Liberty's Blog

Programming made Easy

Most people never really find the real power of their PCs. The most powerful aspect of a computer is the ability to make it do what you want it to do. We obtain software in an attempt to do this, and a lot of our software has programming abilities. Programs such as Mirc, Word, Excel and Access have full featured language support. Most people never use the programming capabilities in these programs, and few learn to program or write a script. Yet to use a computer to its fullest, a user should be able easily automate tasks.

While Windows made computing easier for most of us, programming became more complex. Making a program fit into the Standardised GUI usually more complex than the actual task itself. Microsoft responded with programming suites that attempt to make this easier. Visual Basic and the .NET suites are a noble attempt. Still the simplest of projects can take many hours.

I found a shortcut that I could use to quickly build applications to perform repetitive tasks, and perform automated functions. SoftWire is a graphical integration of Visual Studio 6.0 and now VS .NET. One can Graphically build applications in minutes, rather than weeks. Usually without typing a stitch of code. I originally bought this for $450.00 and it was well worth it it has saved me (my employer) hundreds of hours of programming. My beefs with it were that It was a pain in butt to transfer the licence from my work computer to my home computer, and The .NET version wouldn't support analog outputing to Computer Boards.

Softwire .NET is now free! Not only is it now free, it now supports analog measurement and outputing signals using Measurement Computing I/O cards. There are internal PC cards and a full line of USB cards. It becomes real easy to build controls for robotics, or home experimental control projects. Softwire also supports X10 Home Control and LEGO® MindStorms Robotics Command System.
Softwire is more than a toy, it allows one to build complex programs in a quickly, in a highly presentable format. The programs are still VB.NET (or C#) and can be modified and tweaked just like any other Visual studio program. I

From what I can tell there is very little user support, for Softwire. Documentation and there are some examples available on their web site. There is a real need for a repository of example programs and a forom for users to help one other. There might be something out there, but I sure can't find it. Perhaps the company blog I'm working on will be an apropriate place to provide support. In the meantime I will be loading the new version on this Computer in the next couple of days, and also insitall Visual Studio and Sofwire at work.

posted by Liberty @ 6:23 AM