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Here is a question I hope that is not too ambiguous. Is there any comparison between KIX 3.63, KIX 4.x (2001), ScriptLogic, and WSH available? Maybe a White Paper? I have been charged with the responsibility to come up with a product matrix to show this information. This is for our Windows 2000 Migration Project that we are embarking on. Thanks for any insight. - Kent ------------------ |
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Dear, There were already some discussion about it on the board. See topics: |
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Kent, I just whipped this table up (literally) off the top of my head. This comparison was not based any documentation and was in no way throughly researched. It's just my gut feelings on things. However, it may stimulate (heated) discussion and at the end of the day - provide us with a good comparision. All feedback and critizisms welcome !!! Plus - I'm not too familiar with ScriptLogic either, so maybe Brian Styles can fill in some blanks ... The rankings are 1 (first place) 2 (second place) and 3 (third place). In the case of a tie - both or all three are assigned first place. The lower the score, the better (more first places) The categories, their meanings, and the rankings are totally subjective and open to debate... The fact that all three tied was not by design ... but it is interesting and I guess the moral here (so far) is that each product has it's strengths and weaknesses ... let's see what some of the other members feel about this ... please submit your own tables if you like ... code: -Shawn |
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I have not used ScriptLogic, but for performance I think VBS should get first place. My limited tests with COM calls in KiX versus VBS shows VBS as the faster language. If SL is KiX based, then surely it would be slower than pure VBS/WSH...? cj ------------------ |
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I had a hard time pegging the performance category. This is exactly where I hope Brian Styles can enlighten us ... to my knowledge, ScriptLogic is an executable program (that is "based" on the KiXtart parsing engine). I don't know what this means exactly or how this arrangement (licensing) came about - but I figured any exe would beat the pants off any scripting language ... -Shawn |
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Guys, A couple of ammendments maybe ... 1) If we were to add "Windows 2000 Readiness" into the mix, I'd give the edge to WSH on this one. Not that WSH has any extra builtin support for Win2K. Only because WSH is more OLE mature than KiXtart is and COM is an important ingredient in Windows 2000 domain work... this will change with KiXtart version 4.0 2) I'm thinking we should down-grade WSH's score in the RELIABILITY category. WSH is prone to VIRUS attacks and this is obviously a bad thing - especially when it's used as a logon script processor (where the script gets "run" daily)... -Shawn |
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Shawn, If we look at KIX 4.x (2001)... EXPANDABILITY, FLEXABILITY should be better, right? - Kent ------------------ |
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Kent: Yeah, to my mind, the only way to "EXPAND" a scripting language is through the use of COM/OLE. KiX and WSH both can be expanded with vendor and third-party snapins. But the OLE support in KiXtart (the old OLExxx functions) only provide about 80% of OLE functionality. It's missing some important (syntacical) features like nested object references and indexed properties. Add to that - the OLE functions are tough to use and understand and that KiXtart OLE doesn't even work on Windows 9x !!! So that's why I ranked EXPANDABILITY as WSH,KIX,SL (in that order) ... OLE expandability is important for Windows 2000 (I think) mostly because you'll want access to the Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI) and to Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) ... I mean, you can probably get by without these "goodies" but man - the power these services provide are beyond belief... granted maybe more so in administrative scripts than in logon scripts ... KiXtart 2001 will have greatly improved COM support in version 4.0 - approaching that of WSH - but like we all know - it ain't done yet and KiXtart 2001 might take a "RELIABILITY" hit on this in the short term. WSH COM is tried and true. FLEXIBILITY is a category that means "what can you do with what you've got". One can't remove OLE totally from this equation because a lot of what WSH provides is implemented as COM objects (that get installed along with WSH). I kinda figured that just about anything you can do in KiXtart, you can also do in WSH. But I had to give the edge to WSH on this for the following reasons ... 1) More variable types - floating point, mutildimensional arrays, etc. 2) You get two languages to (seamlessly) choose from - VBScript or JavaScript 3) Much, much better file i/o support (mega faster too!!!) But just in terms of pure logon script functionality (groups,maps,pokes) maybe KiXtart has a slight lead (with it's specialized functions) - but big picture - WSH has more generic "FLEXIBILITY" ... Like I said - all this is based more on my gut feel than anything else - I'd still like to see someone (like yourself) evolve another table for comparision. Especially if they use ScriptLogic software of have any direct experiences with using WSH as a logon script ... -Shawn [This message has been edited by Shawn (edited 27 June 2001).] |
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Kent, Sorry - I don't mean to ramble on about this but here's another small point that touches on FUNCTIONALITY and FLEXIBILITY ... KiXtart beats the pants off WSH when it comes to "working" the DOS console. I mean - when it comes to logon scripts - all the user ever really sees is that little square boring DOS box. But with all of KiXtart's console functions (font sizes, boxes, colors, positioning)... it makes for some snazzy logon screens... I've seen some amazing color screen-shots (on the web) of what folks have been able to do with KiXtart console routines ... stunning ... -Shawn [This message has been edited by Shawn (edited 27 June 2001).] |
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Regarding MulitDimensional Arrays, KiX can do 2D arrays: a sippet from the IFS Fractal script code: this is a 6 by 3 array now, 6 columns and 3 rows. You reference it like this: $array[row][column] you can even mix contents, like this: code: so now some cells are strings and some are integers. ('course you don't need to do this in VBS as you can use Real numbers ) cj ------------------ |
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CJ ! You're absolutely right ... we now have 'real' 2dimensional Arrays ... code:
[This message has been edited by jpols (edited 28 June 2001).] |
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Sweet - we can even do three dimensional arrays - ok - I stand corrected - but they're still a bitch to declare !!! -Shawn |
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Dear, The only reasons to migrate to another environment are:
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well well. Nice discussions here, but I can't count OLE to kixs' functions. they are slightly supported, but in m$ way: what ain't documented is only feature=bug. it can be really good to do scripts using services os can offer, but as "junior" I'm speaking for juniors: I've never got in to m$ programming. I think it is easier to program in unix-environment 'cause of better readiness and availability of functions. examp. doing a VC++ soft only for win-> use wizard. will you learn? maybe if you start hacking the code. ok. that's enough. but about performance and portability and especially easy of use. it's not about how many system offered high level services can flow trough scripting engine, but how many services are provided in the engine. maybe even faster?.... ------------------ The weardest there is! |
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Dear, Brian Styles from Scriptlogic gives a good summary of their product |