ShutOff 2007

Some of you may only know me as the developer of ShutOff 2000. Here's a little history lesson, and an update to the development of the "new" version.

ShutOff 2000 was originally released in around October 1999, written in Visual Basic 6.0, and underwent various design and functional changes until around version 2.3.0 when the interface stabilised. This was only in November 2000, a very prolific period it seems.

It had another cosmetic facelift in 2004 with version 2.7.0, but has looked the same through every increase in version number since then, including 2.8.2 which was released in January 2007.

Since around 2002 I'd been toying with the idea of a C++ version. C++ is a LOT more powerful than Visual Basic, but it would be a very steep learning curve. I even bought a C++ book. Then Microsoft released their .NET framework. I decided way back then that the curve to learn a new language would make the most sense if I pursued C# instead of C++. It combined the elegance of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic.

In the meantime, the "new" ShutOff attempt changed over and over again from a straight port of the VB version in 2003, to a complete rewrite from the ground up in 2005. Then Microsoft released version 2 of their .NET framework. Bastards.

It is now March 2007. I've learnt more C# in the last year or so than I could ever have imagined, simply because I had to use it at work. Funny, that. I've learnt a lot about better programming principles, following coding guidelines, and so on.

It's also the year that I've spent the most time writing this new version. In the last week or so I've settled on an interface that is very different to the ShutOff 2000 application. It's more powerful. It can run from the command line. It can run in Windows Vista. It might still even run on Windows 98, but that's a decision I will take further down the road.

If nothing else, ShutOff 2000 and ShutOff 2007, its new big brother, have taught me more programming than any single job I've had. I've had to push boundaries I didn't know existed in Visual Basic. I've accelerated my C# learning as well because some things I take for granted in VB are just not the same in C#. Object oriented programming is a massive jump from VB's event-driven way of doing things.

So I am very happy to say that my little shareware application to shut down Windows in many different ways is still relevant, and will remain so until either Microsoft writes a more stable OS, or they buy me. I don't mind either of those outcomes.