[aprssig] Program bloat

[Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

Tim N9PUZ wrote:
> The bloat, and incompatibility with older computers, comes from the 
> tools not necessarily the programmers. Visual Studio compilers 
> beginning with VS 2008 cannot create programs that do not have .NET 
> 3.5 or newer libraries. With .NET 3.5 Microsoft dropped support for 
> Windows 2000 and earlier versions of the Windows OS.

Not exactly true.  Visual Studio still supports bare-metal programming 
with the Win32 API from C.  You do not have to use the MFC, .NET, 
Standard Template Libraries, or anything else for that matter.  It's 
just that a bunch of contemporary programmers don't know anything bu, 
and it does make quite a few things a lot easier.

My APRSISCE/32 client is compiled under Visual Studio but is written in 
straight C doing direct Win32 calls for the GUI and network 
communications.  100% self-written code (except for the C runtime 
library) resulting in a 520KB executable for Windows Mobile.  The Win32 
exe is 1.4MB, but only because I'm distributing the debug version so I 
benefit from all of the alert() calls while I'm still actively 
developing it.

Lean-and-mean still exists, you just have to work for it!

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE for Windows Mobile and Win32