Microsoft’s .Net is one of the most popular technologies used by businesses to power mission-critical digital services. Millions of developers use C#, ASP.Net, etc., to develop different types of widely used software solutions, primarily for Windows development. Solutions which use .Net range from Windows client applications, database applications, XML web services to niche corporate boutique-style apps. Therefore, it’s no surprise that ensuring the optimal performance of .Net applications is the main focus for organizations and developers running them.
Different factors inhibit the performance of .Net applications. Before we discuss the perfect solution for .Net performance issues, let’s review these factors.
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What are the most common .Net performance issues?
.Net applications can often perform poorly for a variety of reasons. However, two top factors are responsible for most .Net performance issues: busy UI, and garbage collection/memory pressure.
How does busy UI (dispatcher) thread affect application performance?
If your desktop application’s UI freezes or lags, it is often related to the user interface (UI) thread or the dispatcher thread in the case of server applications. A UI thread can become busy due to different reasons— an algorithmic error or a thread contention; when a UI thread is waiting on a lock.
The primary duty of a UI thread is to execute blocks of work, one at a time until the application closes. When your application’s UI is running animation or trying to update screen elements or handle data, the system tries to execute the block of work responsible for the screen every 16 milliseconds so as to achieve the UI ideal goal of 60 frames per second. For this to be the case, the UI hierarchy must update simultaneously on the UI thread. However, regardless of how you synchronize your code, there are portions you can only run through one thread at a time. This leads to the thread containing numerous waiting UI tasks, making the queue too long to update the UI thread fast enough.
Consider going to a busy bank with only one bank clerk to help people out: multiple people can enter the bank to fill their requests but have to line up to receive any banking service. In this illustration, the service offering process is single-threaded, as it is with .Net applications. When the thread becomes busy, in other words, clogged with too many tasks, it can result in an application performance bottleneck.
How does garbage collection/memory pressure slow down .Net applications?
.Net applications automatically dispose of inert obsoleted objects or objects that are inaccessible from the root when the system is running low on physical memory or when you explicitly use the GC.Collect() method. This automatic memory management is known as garbage collection. While this works to effectively manage memory pressure for .Net applications, over time, they reach points of insurmountable pressure, where the applications spend more time managing memory rather than executing instructions.
Generally, garbage collection pressure and busy UI slows down the performance of .Net applications. Fortunately, there are two tried and trusted ways you can avoid these pitfalls— switching to Delphi or using a .Net Delphi bridge.
Read this article to know the latest updates on the dot NET framework or any upcoming successors and its features.
Why should I switch from .Net to Delphi?
Delphi is a tried and tested incredibly stable market-leading rapid application development environment. You can build native and cross-platform applications several times faster than most other solutions. In fact, the rapid production of stable and powerful modern applications which work on nearly every possible device is one of Delphi’s great strengths.
- Single Code Base for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux – and you can use that logic in web apps using 3rd party tools with Delphi. Delphi can go everywhere your users choose to consume your apps.
- Delphi is cloud aware and has a huge and comprehensive range of database components – any database you can name, another of its great strengths right from the very first release.
- Responsive UI and fast prototyping for mobile apps
- Enormous component set from hundreds of component creators offering ready-made functionality which can be simply dragged and dropped and is ready to go!
- An excellent cross-platform Low Code Wizard to create fully functional apps in under 30 seconds.
Know more about .NET Core framework and how it compares to its alternatives.
How can I switch or bridge .NET to native and cross-platform Delphi FireMonkey?
One question people have about .NET Framework is: Is .NET dead? and we have an article that addresses that topic. The designer of the C#, TypeScript and Delphi Object Pascal languages is the same distinguished engineer, Anders Hejlsberg, which means the languages are similar in several ways and borrow many ideas from one another. The definitive guide to Delphi’s modern Object Pascal language is the Object Pascal Handbook by Marco Cantù.
With the release of version 10.3 of Delphi there have been a number of great additions and extensions to the language which help implement many new language paradigms and greater flexibility to meet the challenges of the ever-broadening array of desktop and mobile targets and operating systems.
Furthermore, if you utilize RESTful web services in your project, there is a similarity between C# and Delphi developers. For instance, you can create a class for JSON to manipulate data easily in a way most C# developers love.
In addition if you don’t need to leave any well matured .Net legacy code behind since you can make use of .NET run-time libraries within Delphi using a third-party runtime environment. In fact, you’re spoiled for choice, Delphi can do it and doesn’t need any huge .Net runtimes to download or fragile interdependencies which are the scourge of .Net programming. Delphi builds everything into the app’s deliverable and runs without fear of something external changing and killing off your hard work.
Learn about Microsoft’s .Net Framwork and how to build Windows desktop and server-side applications on this platform.
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