.NET runtime (or redistribute)
This is not a Microsoft or even .NET bashing post. I have no experience with .NET and only some with VB from version 5. These are honest questions that I hope some .NET guru will read and answer for me. As you probably know I do most of my development on the LAMP stack.
I was reading Dan Fernandez’s response to Grimes’ Article on .NET. While reading this response I learned a few things about how .NET works and they seem very similar to how VB worked when I used it. It seems some of the same frustrations I ran into still exist today. Mainly the single redistribute or runtime library. My understanding is that in order for someone to run a .NET application they have to have a new enough or newer version of the .NET redistribute installed on their machine. This file is 23mb. Now my guess is that .NET was designed around large applications say 100mb or more (a lot of freakin’ code) so a redistribute of 23mb wouldn’t seem like much. If this is true then everything is ok. Maybe Microsoft forgot about the thousands of small software projects (1 or 2mb installed) that see a 25mb runtime a major road block in their distribution. I know we all have broadband and cd burners now but what about the little tool applications that many tech guys like to keep on their keychain. 25mb doesn’t seem so small on a 64mb jump drive. My question to the .NET gurus out there is why can’t Microsoft break up their runtime into several smaller libraries? A bare bones base and several optional extensions. Please let me know!