Addendum--As hardware becomes more powerful, the .NET performance difference may decrease in significance for most user applications. Having said that, however, the trend in the software industry has been to match increases in hardware power with increases in software bloat, thus nullifying the performance gains expected! Jamal -----Original Message----- From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 6:15 PM To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? I agree that a well coded .NET program can outperform a poorly coded program in an unmanaged language. Assuming equivalent programs are professionally coded, however, I think the .NET one will be noticeably slower. That is not necessarily bad overall because performance is not the only valid consideration, e.g, others may be stability, maintainability, and scaleability. =3D20 Where performance is the highest priority though, such as in system-level services, I doubt that a .NET language would be preferred. The .NET framework itself, for example, is probably written in C or Assembler, and probably still makes calls to the Win32API, which, as I understand it, Microsoft will have to keep under the hood for backwards compatibility for years to come. Regards, Jamal -----Original Message----- From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Lant Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 5:26 PM To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? And in fact, many unmanaged languages are more interpreted than many = =3D3D people think. VB6, for example, is not entirely compiled, hence the need for a =3D3D VB runtime which does perform partial interpretation. Personally, I would imagine most performance problems that your average =3D3D end user can notice, are mainly down to poor design or coding practice. = =3D3D Because many complex and common features are directly provided or supported by = =3D =3D3D the CLR and the .NET Framework, you can actually obtain performance benefits under .NET, which otherwise would have had to be hand cranked before. Basically, design the system to load and compile the components you = =3D3D *know* will be needed most up front. Then let the CLR handle it from there, as long as you don't code humongous modules from which you're only invoking =3D3D a couple of lines. <smile> Modularise sensibly. All the best, David -----Original Message----- From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Will Pearson Sent: 25 April 2005 06:42 To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? Hi Jamal, Yes, there's a slight performance hit with .Net languages at the moment. This is to do with the need to compile the code from an intermediate language to the native instruction set when each element of the program =3D3D is run for the first time each time the program is run. So, the =3D3D performance hit isn't great on elements of the program that are used frequently. = =3D =3D3D There are ways to get around this, such as ngen, but performance is probably impacted more by design than whether it's native or intermediate code. Will ----- Original Message -----=3D3D20 From: "Jamal Mazrui" <Jamal.Mazrui@xxxxxxx> To: <ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 4:39 PM Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? > I agree that a .NET based screen reader would offer a benefit = in=3D3D20 > portability to other operating systems that also have .NET support. =3D3D20 > My concern would be performance, as I've noticed that .NET=3D3D20 > applications seem to run more slowly than others, presumably because=3D3D20 > of their more interpreted nature and use of a runtime engine. > > Regards, > Jamal > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Will Pearson > Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 3:04 PM > To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? > > > Hi Ryan, > > Point noted. If we do go down the route of using the .Net Framework=3D3D20 > and a component based architecture, it should only take two of some of =3D3D > the components to have things working on 98SE, 2000 and upwards. = =3D3D20 > Whether this > is architecturally possible in terms of the software design is =3D3D something > that would have to be investigated, but it's something that will > certainly > be looked into. > > Will > ----- Original Message -----=3D3D3D20 > From: "Ryan Mann" <rmann@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 7:58 PM > Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: So, where do you want the project to go? > > > > Hello. I have a suggestion about the screen reader you plan to > develope > > for Longhorn. That is, that it is also made to be compatible with > Windows > > XP. I make this suggestion because you say that you want to make > access > > technology affordable to everyone. One way to do this is to make it > work > > with operating systems that people already have on their computer. =3D3D20 > > On > the > > otherhand, if you only make it compatible with the latest =3D Windows=3D3D20 > > operating system, people will have to spend money to purchase that=3D3D20 > > operating system in order to use your screen reader. I've recently > gotten > > a laptop computer with Windows XP and I don't think I could justify > buying > > a new operating system in order to try out a particular = screen=3D3D20 > > reader. Out of curiosity, is there going to be some special feature=3D3D20 > > in Windows Longhorn that makes it easier to develope screen readers=3D3D20 > > for it? I'm > just > > wondering why you want to develope the screen reader just for=3D3D20 > > Longhorn > and > > not operating systems that people already have installed on =3D their=3D3D20 > > computers. just my opinion. > > Ryan > > > > > > On Sat, 23 Apr 2005, Will Pearson wrote: > > > > > Hi, > > > As the OSAT Project is a community project, it's vital that you,=3D3D20 > > > the > community, get involved in determining the direction the project goes=3D3D20 > in. So, we're throwing the floor open to discussion on what you would=3D3D20 > like to > see happen in the world of access technology research and development. > The > only thing that we ask, is that all suggestions are in-line with the > goals > of the project: 1) To advance the state of the art in access =3D3D technology > research and the abilities it provides it's users, and 2) to provide > those > who cannot currently afford access technology with the abilities that =3D3D it > brings to people. > > > > > > Some of the ideas that we've had so far are: > > > 1. A screen reader for Windows Longhorn, which I'll explain more > about > in a separate message. > > > 2. An OCR system for dealing with hand writing and other text. 3.=3D3D20 > > > An auditory synthetic vision system. > > > > > > We'll likely not have the resources to work on everything everyone > wants > at once, but make suggestions. If you can, try to explain how =3D they=3D3D20 > would fit in with the project's goals, and we'll take the discussion=3D3D20 > from there. > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Will > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe, send a message to: > ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes > > To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes