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Thread: VB6 is DEAD!

  1. #361
    WiggleWiggle dclamp's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve R Jones View Post
    I'm going to be a lot more direct. Niya and Carlos Rocha have both violated the rules of the site and will get banned if they do it again.

  2. #362
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by dee-u View Post
    Okay, that is something I have to quote. If indeed a workman uses his tools efficiently then he is not poor, if those VB6 programmers are more productive in using VB6 then they should keep using it if they want to.
    You come to that conclusion, because you think rationally, and because you don't
    post untruths *against* your own better knowledge, just to provoce somebody
    (IIRC, that's called "decency" - a rare thing to find these days).

    What I'm shaking my head about always when it comes up in these discussions is,
    that many of you .NETers already noticed, that MS is abandoning Tools and Techs
    left and right (e.g. dday9, who states, that he "wasted a whole lot of time with
    XNA" - or others who invested their time into Silverlight).

    What's amazing then is, that instead of criticising the ones who "lured" you into
    using tools they only a few years later don't consider worthy to support anymore,
    most of you defend them with: "that's the way it is - let's just learn something else".

    And instead of truly learning "something else" (as in: "not from this vendor again",
    which would be the logical thing to do), you enter the next round in always the
    same game - learning the next "soon to be abandoned tech" from the same source).

    E.g. imagine a selfemployed developer, who has founded a small company, trusting MS
    in the phase where they marketed Silverlight as the next best invention since sliced
    bread - even hiring a few developers - then developing something like the "next picasa"
    for example - a great tool, even better than the Google-pendant...

    Then when it comes to your "return on investment" (the phase after you invested
    3 years of your time, also paying hundred-thousands of dollars for the developers
    you hired), MS announces that it's abandoned tech now... well - not really abandoned,
    since it "still works" - but your *potential* customers noticed MS' announcement too -
    and will decide to not bet on this "dead horse tech" - not using your great picasa-
    replacment in their own products.

    Now consider this .NET-guy (existence in shambles) reading something many of you
    write here: "No problem, then I just 'move on', learning the next thing MS has to offer".

    He would (perhaps somewhat enraged) point out to you, that this is the opinion
    of an *amateur* (a hobbyist, nothing a professional would say, because professionals
    are defined as: "making money relying on the tools they bought for their daily work").

    Decency and logic would demand, that you (being amateurs) have an understanding for
    that professional - that it's not him who is to blame for the crash of his small company -
    but perhaps you will ridicule him as oldfashioned and backwards, along with:
    "stop your ridiculous MS-bashing, there are vendors who are far worse".

    The whole thing is (to bring a really hard example) IMO comparable to a scenario
    like "rape in marriage".

    There's those, who endure that only one single time - and then get a divorce.

    Then there's others who just endure it and endure it, never saying a thing.

    And then there's also a third group, who experience it themselves, but mark
    those who "talked about it" (making it public in getting divorced) as "incapable
    of leading a successful relationship, sullying the "holy bond of marriage") -
    blaming the "victim" - who truly is not - not anymore, she's free again -
    it's those who choose to "go on", who are the true victims).

    Sorry to say, but many of you .NETers are doing exactly as the members of
    that third group (bashing and ridiculing the innocent).

    Olaf
    Last edited by Schmidt; Jun 17th, 2014 at 07:45 AM.

  3. #363
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Oh, come on. That analogy is thoroughly flawed. MS didn't rape us. At worst they divorced us and didn't pay the alimony. More accurately they divorced us and introduced us to to their younger hotter sister.

    And I really don't see how you can describe .Net as a "soon to be forgotton" tech. It's been around for nearly a decade and a half and, despite what Dilitante says, is still going strong. There have been some "sub-techs" like like XNA and silverlight that have come and gone but you've only got to look at the number of old diss-used java lirbaries that are out there to see that's mot a problem that's specific to MS. that's just a sad truth of software development. We live in a changing world and our development tools neeed to change to accomodate that world. Sometimes that means incremental improvements, which we always prefer, but sometimes it just means the abandonment of an idea that's had it's time, which we have to swallow. I'd rather that abandonment with a viable replacement than the extension of a paradigm past it's usefulness, though.

    Personally I do desktop dev. I've haven't had to change a thing since framework 1.0. And before you pat yourself on the back that VB6 hasn't required you to change anything in that time, it hasn't enabled you to go anywhere new either. It hasn't let you develop web pages. It's not going to let you develop mobile apps. It's not going to let you develop cranial implant when some bright spark invents them. The .Net ecosystem already enables me to do the first two (very well for web, can't speak for mobile as I don't do it but I know the facility's there). And I can be reasonably confident that they'll offer me something to support the cranial implants too. For you to work in new enviroments involves you moving out to completely different techs. At least I get to stay in the same family.

    I can understand that the move from VB6 to .Net was a hard cut off. But the various evolutions in .Net since really aren't.
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  4. #364
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I've been making a living from MS dev tools from VB6 through .Net - it's all good. Why all this constant bashing. It makes no sense.

    With .Net I've been able to expand way past desktop - doing web apps - android apps that talks to .Net web methods. All in a nicely documented and easy to understand library.

    And I really don't see how .Net was modeled after Java - just because of the "." structure? That's in jQuery - it's probably in most properly created object oriented libraries.

    And I still have VB6 code I support - have one XP machine that I keep around for just that purpose. And I have to say that app is showing signs of stress as newer versions of MS SQL come out. Migrating those customers to a web app...

    Things move on - development tools change. Am I crying about not having that VAX and fortran around from my salad days? I use all the same coding tricks - language and platform should not matter if you are a business programmer.

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  5. #365
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    Oh, come on. That analogy is thoroughly flawed. MS didn't rape us.
    At worst they divorced us and didn't pay the alimony. More accurately they divorced us and introduced us to to their younger hotter sister.
    As often in these discussions, what I wrote is getting ignored.

    So let us go more slowly...

    I brought an example (of a .NET-guy who trusted a well-marketed technology,
    taking MS seriously in their "promise" - and he entered a "bond", so to say) -
    investing huge amounts of time and money, trusting them.

    The first thing you should come up with is, to point out if you consider my example
    of such a "trusting .NET developer" an unrealistic one.
    Do you?

    For my part I think, it's a pretty realistic scenario, which could have happened
    exactly as I wrote it - so in the following I assume, that you at least *try* to put
    yourself into the shoes of this .NET-developer for a few minutes, who chose MS-
    Silverlight, to use it as the base for a truly amazing new product, which was then
    brought into shape (by investing large amounts of time and money), the product
    then finally "ready to sell".

    Now, what MS was doing then is, that they didn't honor the trust you gave them,
    they were just breaking "the bond" - and they truly *hurt* you (financially) -
    you will have a hard time to recover in the next decade, to pay-back all the
    money you borrowed, to finance your product (which is great - but now nobody
    has a larger interest in it anymore - the only interest being the one you now pay
    for all the credits you took up, to get "this far").

    So, where's the "hotter sister" you introduced above in that scenario.
    She doesn't come into play here as far as I see it, since your existence is destroyed,
    you are broken, a wreck (feeling "raped").

    I nowhere mentioned VB6 so far - so there's no point (yet) to discuss it -
    let's just stick with the example as I wrote it (and now explained in more detail) -
    and so please try to comment on that first, before we come to the VB6-topic...

    Can you do that?

    I mean, many of you pointed out, that there was "an argumentation" going on here in
    this thread - I for my part didn't really see anything in that regard - so could you at least
    try to act decently, respecting the points I already brought - not ignoring them, not ridiculing
    them, not taking any "evasive action", because that's what's normally avoided "among decently
    arguing participants".

    Olaf
    Last edited by Schmidt; Jun 17th, 2014 at 08:34 AM.

  6. #366
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I coded mobile apps with Pocket PC's from HP and the compact framework. Phys Ed teachers used them for years - loved them. That went away. I could easily do it again on a Android.

    Actually new platforms kind of drive my income stream.

    PDP-11's went away - replaced by VAX's. Then Digital Equip itself went away. That killed 20 years of my development portfolio.

    And I re-wrote it all and re-sold it all.

    Never did I feel raped or taken advantage of or lied to.

    The hardware and OS and platform folks do it to make money. Need to compete against whatever is hot and looks better.

    Us software folks should do the exact same thing.

    Back in Y2K there was mass exodus from COBOL in manufacturing to SAP apps. That was just another revenue stream for programmers like me. What were we doing to do? Stop the century from flipping over?

    I've got a UI that I created in WPF right now for a app that is not even being sold yet. That's a shaky platform - I know it and still use it. If it dies I move to another platform. I'm not sure I see a "bond" between me and MS in any of this...

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  7. #367
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    I coded mobile apps with Pocket PC's from HP and the compact framework. Phys Ed teachers used them for years - loved them. That went away. I could easily do it again on a Android.

    Actually new platforms kind of drive my income stream.

    PDP-11's went away - replaced by VAX's. Then Digital Equip itself went away. That killed 20 years of my development portfolio.

    And I re-wrote it all and re-sold it all.

    Never did I feel raped or taken advantage of or lied to.
    Ok, so you were lucky - but now - what about our poor .NET-guy from the
    example I gave?

    Is a timespan of only "5-years-until-deprecation" for software-tools now
    considered "normal" in your book (above you write of some 20years, which
    truly is a different thing IMO, since it allows - after a development-phase of
    some 3-4 years still some time to earn a ROI)...
    and would you mark this .NET-guy "an idiot", "incapable of change"?


    Olaf

  8. #368
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Is this your SILVERLIGHT guy? SILVERLIGHT - imo - was always a fresh out of the box maybe goes no where thing.

    Back in 2001 when I left that VAX world for PC's I decided that this .Net thing was just too new - and coded my world in VB6. I've always had a guarded approach to new tech - waiting for wide spread adoption. That decision might have been wrong. Regardless I got a good decade out of the VB6 portfolio. Half the time of my VAX world (most of that time the manufacturer was already out of business!!)

    You either choose stable, cutting edge or bleeding edge. Go with bleeding edge and you take the most risk.

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  9. #369
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Whenever you're looking at making a business decision you need to make an educated guess. Just like brad did a while back(about 9 months ago) with those surveys, you can tell that the world is moving to cloud based development. Sure enough, now we're seeing cloud this, cloud that. Silverlight came out before I started programming, but I don't think that I've ever heard much hype from Silverlight(with the exception from MS) from much of anyone.

    Your Silverlight 'guy' just simply made the wrong decision. He/she would need to learn from it and move on. Just like those Dominos commercials, you can't be afraid to fail.
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  10. #370
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Actually flip table for a second. MS spends all this money creating a Silverlight platform - thinking the world will adopt it and forget flash or whatever else it competes with.

    Wide spread adoption never happens.

    Is that MS's fault?

    There is no blame - this is the most evolving industry in the world imo and those who can ride wave are successful.

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  11. #371
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    What I'm shaking my head about always when it comes up in these discussions is,
    that many of you .NETers already noticed, that MS is abandoning Tools and Techs
    left and right (e.g. dday9, who states, that he "wasted a whole lot of time with
    XNA" - or others who invested their time into Silverlight).

    What's amazing then is, that instead of criticising the ones who "lured" you into
    using tools they only a few years later don't consider worthy to support anymore,
    most of you defend them with: "that's the way it is - let's just learn something else".
    I will try and answer you point as much as i can Olaf.

    The thing is your analogy just doesn't fit for me or for a lot of people.

    Most developers (me included - although i do more managing than deving these days) do not work for themselves they work for companies, and it is normally the company that takes the hit when Technology changes rather than the developer.

    When i couldn't get vb6 jobs anymore i learnt .Net C# and vb.Net. It wasn't hard and there were a lot of jobs out there ( And they paid more) Even now there are loads of .Net jobs (in the UK), far more than any other dev language that i know of.

    A team at my last work did exactly what you describe, they developed a whole application in SilverLight, then just as they were due to complete, the company pulled the project for fears about the future direction of Silverlight.

    The company took a big hit on this, the developers got assigned to other projects and there lives moved on. I spoke to a couple of the dev's who worked on that project and they didn't see it as a waste of time despite the technology, they still thought they learnt a lot of stuff that would cross over to other areas.


    For me advising someone to learn C# for instance is unlikely to be a bad thing because even if Desktop development does die a death, you can also develop Web & Mobile apps with it which means that the live span of C# is likely to last for quite some time yet and you are learning the C# Syntax which while not the same as C++ or Java would be a good basis for someone wanting to move to one of those languages.

    Form what i understand in your case your an Independent Software Vendor, and your pressures will be completely different than mine, and i can understand why you would potentially be far more affected by choosing a technology that died soon after then i would.

    My world is really barely affected if MS chooses to end of life one of there languages, or another vendor (as we don't exclusively use MS here). In a strange way it can even drive sales as when we bring out a new version of something in a new technology we can charge all over again for it.

    The other thing is lead times for our customers to move to newer version of our software is slow. We still have a fair number of customers using VB6 versions of a number of our programs (Hell i until 2 months a go we still had 1 customer on our old Cobol product that was built 20 years ago) and we still support and make changes to them.

    The .Net products we sell will still need to be supported and new features added for many many years also.

    So for me advising some to use .NET (either C# or VB.Net) i just dont see as a bad thing especially if they are looking into a career in Software Dev.

    If i was advising an ISV on the what language they should invest in for the long term then my answer would probably be different.

    As for the Learn something else line, During my career i have learnt web and desktop, and done some mobile and with each one i have had to learn a new way of doing things. Then MVC came out for instance ( for .Net) and had to learn that. Things do change in Software dev and if you are smart you can use that to your advantage to further your career.

    So in conclusion what might be true for you is not true for me, and i believe that many of the other on this site will be in a similar boat to me which is why you will see a lot of .net users and a lot of people talking it up. It does a good job for us, and it is nice to use.

    In fact the one really true bit of the VB6 vs .Net argument is the .Net Visual Studio IDE is a lot better than VB6 one and as a Dev it does make your life easier.
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  12. #372
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Right guys. I've just spent the last 20 minutes going through the last few ages of the thread and cleaning it up. I've tried to leave as much as I think I can get away with and if you look at the strength of what's left that should give a pretty good indication of what I had to remove.

    Thankfully the thread seems to be to be taking a turn back toward the more constructive. I'm therefore still not going to close it because, honestly, I hate the idea of stopping a discussion, particularly in Chit Chat. Please... please... do not make me regret that decision.

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  13. #373
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    We can disagree. We should disagree. If we didn't we really would all be drones. But we should also respect each other.
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  14. #374
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    [TakesModHatOffHopefullyForTheLastTimeThisWeek]

    So, where's the "hotter sister" you introduced above in that scenario.
    That would be .Net although I did think you were talking about VB6 when I wrote it. If you want me to come up with a metaphor for her in the context of Silverlight guy I'd say it was HTML5. While not actually an MS product they have invested pretty heavily in the standard and it does make Silverlight pretty much redundant. Not to mention that Silverlight guy probably also spotted JavaScript girl down a back alley way somewhere. She'd been around the block a few time but boy did she know how to please a man. MS could have continued to invest time and money into Silverlight but why bother? Silverlight guy can still go round to Silverlight's house for dinner (his application will continue to function) but he gets to dive into bed with the younger, sexier HTML5 or the deftly experience JavaScript when he fancies a bit of excitement. I think I've probably milked that metaphor as far as I can now.

    The point is the MS didn't drop Silverlight for the heck of it. They dropped it because it didn't make sense to develop it further. Realistically t just wasn't offering us devs anything that we couldn't get better elsewhere. And Silverlight guy hasn't been abandoned. He can still roll out his app and it will continue to work for any user. And there's nothing to stop him bringing in other technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript either.

    Perhaps future browsers may not support Silverlight but the major players are so far and, for the same reasons the VB6 runtime continues to be supported at least for now, Silverlight applications will probably have a pretty healthy shelf-life ahead of them too. Quite simply, it wouldn't pay a browser producer not to support it.

    So now your Silverlight guy is faced with the choice of what he should do next. Should he abandon MS in a fit of pique and go elsewhere? Hell no. That would be unprofessional. What he should do is assess the world as it stands now and make his choice based on that.

    I hope that answers where I'd stand on the likes of Silverlight being dropped so I'll touch on VB6 again now (it's what this thread was originally about after all) . You talked about return on investment. Do you not think MS have given you plenty of time to recoup your VB6 investment in the last decade? How long would be enough? I actually think MS has a pretty good track record of not just leaving it's developers out in the cold.
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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    What I'm shaking my head about always when it comes up in these discussions is,
    that many of you .NETers already noticed, that MS is abandoning Tools and Techs
    left and right (e.g. dday9, who states, that he "wasted a whole lot of time with
    XNA" - or others who invested their time into Silverlight).
    NSA covered pretty much everything I would say to most of this post: I work for somebody else, and they largely determine which tools I use. If one goes away, it doesn't make any dent in my income. That's not the case with axisdj, to be sure, but it is the case with me.

    Still, I AM annoyed that MS abandons viable tech right and left. I'm still working with XNA, and there is a chance that it will come back. On the other hand, tech companies have stupidly ignored the influence of games on computer development for most of the 90s, and could easily go right back to that. Fortunately, XNA is still advancing by open source, and MS hasn't totally closed the door on it...so who knows. However, the reason I'm still using XNA is that there isn't a great alternative for what I need to do.

    That's the point to the whole thing: Even if I'm pissed at MS for abandoning tech, what's the alternative? Apple has a FAR worse track record for abandoning things. Google has very little track record at all, but what record it has is indifferent, at best. Linux is a dead end. There was a chance that it could become the universal OS a decade, or so, back, but that chance is pretty much gone. It is a niche player and is likely to remain so. ReactOS looks nice, in theory, but isn't all that in practice, yet. When it comes to development tools, the situation is even worse. MS has the best, and the rest are a long ways down from there.

    So, even if I am pissed at MS for the choices they have made (which I'm not, though I am a bit annoyed when I think about it), what is my alternative as a hobbyist? As an employed coder, I have no choice at all other than quitting my job, because I work for a group that has a contract with MS and all the systems I am writing for run MS products. The job is most excellent, though, so quitting in a fit of pique over MS would be masochistic.
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  16. #376
    Ex-Super Mod RobDog888's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    [TakesModHatOffHopefullyForTheLastTimeThisWeek]

    That would be .Net although I did think you were talking about VB6 when I wrote it. If you want me to come up with a metaphor for her in the context of Silverlight guy I'd say it was HTML5. While not actually an MS product they have invested pretty heavily in the standard and it does make Silverlight pretty much redundant. Not to mention that Silverlight guy probably also spotted JavaScript girl down a back alley way somewhere. She'd been around the block a few time but boy did she know how to please a man. MS could have continued to invest time and money into Silverlight but why bother? Silverlight guy can still go round to Silverlight's house for dinner (his application will continue to function) but he gets to dive into bed with the younger, sexier HTML5 or the deftly experience JavaScript when he fancies a bit of excitement. I think I've probably milked that metaphor as far as I can now.

    The point is the MS didn't drop Silverlight for the heck of it. They dropped it because it didn't make sense to develop it further. Realistically t just wasn't offering us devs anything that we couldn't get better elsewhere. And Silverlight guy hasn't been abandoned. He can still roll out his app and it will continue to work for any user. And there's nothing to stop him bringing in other technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript either.

    Perhaps future browsers may not support Silverlight but the major players are so far and, for the same reasons the VB6 runtime continues to be supported at least for now, Silverlight applications will probably have a pretty healthy shelf-life ahead of them too. Quite simply, it wouldn't pay a browser producer not to support it.

    So now your Silverlight guy is faced with the choice of what he should do next. Should he abandon MS in a fit of pique and go elsewhere? Hell no. That would be unprofessional. What he should do is assess the world as it stands now and make his choice based on that.

    I hope that answers where I'd stand on the likes of Silverlight being dropped so I'll touch on VB6 again now (it's what this thread was originally about after all) . You talked about return on investment. Do you not think MS have given you plenty of time to recoup your VB6 investment in the last decade? How long would be enough? I actually think MS has a pretty good track record of not just leaving it's developers out in the cold.
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  17. #377
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by RobDog888 View Post
    I think I want to meet this JavaScript Girl lol
    Why - do you need some "closure"??

    You probably have to be a JS coder to even get that

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  18. #378
    Ex-Super Mod RobDog888's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    Why - do you need some "closure"??

    You probably have to be a JS coder to even get that
    Either that or an "escape" from reality lol
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  19. #379
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I think I've probably milked that metaphor as far as I can now.
    No, no, keep going. Who knows where you will end up.

    So, to summarize:

    .NET = breasts
    JavaScript = hooker/tramp

    By that analogy, if you end up with a lot of .NET built onto JS, you have an app that will be both pay as you go, and a bit more expensive than other apps.

    I think I just figured out the MS strategy.
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  20. #380
    Bad man! ident's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Sod it i'm turning to Jscript/brainF(cant name it)

  21. #381
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I've just spent the last 20 minutes going through the last few ages of the thread
    Ok, are you saying that this epic has epochs? Was there the age of despair (the original post and the few following), the age of condemnation, the witness of wittis, the age of sushi, the age of vitriol, and the age of moderation and banishment?

    Doggone it, I had a better word play than the epoch of the epic, and it totally slipped my mind. Here you were, coming down through the ages weeding out the calumny like a wolf upon the fold, and I clean forgot the words to eloquently skewer that statement, typo that it may be. What tragedy, what misfortune, that here in the latter days of this august thread, aged as a fine Microsoft whine, when the ancient and venerable discourse of those now so many days older and doubtless wiser, no fitting riposte, no suitable bon Moti, no sufficiently quarlesome quip, should dull the sting of your perspicatious moderation. The aeons of this thread, though seeming endless, are but days. The thread is still young. The age of enlightenment has yet to flower. Indeed, when it comes to enlightenment, the only buds yet opened by this thread are those that don't make the reader wiser, but rather weiser. And so, beer in mind, we stumble towards no truth of any consequence, but tumble, yowling and spitting, into a querolous future.

    Or are you saying that you just p'd off about the last few pages?
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  22. #382
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Where Is .NET Headed?

    What To Do?

    If your business or company still relies solely on components delivered to developers through an MSDN subscription, then it is past time to start looking beyond what Microsoft offers for .NET development so you won’t be left behind in 5 years. Embrace and support open source.
    Now where it really gets interesting is in feedback comments, such as:

    At this point, I beleive the best move Microsoft can make is to make .NET Open Source, and then launch a program like Apache Incubator around that - so that some serious OSS development can happen around the .NET ecosystem. The real problem with .NET is the unavailability of frameworks for solving new age problems - .NET developers are cramped with the nonavailability of Proven libraries for Machine Learning, Distributed Processing, Text Processing etc - Talk about Solr, Lucene, Mahout, Storm, etc. The CLR and C# are awesome - but MS just can't push forward the development of mature libraries around the same, with out participation from OSS community. Hopefully, if Azure turns out to be a big success story, then Microsoft won't mind open sourcing the Entire .NET stack OSS .
    If you get a sense of deja vu from this, you should. It does sound just like the straws some VB6 programmers were grasping for after VB6 went legacy back in 2008.

  23. #383
    PowerPoster Nightwalker83's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve R Jones View Post
    I'm going to be a lot more direct. Niya and Carlos Rocha have both violated the rules of the site and will get banned if they do it again.
    May I ask which rules they have broken so I don't brake them? Also, this thread could be used as an example of how not to break said rules.
    when you quote a post could you please do it via the "Reply With Quote" button or if it multiple post click the "''+" button then "Reply With Quote" button.
    If this thread is finished with please mark it "Resolved" by selecting "Mark thread resolved" from the "Thread tools" drop-down menu.
    https://get.cryptobrowser.site/30/4111672

  24. #384
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    typo that it may be
    It was a typo but it was an apt one, given the length of the thread, and I have to ask (because your puns so oft fly below the radar of my wit) was this deliberate:-
    aged as a fine Microsoft whine
    ? Because if it was then you, sir, deserve cake.

    Very poetic, by the way.

    May I ask which rules they have broken
    General aggressiveness specifically covered by these two clauses:-
    •You will not behave in an abusive and/or hateful manner, and will not harass, threaten, nor attack anyone.
    •You will not use profanity and will neither post with language or Content that is obscene, sexually oriented, sexually suggestive or otherwise objectionable, nor link to websites that contain such content.
    Hopefully you won't find any evidence of it, though, because I went to considerable pains to remove it.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Jun 18th, 2014 at 03:26 AM.
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  25. #385
    WiggleWiggle dclamp's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    OH GOD. The wrath of FunkyDexter has come. He is not CC Mod.

  26. #386
    PowerPoster SJWhiteley's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    You may have actually gotten that reference, but I barely did. I seem to remember some event where Steve Jobs poured a can of black paint on a computer as part of some promotion of NeXT systems.
    Big Blue.
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  27. #387
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    [The discontinued Silverlight and "the hotter sister"]
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    That would be .Net although I did think you were talking about VB6 when I wrote it.
    Nah - for me the ".NET-sister" was always the "clumsier one" (a bit too much resembling
    the role-model for a Rubens-picture) ... but tastes differ of course.

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    If you want me to come up with a metaphor for her in the context of Silverlight guy I'd say it was HTML5.
    That would be a step-down from Silverlight (when looking at things technologically) -
    the only thing in favour of HTML5 is, that it's a standard (now) - but still many Browser-
    engines implement things differently - and the JS-frameworks still need to dance around a
    lot off issues with their "browser-vendor-specific-quirks-modes", to offer a commonly usable
    API and the same visual appearances on the outside.

    So, no - when we talk about "sensual experiences" after being "in bed" with Silverlight
    and after that with HTML5/JS as the "RichClient-like" alternative approach, then one
    needs to be a masochist, to label the latter experience a "sexual highlight" (there's a
    reason for things like TypeScript, you know).

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    And Silverlight guy hasn't been abandoned.
    He can still roll out his app and it will continue to work for any user.
    But the MS-announcement already broke him (financially), because the potential customer-base
    was breaking away along with it...

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    And there's nothing to stop him bringing in other technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript either.
    Not possible currently, borrowed money is gone - very hard marketing now for him, to sell
    to at least "a few" - the current ROI barely covering the interests for the borrowed money.

    So, what did the guy do wrong exactly?
    Was it his fault?

    In my opinion the MS deprecation-cycles for developer-tools/techs are far too short currently.
    At least 10 years would be much better - especially when they promote a tool *as much* as
    they did in case of Silverlight. And in case they are unsure about the long-term-success (or their
    own strategic plans) for a certain tool, why not label it clearly as "experimental" (for a time).

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    So now your Silverlight guy is faced with the choice of what he should do next.
    Should he abandon MS in a fit of pique and go elsewhere? Hell no.
    Amazing (and contradicting) logic you show there - I say: "Hell yes!".
    If that wasn't a "fool me once"-experience, then what is?
    And your "younger hotter sister" (the HTML5/JS one - albeit not really being hotter)
    offers that way out for him (in case he's still on to "the web-thing").
    He'll still need some years to recover though - let's hope he's finally learned his
    lesson, that it's a good idea to use either well-established standards - or well-
    known and actively-developed OpenSource tools for his "next business idea".

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I actually think MS has a pretty good track record of not just leaving it's developers out in the cold.
    So, my small example with the Silverlight-guy apparently didn't make it through -
    MS does *not* have a "good track record" (not anymore since VB6), when it comes
    to offering developers long-term-usable tools they can truly rely and build a business
    on for a decade or two (aside from their C/C++ platform).
    Larger companies can live better with that short-term-policy of MS (larger cash-reserves),
    but for self-employed developers or smaller companies, using any MS-tools is quite risky
    (if they plan something bigger which takes 3-4 years development-time - and choose
    something different from MS-C/C++).

    In my opinion the Silverlight-guy did nothing wrong - and in case he will decide to
    make another attempt in continuing his career in selfemployment, running his own
    small company, then carefully choosing non-MS-tools would be (in my book) a very
    good idea for him.

    And to come back to VB6 finally - that's what *many* (not all) VB6-developers
    have learned already - most experienced ones who still run a small company, will
    look very carefully, what technology or language or platform they will choose for
    their next projects - not all of them ruling out MS-tech entirely, but others are
    quite consequent in applying the "fool-me-once"-rule - and there's nothing wrong
    with that.

    Speaking for myself, I invested my time into C/C++, HTML/JS/JS-frameworks +
    multiplatform-OpenSource-libs + algorithms and patterns in general.

    I feel quite well-prepared for the future - still love the simplicity (paired with
    entirely sufficient comfort) of the VB6-compiler I use for Win-Desktop-Apps -
    and cannot see any reason why this should cause a "living in the past"-attitude
    towards me from the end of some .NET-devs.

    Switching over to .NET is just *one-of-many* alternatives for VB6-developers -
    there's loads of other interesting stuff to "move on to", so please try to not be that
    adamant about ".NET being the *only* logical choice for a VB6-dev" - especially now,
    that the "end of the desktop is proclaimed" (though as for that, I differ for example
    from dilettantes opinion, that the desktop will die *soon*). Nevertheless I feel prepared
    for the possibility, reading much about the different cloud-approaches (not only the
    MS-one) - I write more WebApps already (currently using classic *.asp at the server-end,
    and HTML5/jQuery at the clientside - but already experimenting with Node.js - to use
    JS-classes as the "intermediate glue" on both ends).

    As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
    "... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -
    not much to comment about that - there's no larger lever to influence decisions, other than
    trying to apply a bit of "soft-pressure" in a team-meeting or something, e.g. how great
    your "latest experiment with Node.js" worked out - things like that.

    Olaf
    Last edited by Schmidt; Jun 18th, 2014 at 08:43 AM.

  28. #388

    Thread Starter
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Well since i started this Let me chime in...

    So i have realized at some point I will have to re-write my vb6 apps that are making me a living right now.
    The question is when should i do it. I have read many studies saying that a rewrite can be disasterous, here is one:

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...000000069.html
    http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid...-Software.aspx

    Ok, so here is my train of thought. I think im going to wait till vb6 breaks. In the mean time i will continue to see what develops with vbrichclient. I am also learning lazarus which i think is a viable vb6 replacement/ native/ cross platform.

    Logically it seems that when vb6 apps break all others like lazarus/qt/etc that compile native will break also

    In the mean time i am Going to clean up my code and remove as much ms dependencies as possible.

    So time will tell, those that are capable i encourage you to help the vbrichclient project, i believe its the only way foward for exusting v 6 code. And let me just say the creator of vbrichclient showed me how to do proper multi threading in vb6 and to this day i am amazed by it, because everyone said it was impossible. Its not. The automation software i wrote run 24/7 and never crashes running multiple threads with vb6 created app. You can hear my station at www.sadanceradio.com

    Have a nice day everyone!
    Last edited by axisdj; Jun 18th, 2014 at 08:18 AM.

  29. #389
    PowerPoster SJWhiteley's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Silverlight:

    It was obviously targeted as a Flash killer/sequel/steamroller/alternative.

    .NET programmers, though, weren't interested in the Flash-targetted market, so Silverlight failed. Not 'failed' as in gone away, but it really isn't a viable alternative, because alternatives really aren't good for the consumer in the development market.

    however, it will be around for a while - Netflix uses silverlight as their movie client. HTML5 does not have the richness of Silverlight or Flash. Flash is annoying as hell. Silverlight (appears) to have a fairly unintrusive client side implementation.

    That sounds contradictory, but this is the future of choosing the right technology: make your choice, knowing at some point, you will not be in the majority. VB6 had a good run, can still be used, but is overshadowed by more capable technologies. Just because a handful of people can knock out fantastic apps in VB6 does not mean VB6 is a viable development tool.

    Remember, Macs were few and far between, but people still developed for them. They knew their market was small. Doesn't mean that there was no future in it. Conversely, computer systems are developing rapidly; how can any serious developer believe that their language of choice should live on forever?
    "Ok, my response to that is pending a Google search" - Bucky Katt.
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  30. #390
    Addicted Member 3com's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I've actually been studying Lua a lot lately
    u

    Apparently I also have to study it.
    So far I've been using FPS scripts in the game I'm developing, but I find that LUA is much more flexible than FPS script, and it is quite similiar to VB, in other words more familiar to me.

    I'm on the 5th level and I need to animate the lava you can see in the image below.

    Name:  Level6.jpg
Views: 240
Size:  19.0 KB

    The problem here is that you have to be an artist in 3d graphics (I'm not), or work with the models included in the program, or buy models (entities, segments, prefabs, etc. to third parties.

    Personally I prefer to create my own models, this introduces in the game a little about yourself, say it does more original.

    Working with particles (rain, fire, snow, fog etc), do not know yet if LUA can help me on this.

    @ Shaggy Hiker
    Unfortunatelly you're right. BTW Torque3d is open source, perhaps somebody can continue, if needed.

  31. #391
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I was in a way playing devils advocate with my postings...

    I am an ISV. I should add that near the end of my VB6 decade I was commissioned to create a VB.Net/MS SQL in-house CRM. On top of this was an ASP.Net web portal for Furtune 500 companies to submits jobs to this customer of mine. Heavy ASP.Net - membership provider, grids with serious update panel stuff. Libraries for the perfect upload experience - pushed the limits of what was available for use in ASP.Net.

    VB.Net in-house product came out really nice - I came out bloodied and battered from the ASP.Net side.

    I've always been one to make a general maintenance type of program - one that makes screens and menus and grids from some kind of "control tables". Maximize re-use.

    The VB.Net in-house product mentioned above - with table adapters and all that bloat and "specificity" was far from useful in some future venture of mine.

    I had dozens of clients running a VB6 app that was common among them all - all using control tables in their respective DB's to show screens for maintenance and display and reporting.

    With all that said I decided to pick and choose - the right tool for each job.

    Front-end is web based - a perpetually loaded page that uses heavy AJAX with jQuery to create tabs for maintenance.

    It's 10,500 lines of JavaScript.

    It's 3500 lines of VB.Net web-methods running in an IIS environment.

    I basically created my own ASP.Net so I could be totally in charge. I use open source tools like jQPlot to make beautiful graphs - the open source community for JavaScript and JQuery stuff is great.

    I use MS for what is good for my needs. The MS SQL database is a requirement by my customers (health insurance, municipalities, labor unions - law firms). Using VB.Net for the backend - perfect for MS SQL and also means I can also effortlessly do things like create Excel spreadsheets - all needs of my customers. VB.Net is by far the only tool I could use for backend - imo...

    The front-end - I did some searching - reading books. jQuery seems like a stable and safe path - it's proven great. The web-app is 2 years in production - I add new features all the time. All my clients benefit from it.

    I see this as a long term - 10 year - investment.

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  32. #392
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by axisdj View Post
    Well since i started this Let me chime in...

    So i have realized at some point I will have to re-write my vb6 apps that are making me a living right now.
    The question is when should i do it. I have read many studies saying that a rewrite can be disasterous, here is one:

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...000000069.html
    http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid...-Software.aspx

    Ok, so here is my train of thought. I think im going to wait till vb6 breaks. In the mean time i will continue to see what develops with vbrichclient. I am also learning lazarus which i think is a viable vb6 replacement/ native/ cross platform.

    Logically it seems that when vb6 apps break all others like lazarus/qt/etc that compile native will break also

    In the mean time i am Going to clean up my code and remove as much ms dependencies as possible.
    That sounds like the right choice. After all, the sunset is somewhere off over the horizon at this point. It will arrive for all of us, but why hasten towards it unless you need to?

    So time will tell, those that are capable i encourage you to help the vbrichclient project, i believe its the only way foward for exusting v 6 code. And let me just say the creator of vbrichclient showed me how to do proper multi threading in vb6 and to this day i am amazed by it, because everyone said it was impossible. Its not. The automation software i wrote run 24/7 and never crashes running multiple threads with vb6 created app. You can hear my station at www.sadanceradio.com
    I don't know who this 'everyone' happens to be. I knew it was possible when this own sites WokaWidget (a mod now wandered off) showed how to do it well over a decade back (it had to be at least 2003, or I wouldn't have seen it).
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  33. #393
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
    "... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -
    not much to comment about that - there's no larger lever to influence decisions, other than
    trying to apply a bit of "soft-pressure" in a team-meeting or something, e.g. how great
    your "latest experiment with Node.js" worked out - things like that.

    Olaf
    That happens all the time. One person likes Node.js, the next argues for Dojo, another for JQuery, another for a blended approach. I don't know that we ever have a meeting where there isn't some discussion as to where we are going and why. It doesn't really help all that much. Everybody needs to be aware of the alternatives, but one of the current issues is not that there is NO alternative, it's that there are too many. A robust number of initiatives MUST fail, but which ones will they be? At this point, the number of alternatives guarantees only that there will be a large number that fade away. They won't necessarily be the worst alternatives, either. History shows repeatedly that superior tech is not guaranteed to win out. So....in the current crop of interesting options, which one is going to survive for ten years?

    I agree with your statement about MS needing to support tech longer, but underlying that is a desire that the world remain just a bit static. The last ten years has seen the death of the PDA, the rise of the smartphone, the rise of the tablet, and a steep decline in the PC. The last twenty years has seen all of that, plus the invention of the PDA, and the prevalance of the GUI (twenty years back predates Windows 95, before which there was only Apple with it's minority market share). Dilletante doesn't believe the dektop will survive the next decades, let alone twenty years, and I'm not sure I disagree (at least not the 20 year window). We simply don't know what will happen.

    I don't know of any other company that has maintained the viability of software it no longer sells than MS. You don't get updates for the VB6 IDE, but it still runs, and will still run for years yet to come. Furthermore, the apps created by the language may run for longer still. Is there any other company that has that kind of longevity for software it no longer sells or supports? You can rule out Apple, as they have abandoned their legacy stuff a couple times. I think you can rule out pretty nearly every Open Source project, as they freely move on, though they do so in fits and starts.

    I'd like to see MS support stuff longer, too, but I also don't know any company that does it better.
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  34. #394
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
    "... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -not much to comment about that
    Was that me Olaf?

    All that post for so little response :0(

    was my post not controversial enough?

    ok i will bring back one point here that surely we can disagree on :0)

    I believe that it is no bad thing to advise a new dev to learn .Net, as there are tons of jobs as a .Net developer (on the basis that most new dev's if looking at a career in Software Dev will end up working for someone else rather than themselves.
    Please Mark your Thread "Resolved", if the query is solved & Rate those who have helped you



  35. #395
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    It was a typo but it was an apt one, given the length of the thread, and I have to ask (because your puns so oft fly below the radar of my wit) was this deliberate:-
    ? Because if it was then you, sir, deserve cake.
    I'll take that cake. I started out with comparing it to cheese, and was trying to think of the stinkiest cheese I knew, but while I was thinking of that, I realized that wine was also aged...and had more puntential than cheese.
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  36. #396
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    Just because a handful of people can knock out fantastic apps in VB6 does not mean VB6 is a viable development tool.
    Too one-sided again for my taste - because you could write-up the same thing for any language
    or platform, as e.g.:
    "Just because a handful of people can knock out fantastic apps in C# or VB.NET does not mean .NET
    is a viable development tool."

    Doesn't really make sense either way though...

    There's always those who are less advanced on a certain learning-curve - and there's others
    who came very far with their tool of choice in a certain domain or two - then able to produce
    "stunning stuff".

    No matter if C, C++, Python, FreeBasic, VB or whatever language.

    The purpose of languages and dev-tools didn't really change - one has to "transform an Input" -
    delivering an "Output" - and for any language there's great libraries which can help with the
    more complex things in this regard, shortening the needed code you have to write on
    "ground-level".

    So, aside from a given language you will have to learn surrounding (class- or flat-)libraries as well,
    to become more productive - and if your problem lies e.g. in "bio-informatics", then it will also
    help a great deal when you know a bit about the specific domain you write your "transformational
    solution" for.

    And as for the "modern features" of "modern languages" - they are over-hyped IMO, since for any
    given "transformation-problem" in computer-science, there exist dozens of different approaches
    (all well-working and near the optimum) to skin a particular cat with a given language (be it
    "pure procedural ones" - or "pure OOPish ones" or "pure functional languages" or the new
    "chimera-like languages" which try to offer a broader choice of possibly to apply solution-patterns.

    Some languages and "patterns" a bit more suitable for certain problems - but then there's
    other problems which can be solved a bit better with again different tools.

    So, don't conclude from the *tool* someone is using, about "effectiveness".

    There's often entire teams which center around "the one guy, who solves the really difficult things" -
    when this guy is gone, then productivity can drop by a magnitude sometimes (no matter what
    tool the team was using).

    Olaf

  37. #397
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    The wrath of FunkyDexter has come
    Not wrath so much as frustrated dissapointment. I'm no good at wrath.

    Ok, so here is my train of thought. I think im going to wait till vb6 breaks. In the mean time i will continue to see what develops with vbrichclient. I am also learning lazarus which i think is a viable vb6 replacement/ native/ cross platform.

    Logically it seems that when vb6 apps break all others like lazarus/qt/etc that compile native will break also
    That sounds right on the money to me. I've always maintained that a premature rewrite can lead to disaster. Just make sure you've got a plan in place for when the time comes... and it sounds like you have.

    one needs to be a masochist
    Well, hey... it takes all sorts. Actually I'd revise my metaphor having seen some of the comments in this thread. I probably should have been talking about flash and ajax which are much more analogous to Silverlight's niche. I just didn't think of them at the time.

    But the MS-announcement already broke him (financially), because the potential customer-base
    was breaking away along with it...
    That's the thing though, I don't think it would have broken him because I don't think potential clients would be walking away... yet. They will eventually as their fears that browsers will stop supporting Silverlight grow but I think that's a very gradual process. It's certainly taken a long time for clients to jump ship on VB6. Knowing an application was developed in Classic certainly can act as a negative factor when a client makes a purchasing decision but I'm not convinced it's an overriding one. They'll buy based on price, functionality and the perceived reliability of ongoing support (which will encompass the fact it was developed in VB6 but will also encompass factors like the longevity of the software vendor). I get the impression from the likes of you and Axisdj that you're concerned about the potential for lost custom (and fully understand that concern) but I don't get the impression you've actually experienced it yet on a significant scale - you'd know though so correct me if I'm wrong on that. So given that MS stopped pushing VB6 well over a decade ago and the world didn't end for you yet, I suspect Silverlight Guy's app has a similar life span ahead of it.

    So, what did the guy do wrong exactly?
    Was it his fault?
    Nothing and no. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sadly that's life.

    If that wasn't a "fool me once"-experience, then what is?
    That's the thing. I don't think it was a "Fool me once" experience. At worst it was a "Got unlucky once" experience. I've worked in a variety of languages over the years and seen more than a few come and go. I thought Java had had a pretty good continuum since I used it back in the J2 days until I dug out an old project about a year ago and fired it up. The download sites for half the libraries I'd used have magically disapeared so getting that running again would have been a nightmare (though I must admit I gave up with really trying). I can't blame Sun because the libraries were third party... but that's the ecosystem when working in Java. My point is that deciding not to go near MS again for fear of getting burned is the wrong reason to make that choice because you stand a fair chance of getting burned wherever you go.

    Switching over to .NET is just *one-of-many* alternatives for VB6-developers
    Now there's something we can definitely agree on. I do think it's a fairly natural path to follow due to a reasonably familiar syntax and the existence of the old VB libraries in the .Net framework but I'd no more advocate the automatic selection of .Net any more than I'd advocate the automatic elimination of it. If there's one thing I'm dogmatic about it's that dogma's always a bad thing (there are probably exceptions to that though).

    As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
    "... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -
    not much to comment about that
    Yeah, I've thought a few times when I've seen that argument expressed that, while it may provide a good justification for why they used to .Net it doesn't provide much of an argument as to why you should.
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  38. #398
    Frenzied Member KGComputers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Attachment 115517

    Tired from work, did some searching on Hosting VB 6.0 forms in VB.NET. And here's one interesting result..
    CodeBank: VB.NET & C#.NET | ASP.NET
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  39. #399
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
    "... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -
    not much to comment about that
    Yeah, I've thought a few times when I've seen that argument expressed that, while it may provide a good justification for why they used to .Net it doesn't provide much of an argument as to why you should.
    My point was not that my company dictates my tools but that it insulates me against the vagaries of the market and languages dying out. My company takes the hit not me.

    I was trying to explain to Olaf why there will be many people who view .net as a good tool ,and i wanted to show some of the arguments against that he puts forward are just are not things which affect me or many others.

    As for why people should use .Net, well not everyone should i do agree you should be looking for the tools for the required problem, but i like using .net because;

    - I am more productive in it, as in i can code the same app faster in .Net than i can in VB6, and in part that is due to some of the elements of the .Net language that VB6 doesn't have, e.g. Lists and Lambda expressions e.t.c. (yes i know Olaf this is Subjective and you would probably say the other way round but i find it true for me.)

    - The IDE is far superior

    - You can make nicer looking apps easier.

    - Also i can make Desktop apps and Web apps and Mobile apps in the same language
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  40. #400
    PowerPoster SJWhiteley's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    Too one-sided again for my taste - because you could write-up the same thing for any language
    or platform, as e.g.:
    "Just because a handful of people can knock out fantastic apps in C# or VB.NET does not mean .NET
    is a viable development tool."

    Doesn't really make sense either way though...

    ...
    Exactly my point. But that's the argument FOR keeping VB6 by VB6ers.

    But the reality is that huge swaths of people are creating great apps using .NET, rapidly, consistently and of high quality. The corollary being that there are a handful of people knocking out really sh*ty apps in .NET; doesn't make .NET any less viable.

    As you state:

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    The purpose of languages and dev-tools didn't really change - one has to "transform an Input" -
    delivering an "Output" - and for any language there's great libraries which can help with the
    more complex things in this regard, shortening the needed code you have to write on
    "ground-level".
    .NET has made it easier to achieve this. I know you don't believe it, but it is true. In addition, .NET makes it viable for 'toy' developers, functional programmers, OOP, MVC, etc. to play in one playground.

    Regardless, some tools are more effective than others, and lend them to greater efficiency and effectiveness. As I've said before, programmers are tools, who use tools to create tools for others to use.

    In all, you have posted an argument for using .NET and abandoning VB6 to support of legacy code. Horses have been put out to pasture; blacksmiths need not apply to the DOT.
    "Ok, my response to that is pending a Google search" - Bucky Katt.
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