/when you do upgrade N-track.
Tony
Wow 5 unanimous votes!
What are we saying? Keep ntrack safe from the net?! Polls and ntrack = very good thing!
hehe, the poll still doesn’t make sense.
i think if the question is “does n-track need built in online collaboration features?”… i say, yeah sure… if it makes it easier for some users to do it. great. personally, i understand enough about the technologies involved to do it on my own, but i know there are some people who would rather not take my approach.
now, if the question is “should n-track be built to rely on the .NET framework?”… now we are talking about something totally different. i think it’s going to be hard to avoid going in that direction… especially if a developer is already using the VS.NET development environment. i’m sure MS will start doing things in a way that pressures developers to move. but right now, i do think it’s better to stay away from releasing something that relies on it. .NET is still not on every install of windows and to download it (or distribute n-track with it) is a little weighty and time consuming. that’s just my thought… i think the next version of windows will include it automatically, and maybe then it would make more sense.
Well your goiing to see plenty of musicians/writers who spend most of their time with the music and not really caring how the scripts are written or by who to make the studio work. Just as long as they are useful and stable. I think the jest of the poll here is to keep ntrack bug free. Unfortunatelly we have to lean about .NET also lol 