One problem we’ve worried about with Lookout is the fact that its dependent on Microsoft’s .NET 1.1. .NET is a framework for building managed applications, and its Microsoft’s answer to Java. Its fully featured, but comes with a 23MB download! So, while Lookout is nice and compact at 1MB, its dependent on this huge 23MB download!
Yesterday, I was pointed at another application which is a bit of a competitor to Lookout. Its a very nice tool, and I liked what they had done. But, its install file was 25MB in size. When I looked at what was in there, I found the complete Java runtime + java libraries. Its coincidental that this app with Java was almost exactly the same size as Lookout + .NET!
So, it gets you thinking about what tools to use for building your applications. Obviously, any 20MB+ download is something to be concerned about. But I sure am glad I chose .NET instead of Java. With .NET, I know that Microsoft will be bundling it into their distributions in the future. (In fact, its already bundled in their newest releases). But Java will likely never be bundled – despite the recent news that Sun & Microsoft are friends.
So, this was interesting to me because of Lookout’s size. I hadn’t really thought about the poor Java developers out there. Sorry guys!