Phase V - Performance Enhancements - .Net Migration to 2.x & 3.x
Dateline: Roseville - June 9, 2008 - Bob Towery

This update discusses the final phase we are working on for performance enhancements - our .Net migration.

As background information, our software is developed on a platform known as Microsoft .Net (and we use the C# language for those that are interested). As is with all things Microsoft, they make changes and improvements and release new versions of this platform. You might also be familiar with the concept that many Microsoft products don't "come of age" until version 3.

Our Escape Online 5 customers utilize code that is based on the .Net 1.1 platform. Moving our code base from 1.x to 2.x is a very large project. We began in January of 2007. But by March 2007 when the Placer districts started using the system heavily, the .Net 1.1 memory management limitations put us between a rock and a hard place. Migrating to 2.x would probably resolve a lot of issues. But that was a long project with an unknown end date. Trying to solve the memory management limitations ourselves would give users workable software more quickly, but would cause us to stop working on the 2.x migration. We had to choose the path to get workable software into users’ hands as quick as possible.

We restarted our 2.x migration last fall and have made good progress, accomplishing several milestones. We are about to cross another one.

But we are making a change to our plan. In the time it has taken us to get this far, Microsoft has released both a 3.0 and a 3.5 platform. Releases from Microsoft that begin with 3 are good! Doing a release of a 2.x based system will require a great deal of testing, which would then have to be repeated when we do the 3.5 release.


.Net 3.5 will bring increased performance and memory management.

So our plan is to convert all of our code base to the 2.x platform, then immediately to 3.5. We will have an internal interim release of some 2.x functionality, so that we can gauge the effectiveness of memory fixes and other enhancements Microsoft has made in the 2.x platform. We plan to share this information with customers.

We feel focusing on the 3.5 release to customers is what will most quickly get the best software into users hands. We have a detailed plan, with milestones. We are working the plan and are about to add more resource to this phase. So stay tuned: more good news is on the way.

Comments? Send us an email and let us know what you think.