A little Q&A

Reader Dave asks:

I am using Visual Studio 7.0 (2002?). I turn on my computer in the morning, and run it until midnight and my visual studio is always open. however, it consumes 60-150MB Virtual memory, specifically when i use VisualPerl (I usually use Visual C++). sometimes i need to run two instances of visual studio, but virtual memory usage keeps growing in both processes. do you know any fixes, or suggestions?

I talked to some of the people who are involved in providing support for previous versions (something at Microsoft that is typically dubbed “sustained engineering“). They tell me that, unfortunately, memory leaks in the IDE (such as the one you are experiencing) are typically low-priority, and not as likely to be fixed as language design flaws or serious limitations in compiler functionality. The fact that the problem is most noticable in a third party add-in suggests it might not even be a problem primarily with the VS product. My only suggestions in this area are to contact ActiveState, to see if they are working on a fix for your problem, or to install any relevant VS .NET 2002 updates. (Though, it doesn't appear there are any addressing this specific problem.)

as i have posted in my prior posts, i have never used .net. i will say one more thing, but i dont know if it is correct, so it contains a question as well; we dont need windows forms or anything else dealing with user-interface to run a service at the server, right?

That's correct, you don't need windows forms to write a service. Windows forms are just a way to describe user interface - typically, services (especially FreeBSD/Linux/etc. ones) handle user interface through config files, command-line options, or some kind of limited console interaction. All of which should be supported by Rotor through the various CLI namespaces (System::Console, System::IO, etc.).