VB6 is not dead

[Vbstr]

The point behind .NET was a multi-platform language with the same write-once-run-anywhere concept behind Java

That's kind of hard to do when they only made it for windows tech. I'm aware mono exists but if Microsoft really wanted a Java killer they would of made versions for linux, mac etc...themselves, right out the gate.

[Atheist]

Well "sport" i'm happy it suits your needs. But for vb6 being an obsolete technology it's amazing how some apps run so much faster than .net ones? And hows COM support in .net, "sport"? You also forget the massive massive ecosystem that vb6 has, planet source code and others has tons and tons of vb5/vb6 activex ocx's etc... that can add fantastic power and extension to your apps. Funny how .net has been around 10+ years yet I don't see anywhere near the same following. So again i'm happy .net does what you need, I am, but don't act like it makes vb6 obsolete, because it doesn't. The only benefits of javascript+html5 I see integrated into windows is Microsoft can't make those go away, since they're open source.

I'm interested in the way you are performing these performance measurements between VB6 and .NET applications. Care to elaborate?

As for there being alot of VB6 stuff around, of course there is! Its old! Besides, I'm not sure where youre getting this from...anything in particular you are missing from the .NET side?

[Nightwalker83]

That's kind of hard to do when they only made it for windows tech.

Yeah, but you can install Windows on a IMac.

[Atheist]

That's kind of hard to do when they only made it for windows tech. I'm aware mono exists but if Microsoft really wanted a Java killer they would of made versions for linux, mac etc...themselves, right out the gate.

Multiple platforms does not necessarily mean linux and os x, I think what SH mightve been referring to is; PC (desktop / server), Windows Mobile / Phone and the Xbox 360.

[Max Peck]

Well "sport" i'm happy it suits your needs. But for vb6 being an obsolete technology it's amazing how some apps run so much faster than .net ones? And hows COM support in .net, "sport"? You also forget the massive massive ecosystem that vb6 has, planet source code and others has tons and tons of vb5/vb6 activex ocx's etc... that can add fantastic power and extension to your apps. Funny how .net has been around 10+ years yet I don't see anywhere near the same following. So again i'm happy .net does what you need, I am, but don't act like it makes vb6 obsolete, because it doesn't. The only benefits of javascript+html5 I see integrated into windows is Microsoft can't make those go away, since they're open source.

Looks like you took my tongue-in-cheek response as an offense. Sorry 'bout that. You were beginning to sound a bit petulant in the way you were carrying your torch there which is why I responded the way I did.

The main thing I was trying to point out is that if you are trying to market yourself as a developer, you are going to find it difficult to stay with VB6 unless you want to stay in the background. (I personally don't mind being in the background myself). After 35 years in the industry I'm past the point of feeling like I have to be on the "bleeding edge" either. Coding is coding and if someone I'm working for needs it to be in VB6 that's fine too. I simply don't write anything new in it - there's no point when the .Net technology allows me to accomplish much more with less work.

It's a difficult thing to know what to do when trying to keep your skills current. There is absolutely nothing wrong with staying with VB6 (or any other technology for that matter) if it is continuing to do the job for you. No one here is trying to talk you out of VB6 if it's something you really want to do. However don't expect everyone here to champion your choice. VB6 *is* obsolete technology and will become more so as time goes on. Obsolete does not mean *useless*, but don't expect it to be usable for anything cutting edge.

OK, "sport"? (I say that in a friendly way, BTW).

-Max

[Shaggy Hiker]

MS wanted a direct competitor to the smoke being blown about Java in the 90s. The fact that .NET never really lived up to that promise is irrelevant, because neither did Java. Browsers are where Java and the JVM lives these days, and it is quite successful there, but in the 90s that wasn't the goal.

By the way, in every comparison I have done of .NET vs VB6 for significant apps (which is exactly one that is meaningful), the .NET version ran at least as fast as VB6. Of course, it's hard to come up with any kind of head to head comparison. In general, both are used for apps where speed isn't really important. If forms appear to come up instantly, the user doesn't really care whether one took 10ms and the other took 20ms. So the one I compares was a program that was a genetic algorithm which amounted to a single computation taking several days to complete. The two took roughly the same length of time, with the .NET version ending up faster, but a direct head-to-head comparison would be entirely suspect, because genetic algorithms lend themselves more readily to an Object Oriented approach than to a functional approach, so the program fit into .NET better than VB6.

[dilettante]

This is why these threads are useless. It comes down to a game of endurance yelling back and forth.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's true. I suppose those who are dissatisfied by the current situation always want to change it. They could be right or they could be wrong, but they are all dissatisfied in some way. Those of us who like the current situation are puzzled by those who don't, but that's pretty much irrelevant. What it comes down to is whether the change they want is even possible, and what impacts that would have.

If VB6 became open source, what impact would that have? Would companies (employers) flock to it? I would say not, unless some significant improvements were made in the first open source release. VB6 desperately needs the advances in the IDE that were introduced with .NET from a useability standpoint, because working in the VB6 IDE is painful after working in the .NET IDE. On the coding side, the things that should be added right off would be: Multithreading and generics, in my opinion. The multithreading is because of the predominance of multi-core CPUS. If you can't take advantage of that, then you will always be a second tier language. The cores aren't getting much faster, there are just more of them. As for generics, pretty much every significant language has them by now, so people are starting to expect them, and they sure are useful. Other things like Lambdas and LINQ could be left out for some time, but without the multithreading, I would say that an open source VB6 would remain an also ran.

So what would happen? If VB6 became open source, it would either be worked on and improved dilligently to the point where it became a predominant language....or it would not. If it did the former, it would be a direct competitor to MS, so why would MS want that? If it did the latter, then people would only go into it to get jobs supporting legacy apps, perpetually wondering whether the next version of Windows would cut them out of a job.

Therefore, I see no reason to think that any amount of hollerin' on this subject is going to sway the only people who matter: Microsoft managment.

[MarMan]

Excellent post Shaggy. One thing that could be added is as the cores increase even multi-threading is inadequate to take full advantage of the CPU. So even if VB6 suddenly had good multi-threading, it would be adequate for today, just barely. But not for tomorrow.