Which platform is better to develop - VB or ObjectARX

Hello!!

At this moment i'm considering which is the best platform for developing applications for the future. Since I started in programming for AutoCAD i've develop in VB6. At his moment i'm considering developing utilities or complete software for the last versions of AutoCAD (2005 and the new 2006) , and i think is the moment to learn a platform / language to develop better aplications and i'm not sure in which language to choose (VB.NET, ObjectARX for VS6, ObjectARX for VS 2003)..because i've looked in internet and forums and i don't get a definitive reason.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Best Regards

Jose

 

Hi Jose,

If you are not carrying prejudices about language forward, then I have no
doubt that .NET is the way to go. Autodesk themselves are going that way,
and you can bet they have invested serious consideration into the
programming language to use for their work.

I would not be surprised if you will not be able to access ObjectARX through
..NET, but have no specific knowledge.

--


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

applications for the future. Since I started in programming for AutoCAD i've
develop in VB6. At his moment i'm considering developing utilities or
complete software for the last versions of AutoCAD (2005 and the new 2006) ,
and i think is the moment to learn a platform / language to develop better
aplications and i'm not sure in which language to choose (VB.NET, ObjectARX
for VS6, ObjectARX for VS 2003)..because i've looked in internet and forums
and i don't get a definitive reason.

 

Laurie,
Can you explain what kind of code you mean.
vb.net using activex object model, or some other kind of API?
Is the acad .net API available to all the .net languages?
thx

"Laurie Comerford" <>
|>Hi Jose,
|>
|>If you are not carrying prejudices about language forward, then I have no
|>doubt that .NET is the way to go. Autodesk themselves are going that way,
|>and you can bet they have invested serious consideration into the
|>programming language to use for their work.
|>
|>I would not be surprised if you will not be able to access ObjectARX through
|>.NET, but have no specific knowledge.

James Maeding
jmaeding at hunsaker dot com
Civil Engineer/Programmer

 

"Laurie Comerford" wrote

What gives you the impression that you will
not be able to access ObjectARX through .NET?

 

Hi James,

There are many others better qualified than me to answer these questions. I
have 1800 pages of reference manuals sitting here waiting for time to absorb
the information in them and to undertake a real project.

My understanding of .Net is that it is more or less independent of the
language you use. The British magazine "PC Plus" for January this year has
an article on p147 by Dave Jewell on "Developing Trends" which talks about
using a "Reflector" tool in .Net to transform the code from one language to
another. See www.aisyo.com/roeder/dotnet

Dave advises to go to www.dotnetpowered.com/languages.aspx for a 'reasonably
up to date' lists of languages available in .NET

--


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

 

Hi Tony,

I tried to word it in such a way that my total ignorance was obvious and to
provoke someone with specific knowledge to let us know the facts.

It would be helpful if you were to say:

You can use ObjectARX in .NET
or
You can't use ObjectARX in .NET

as the case may be.

If you can use it, it would be a further bonus if you were to say:

The advantages of this approach are:

X
Y
Z
or whatever.
--


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

 

I think it could be said that you will be able to access functionality
with .NET that was previously only available with ObjectARX.

Terry

 

..NET is a programming runtime kernal that supports
a variety of languages.

The AutoCAD .NET API is a set of .NET managed
wrapper classes and functions which makes much, but
not all of the ObjectARX API functionality available to
all .NET languages.

 

I appreciate the comments, and can see that others have the same questions I do.
I have been reading Dan Appleman's Moving to VB.net and can see that .net is much superior to previous languages.
In particular, its garbage collector is better, which is something that peeks my interest given the problems with object
releasing with lisp.
I can do more research, but is it that there is a new API, accessible with .net, or is it that now you can mix the
activex (com) API with the ObjectARX API?

So do we now have:
Com API
..Net API
ObjectARX API

thx

"Terry W. Dotson" <>
|>Laurie Comerford wrote:
|>
|>> I would not be surprised if you will not be able to access ObjectARX
|>> through .NET, but have no specific knowledge.
|>
|>I think it could be said that you will be able to access functionality
|>with .NET that was previously only available with ObjectARX.
|>
|>Terry

James Maeding
jmaeding at hunsaker dot com
Civil Engineer/Programmer

 

Hi Tony,

This information seems to confirm my initial premise the ability to use (or
not use) ObjectARX in .NET is not obvious.

Programmers who are proposing to do complex things beyond the normal APIs
provided by Autodesk probably understand the meaning and implications of "a
set of .NET managed wrapper classes", but for me, I don't and don't need to.


Regards,


Laurie Comerford
www.cadapps.com.au