BS> One step in the learning curve of Windows programming is to convince
BS> yourself that nobody cares about the size of your programs any more.
BS> Everybody has a Gig. disk (or will soon buy one) !  Back in the early 
BS> days,when the entire system had to fit on a 360K floppy, I remember 
BS> sweatingblood to shrink a program down below the disk allocation unit 
BS> size (1024
BS> bytes).  But those days are gone.  Hardware prices keep falling, and
BS> nowadays the most expensive component of a computer systems is 
BS> usually theprogrammers' time.  So if the cost of saving programmer 
BS> time is a larger
BS> program, you bite the bullet.
Bryan, 
 
Surprise, surprise, surprise!!!  Those days are still here!  While it IS true 
that we don't have to run off of dual-360K floppy systems, consider the cost 
to develope an application if your target is to be distributed by 1.44Meg 
disks.  Even with the BEST Zip and installation utilities, if your app 
requires more than two or three disks, with labels and manuals, your 
duplication costs go through the roof, as do your shipping costs.  Now you 
could distribute by CD-ROM, but even with the recent drop in CD-Writer 
prices, you still pay around $15-19 per CD-R disc blank. If you're working 
shareware, that quickly eats up your profit.  Also, in the business 
environment, most users go for a fully powered Pentium or Alpha server and 
MINIMAL configuration user workstations.  Thus, you may find that your 
application works fine on your development system, but bytes the big one on 
the accounting department's 486 with 6Meg of RAM and 250Meg HD.  Sorry, but, 
it really DOES help to write to a minimum system standard.  Thus, even in 
Delphi, squeezing the size of the application is a great help. 
 
BS> It is because a significant portion of the population now understands 
BS> theWindows idiom.  I used to be a Windows non-believer, but "in 
BS> response topublic demand", I provided a Windows interface to a suite 
BS> of DOS programs.
BS> Watching the users almost instinctive reaction to it made a believer 
BS> out ofme.
I definitely agree with you here.  With the number of Windows systems 
established in homes and work offices, a user would be crazy to develope to 
the DOS standard anymore.  Too few users want to bother with DOS,  So, too, 
is the OS/2 standard obselete.  However, the Unix world, especially as 
represented by the LINUX world, has seen tremendous growth.  It also supports 
the X-Windows and MOTIF standards for graphical displays and there is now 
even a minimal MS-Windows API for LINUX.  Thus, there is no reason to try to 
avoid the Windows desktop for menus and dialogs.   
 
Derek
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