Lutz Roeder Handing Off .NET Reflector to Red Gate | The Coffeehouse

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

In case anybody missed it...

http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/the-future-of-reflector-/

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

£5 says they'll turn it into a 2-tier product: the standard free-beer version and an expensive paid-for version. Or at least fill the product with plugs and adverts for other Red Gate software.

Forgive my cynicism, but I can't think of any reason for a company to perform development of this program with no real financial return.

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 10:41 AM

W3bbo, you beat me to that reply; I was thinking exactly the same. Red Gate will maintain 'a version that is free', which implies 'a version which is not free'

Herbie

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to Dr Herbie

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 10:42 AM

*archives reflector installers*

PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

In reply to Dr Herbie

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 10:42 AM

There is a post in the comments from a Red-Gate employee

We have no plans at all to release a "free version" which has reduced functionality and a high priced "working version".

Unless they just plan to use it to drive visits to their site?

dahat

In reply to PerfectPhase

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 11:14 AM

More likely the current version we know today will continue to be free and will only see bug fixes applied and a handful of usability improvements (lets face it, aside from bug fixes how often do you need/care about new Reflector updates?)... paving the way for a "Premium" version which brings whatever new features they think people will pay for that are not served by the current generation of add-ins.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to dahat

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 11:41 AM

Well, now that you mention it, the disassembler could do with some tweaks. For instance it doesn't intelligently use the ternary operator in cases where it's clear it was used, or detect where switch(){} was used.

And the big one: no Linq support!

littleguru
<3 Seattle

Sad News...

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Good lord do you all have that bad an opinion of Red Gate? Why?

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to blowdart

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 1:44 PM

Nothing against Red Gate personally, I'd be saying the same thing if any other non-FOSS company took the helm.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

In reply to blowdart

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 1:44 PM

It was somehow guaranteed to be free as long as it wouldn't move owner Tongue Out

I wonder why he didn't open source it... really. It's a small tool and would be an ideal thing.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to littleguru

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 2:09 PM

Well he did obfuscate the code as well; which always struck me as a little hypocritical and amusing.

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

Hey look someone selling out for money again... Fun...

It was a good tool while it lasted I guess. Perhaps someone will develop an open source version for the community.

PS - The current version has an expiration built into the code and won't load anymore if you try and use it for too long.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to ManipUni

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 2:18 PM

That's quite an accusation. What's your source?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 2:33 PM

It's always forced updates; which is rather annoying.

JChung2006

In reply to blowdart

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 2:38 PM

There's always ILDASM if Reflector turns to crap.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to JChung2006

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 3:35 PM

ILDASM is crap as far as usability and disassembly are concerned.

I don't think there's any excuse for shipping a product with 16-color icons in this day and age.

wisemx
Live it

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 5:15 PM

Why isn't your C9 avatar more colorful? Big Smile

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 5:15 PM

ILDASM was probably written almost a decade ago. Tongue Out

littleguru
<3 Seattle

In reply to HumanCompiler

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 5:36 PM

I love the joy of browing through the IL... don't you?

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to wisemx

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 5:26 PM

It was originally an 8-bit PNG using all 256-colors, so nerr Smiley

Re: HumanCompiler: Close. Judging by various aspects of the program and Microsoft's own history of .NET development I'd say ildasm in its current form (obviously they'd have had an even more primitive version for development and CIL inspection during the dev stages for the CLR) was written sometime around 2001 (it remains visually unchanged since the version that came with VS2002). I reckon it dates back to 2000 at the earliest, so you're 2 years off Smiley

Re: littleguru: yes, but when you're in a rush you don't have the time to manually read the CIL directly.

Yggdrasil
Pour me a cab, 'cause I can't drink no more.

I'm not as concerned as some people here. Red Gate also maintain the PInvoke.NET plugin for Visual Studio, and other than the fact that they bundle it with their Ants Profiler (a 20MB bundle for a 20k plugin), they didn't kill off any features or anything.
Also, their other products are pretty good - we use Ants Profiler and a couple of the SQL Server tools.

HumanCompiler
Compiling humans...and code

In reply to W3bbo

#Aug 21st, 2008 @ 6:43 PM

I was approximating. I didn't say 10 years ago. Tongue Out

That said, I used ILDASM in 2000 (when .NET was a Tech Preview at PDC 2000) and I assumed it was written some time before that. Since it seems like a useful tool to build the framework itself and debug problems, I figured it was built pretty early on. (If you want to get technical about it)

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