kaled - 4:03 pm on Apr 17, 2008 (gmt 0)

Really? All cross platform code is bloated? That's strange because it seems a lot lighter than Vista apps to me (eg. Opera9 is way lighter than IE8).

An application written for Vista need be no bigger than one written for XP (unless it makes use of new features such as aero and the silly new dialog system).

The idea that a cross-platform program will be smaller than single-platform program is, once again, nonsense. Code length of the portion written by the programmer may be smaller (it should certainly be tidier) but what matters to the user is
1) How fast is runs
2) How much hard disk space it occupies.

It is an inescapable fact that a cross-platform abstraction layer adds to overall code size and results in reduced speed (though how much of either may vary greatly). Java was once hailed as the holy grail and then everyone thought .NET was the ultimate solution. These and other systems have a place but are not the ultimate solution. I hope it is not your contention that programs written using cross-platform systems NEVER suffer compatibility issues.

If you decide on a programming language because of the size of the resulting binary then I feel really sorry for you.

That is precisely the attitude that has caused Vista to be many times slower and more bloated than XP (which is neither fast nor lean).

Kaled.