The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Downloading Runtimes

As a developer I already have the .NET and Java frameworks installed on my home PC. If I didn't have them then I wouldn't have any qualms about downloading using my 56K dial-up connection*, provided the downloads were resumable. My ISP automatically disconnects me after two hours so it's not practical to download large distributions in one go. Out of interest, does anyone know if the downloads are resumable?

* (I know I really should get broadband, I just haven't got around to it yet. Broadband isn't an option for many people though.)

John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Downloads from microsoft.com have been resumable in the past for me, I have no idea whether this is currently the case or not.

Sum Dum Gai
Thursday, January 29, 2004

If you download something like a CD image from MSDN then they are resumable, I forget what it's called but there is some kind of MS download manager that pops up. I don't think any of the free downloads like the .NET framework use this method however.

John C
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Look into RealDownLoad at http://service.real.com/help/faq/rdown4/rdownfaqa03.html or SmartDownLoad , installed as part of NetScape Communicator. Either work with servers which support resumable downloads. If you find that the site doesn't, try Download Accelerator Plus at http://www.speedbit.com/ which is supposed to work with any file less than 10M, on any server.

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: Premature optimization is the root of all evil.”—Donald Knuth

Kirk Murrell Halgren
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Automatic updates uses the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

From the BITS faq (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itcommunity/Newsgroups/BITS_FAQ.asp):

"What is BITS?
BITS is a Windows Infrastructure that provides a set of API's for develo"pers to use to request file transfers over http. BITS provides a Queue management of all the requests submitted by multiple applications, and processes one request at a time. BITS transfers these files on behalf of the application in a throttled fashion. Throttling the transfers mean that BITS only uses the left over bandwidth of the system. BITS also restarts transfers from where it left off, so in cases of network disconnects and machine reboots, all transfers are resumed efficiently. "

Just me (Sir to you)
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Funny how things come around, Joels complaints about the runtime are the same things I heard about the old Visual Basic and one reason people said Delphi was going to rule!

moses whitecotton
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Resume rule #x:

Don't hire developers w/o broadband?

I kid! I kid!

Hermaphrodite
Thursday, January 29, 2004

LOL! I don't know if it's still true but I read once that Microsoft used to deliberately give their developers low spec PCs so they wouldn't be tempted to always code for high end machines.

John Topley (www.johntopley.com)
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Don't use Download Accelerator Plus.

It's crappy.

Use FlashGet - recommended by \/\/arez board members on the entire earth!

Seriously - FlashGet kicks serious ass.

Maximum Overdrive
Thursday, January 29, 2004

I could be wrong, but I think Download Accelerator Plus is spyware.

good luck
Thursday, January 29, 2004

I knew a developer at Microsoft who used a 486 as his main dev machine! This was back in 1998. His boss wanted him to upgrade, but he refused. He felt the 486 would give him self-discipline. :-)

runtime
Thursday, January 29, 2004

Can't you use "Get Right"?

Stephen Jones
Saturday, January 31, 2004

runtime, are you for real? Philip Greenspun once said that he heard some story that an exec fired a web team when he tested the pages developed over a 14.4k line and it took forever to show up.

Li-fan Chen
Sunday, February 1, 2004