[Eclipsedotnet-developers] .NET 1.1 vs .NET 2.0 again

[<jpp...@gm...>]

I've been giving some more thought into this matter, as it is quite
important for the development of the project. I think the best way to go at
this is by gathering all the pros and cons of using .NET 2.0 we can think
of, and then make an educated choice.


Here are the cons I have on my mind:

- The user NEEDS to have .NET 2.0 installed on his machine (although .NET
1.1 and .NET 2.0 work fine on the same machine).
- MS Visual Studio 2005 is a CPU/RAM/DISK hog, and VS2003 is much lighter.
(1)
- The platform isn't actually using any .NET 2.0 features as of yet (except
for Generics, and that is easily taken out).

And the pros:

- .NET 2.0 can load and execute .NET 1.1 assemblies. (2)
- .NET 2.0 has some useful features for the developer, such as Generics.


(1) I agree with this. However, VS2003 does have a very annoying (in my
opinion) behaviour: it locks the assemblies that projects reference. For
example, if you have a solution with 2 projects, A and B, and project B
references the DLL output of project A (I mean the actual output file, not
just the project). You can only build the solution once. If you compile A,
then B, and then try to compile A again (for some reason, like changing
code), the compiler will complain that it cannot copy the output file to the
destination directory. This was a VERY BIG pain in the a** during pre-VS2005
development of the Eclipse.NET platform, as I'm sure you can guess... VS2005
does not have this behaviour, and you wouldn't believe how relieved I was
when I noticed this while trying it out (David and Rui saw it, however ;) ).


(2) I mentioned this point because the contrary is not true, i.e., .NET 1.1
can not load .NET 2.0 assemblies. This means that, with .NET 2.0, people
that develop plugins for the platform can develop and compile plugins in
both .NET 1.1 and/or .NET 2.0 (although .NET 1.1 plugins would probably be
considered "legacy plugins"). With .NET 1.1, developers can only use .NET
1.1 (no 2.0). The question that is hammering my mind, regarding this point,
is: "Are the features in .NET 2.0 enough reason for us to support it (right
away)?". I'd like to have as many opinions on this as possible, as just one
(my) opinion is certainly too biased to be considered as "correct".


OK, nothing more is coming to mind right now. Please complete this list as
much as possible.

Meanwhile, I'm taking a look at the SharpDevelop IDE too, as a possible
replacement for Visual Studio. Maybe the answer could be lying in the change
of the IDE, instead of changing the .NET framework.


Opinions (preferably, ones that are different than mine) are most welcome.


Regards,
JS

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