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Thread: VB6 is DEAD!

  1. #401
    PowerPoster SJWhiteley's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    ...

    Sorry to say, but many of you .NETers are doing exactly as the members of
    that third group (bashing and ridiculing the innocent).
    No, apart from a few instances, not at all. What is being bashed is this steadfast and bullheaded approach to development. As a developer with more than a few years under their belt, they should realize that the end will come to their comfort zone, either sooner or later.

    This was the reason for the great swath of unemployed tech workers (the tech bubble); for example, highly paid network engineers finding themselves unemployed with 2.5 kids and a $300k mortgage. Sad, but when grandma can go to Best Buy to purchase a router and WAP, your job is pretty much redundant.

    VB6 is and was a great tool. Just like the Model T (I work on the Henry Ford plant, so have to get a Ford reference in). It's a marvelous, simple, tool. But not today.

    Keep your skills sharp by developing in both mature and cutting edge technology.

    Personally, at this point, I don't list any development tools (programming or PLCs) on my resume because it is meaningless (young developers, of course, must pad as much as they can).
    "Ok, my response to that is pending a Google search" - Bucky Katt.
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  2. #402
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Just like the Model T
    That featured an automatic starter and padded seats! Plus it was cheap and easy to produce. Cool stuff for it's time.
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  3. #403
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    .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.
    I rather like that statement, though possibly not for the reason you meant. I enjoy coding, so it really is a playground. Or, perhaps it could be likened to some sandbox where there are all kinds of shovels, buckets, toy trucks, bricks, pipes, and what not. You don't have to use all the toys to create a castle, but there are plenty to play with if you want. From that perspective, .NET is a sandbox that has lots of toys. That doesn't mean that you can create more interesting designs, since that's up to the mind of the user, but if your primary interest is in playing with the toys....Net has a LOT of them.

    As I've said before, programmers are tools,
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  4. #404
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post

    VB6 is and was a great tool. Just like the Model T (I work on the Henry Ford plant, so have to get a Ford reference in).
    There are plenty of people who still maintain Model T's to this day. They generally are pretty passionate about them. It's just human nature.
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  5. #405
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    Was that me Olaf?

    All that post for so little response :0(
    Sorry - had to pick a bit, a little "stressed" to keep up with all the replies.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    was my post not controversial enough?
    A bit - e.g. your story about the company who was abandoning a promising
    project due to MS cancelling Silverlight, pretty much proved my point I thought.

    That the developers "learned something" whilst developing against Silverlight,
    is not really surprising - you always learn something that's useful for your next
    project, which deepens your understanding for roughly similar problems.

    What I was trying to point out was simply, that the ones who decide to invest money
    (and in your case this were not the developers who were hired for the Silverlight-project),
    were not able to get a decent ROI, because of the too short "deprecation-period" for
    the MS-tool they were choosing.

    IMO that answers also the thing you brought in a later reply - you were protected
    "by the company" who took the risk... nonetheless the company lost money, whilst not
    really being responsible for the cancelling of the project (the writing-off of the monetary
    efforts which were going into the project till that point in time).
    MS in this case acting irresponsible due to much too short deprecation-periods.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    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.
    Sure - but still there's a whole lot of smaller companies (offering jobs for only 3-5 developers),
    who are not *that* well off with regards to their cash-reserves, to be able to buffer more than
    one "mistake" (due to wrongly believing in the stability of a highly advertised new tech).

    Olaf

  6. #406
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by axisdj View Post
    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    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?
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    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.
    Right... you shouldn't re-write your software when updating it... you should be re-designing it... clear up all those old bugs in the system and introduce all new ones. (I say that somewhat tongue in cheek).

    But waiting until VB6 breaks to start re-development is just as bad of an idea as prematurely rewriting. Because if it's broken for you, how much longer will it be before it starts breaking for your clients? That's is huge risk. At best, the month that VB6 breaks, you should have something else ready, or close to ready, to roll out. VB6 has another 10 years left on it... assuming for argument sake, you determine it will take 2 years to re-design and develop your app in what ever new technology/language you use. That gives you 8 years to keep rolling. Meanwhile, sometime before that, you'll need to make that decision what road you do want to go down. Today it may be Lazarus... two years from now, that could change again... That's part of the fun and joy of this line of work, things can change just like that. It's almost as fickle as the stock market. Who knows, maybe in 5 years we'll all be writing Lua code.

    -tg
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  7. #407
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Who knows, maybe in 5 years we'll all be writing Lua code.
    Hurray for Lua!
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  8. #408
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    [the "Silverlight-guy"]
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    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.
    In my example it did happen - have got "anxious questions" in this regard from
    my own customers (luckily being able to appease them) - also heard from other
    (often selfemployed) VB6-developers, that they experienced the same thing.

    So, already the announcement (even a "rumor" would suffice for some guys) has the potential,
    to cut deeply into your ROI.

    Aside from that, NSA already wrote:
    "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."

    That's exactly the thing I was trying to point out - you risk loosing a lot of invested money,
    when you don't take good care from which source you choose what tech, to saddle your solution on.

    And MS is one of the worst in this regard (since the VB6-era).

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    It's certainly taken a long time for clients to jump ship on VB6.
    No, as pointed out above just now, that's not true - I've experienced these customer-concerns
    myself already around 2002/2003 or so, when still developing LOB-Apps.

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    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.
    As said, I encountered the problem early - and it could have become a problem for "us" -
    but the customer who expressed these concerns then decided to switch over to a policy of
    "Java-generally for all InHouse-Apps" - along with hiring their own Java-developers who
    reimplemented the App (with some help from us, so we got at least some last "consulting-
    money" from their "Java-throughout"-decision).

    Our small company at this point already switching over to more hardware-driven products,
    where this problem didn't occur again - but I heard from other VB6-devs that they had similar
    "anxious customers"... and that surely cut into their ROI (especially winning new customers
    get's a lot tougher, when this kind of anxiety due to allegedly "old tech" is making the rounds).

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I don't think it was a "Fool me once" experience.
    Well, for him it surely was - not sure if you ever was selfemployed - but believe me,
    you'll see things entirely different, when it was *your* "half a million" which went "down the loo"...

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I've worked in a variety of languages over the years and seen more than a few come and go.
    Oh really?
    May I ask which were the ones with your "and go"-attribute?

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    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 ...
    Sorry to interrupt - but Java is well-known for binary and source backward-compatibility
    of newer versions, which are able to run older Bytecode, but also to compile sources from
    older versions without larger problems (there was only [Enum] which became a reserved
    Keyword - so you had to rename identifiers with that name appropriately in the older sources).

    Bad example, really bad - if you dig out an age-old project - not having saved the dependencies
    locally along with it, then it's your fault, not Javas.


    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    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.
    No, that's not true - if you choose C++ and QT you will not get burned.
    If you choose C and GTK+ you will not get burned.
    If you choose Java you will not get burned.
    If you choose Python you will not get burned.
    If you choose Javascript you will not get burned.

    There's many languages which are standardized, careful changes made "by committee"
    (or by broad agreement in the community, if it's an OpenSource-driven project).

    Olaf

  9. #409
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    That's exactly the thing I was trying to point out - you risk loosing a lot of invested money,
    when you don't take good care from which source you choose what tech, to saddle your solution on.
    You seemed to have missed one of my post. I'll redirect you to it:
    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.
    Does that suck that, that had happened. Yes, it completely does. However you need to learn from those mistakes and move on. If you translate: MS took away Silverlight after I poured so much effort into it so I will never trust MS again, then unfortunately that is your point of view and you won't gain much from it. However you should translate that to: maybe I should make more educated decisions in the future and wait for a language/platform/etc. to gain a little more stability first.

    As for VB6. It had it's run and was discontinued because MS felt as though VB.Net would make for a viable alternative to address the shortcomings of VB6. And from all the arguments that I've seen from the pro-VB6 side, I agree with MS.
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    No, apart from a few instances, not at all. What is being bashed is this steadfast and bullheaded approach to development.
    Sorry can't see where my approach to choose VB6 as my current tool for Win-Desktop-Apps is
    "bullheaded".

    It does this Job just fine currently (and also in the next decade).

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    As a developer with more than a few years under their belt, they should realize that the end will come to their comfort zone, either sooner or later.
    That's true for you .NETers as well - perhaps at the same time when Windows-Forms-based Apps
    go out of scope, VB6-developers will have to react as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    VB6 is and was a great tool. ... It's a marvelous, simple, tool. But not today.
    It's a bit self-contradictory the above sentence - but perhaps you meant:
    A great simple tool, following KISS - and able to do "marvelous things" to this day.

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    Keep your skills sharp by developing in both mature and cutting edge technology.
    Oh, I do - I do ... there's not only MS which provides developers with "mature tech" believe me.

    Olaf

  11. #411
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    You seemed to have missed one of my post. I'll redirect you to it:
    "...Your Silverlight 'guy' just simply made the wrong decision..."
    Nah, you're out of the loop - FunkyDexter already agreed, that "the guy did nothing wrong".

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    However you should translate that to: maybe I should make more educated decisions in the future and wait for a language/platform/etc. to gain a little more stability first.
    Well, exactly that's what I'm doing the whole time with .NET - it just doesn't seem to
    gain any points, when I compare its "stability" with other alternatives.

    Olaf

  12. #412
    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I'm not against you not going to .Net if you have valid points because that is your decision, but how does .Net not gain any points whenever it comes to stability? Considering this:

    1) It has been out since February 13th, 2002
    2) It has been updated 9 times since it's release, 4 of those are major updates
    3) It's future is not in jeopardy

    What constitutes it not being stable?
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    But the reality is that huge swaths of people are creating great apps using .NET, rapidly, consistently and of high quality.
    Same holds true for those who are creating great apps using VB6, rapidly, consistently and of high quality.
    Huge swaths of people who know what they're doing?
    Same percentage in both camps.

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    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.
    Same sentence holds true for VB6:
    "...that there are a handful of people knocking out really sh*ty apps in VB6; doesn't make VB6 any less viable.

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    ... .NET has made it easier to achieve this. I know you don't believe it, but it is true.
    It's not true of course, I know you don't believe me, but - well, believe me...

    Writing things like that, is not really sufficient in a good argumentation, is what I'm trying to say I think.

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    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.
    Erm, whut?

    Really, the above doesn't make much sense to me.

    Olaf
    Last edited by Schmidt; Jun 18th, 2014 at 06:46 PM.

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    I'm not against you not going to .Net if you have valid points because that is your decision, but how does .Net not gain any points whenever it comes to stability? Considering this:

    1) It has been out since February 13th, 2002
    2) It has been updated 9 times since it's release, 4 of those are major updates
    3) It's future is not in jeopardy

    What constitutes it not being stable?
    dilettante already addressed (with a link to an article) your point 3)

    A framework needs stability (as in "no changes, no additions") for some years,
    to become a helpful tool - and the constant additions due to overboarding "featuritis"
    don't really help - it's got overly-large, overly-complex and over-weight - it's instable
    "by definition" (in engineering there's a reason why you develop parts well-isolated,
    building separate "blocks" (libs) - after pre-defining stable interfaces).

    We already had that with the Win32-API (with *.h files for interfaces) or COM-libs
    (with *.tlb files which defined the interfaces) - parts then easily updateable in a more or
    less *isolated* fashion - not that whole mega-blob of interdependent Mini-Classes,
    the .NET-framework evolved into. From the viewpoint of an engineer, such a blob
    is horrible design. They already did better - and recognized that now with more
    focus on native compilation and back-paddling to the stable COM-ABI.

    You can get a small taste of what I mean in the link below - especially in the comments which follow.
    http://devproconnections.com/net-fra...problems-ahead

    MS is currently acting *entirely* confused, nobody there seeming to know,
    "what needs to be done next" - but everybody of course working full-steam "on it".

    That alone is making me wait a bit longer, until they get their feet under them again.

    If you are more sure, what I should currently "move on to" - please feel free to
    make recommendations aside from moving to .NET.

    Is it C++ and Metro/WinRT perhaps ... hmm - also here, nobody at the side of MS
    delivers anything but nebulous "everything will be good" statements.

    Is it .NET-native (vNext) perhaps?
    Much too early to make good guesses, what these new activities finally will churn out.

    Of course VB6-developers will just sit there, because they don't know anything else.
    Thank god we have you, who constantly remind us, that the only tool *you* know
    is the way to go.


    Olaf

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I think a good case can be made to move to Java.

    Despite attempts here that claim it fails to live up to "write once run anywhere" this is largely true, far more so than for .Net or the dead half-baked Mono. This directly gives you access to Windows, Mac, Linux, and even many Unix platforms as well as mainframes, and it is the native language (with some changes) of Android as well.

    While straight Java carries many of the same issues .Net does (no surprise, since .Net is a distant relative of Java's infrastructure), at least it isn't a single-platform dead end.

    There are also tools to help ease the transition from Basic to Java. Basic4Android is growing in popularity, along with its free cousin B4J if not the old Jabaco development system.

    And for cases where you can accept the penalty of interpreted, sometimes JITted here and there p-code you can always use an obfuscator. When you can't you can use AOT compilers in many environments, or a Jar-to-Exe compiler though this has to statically link a ton of code to implement things the VM normally does. Sort of like the bloat you get using the Xamarin tools to target supported mobile OSs as opposed to the wildly unpopular WinPhone OSs, each of which has enormous compatibility breaks with the others.

  16. #416
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Sorry - had to pick a bit, a little "stressed" to keep up with all the replies
    You do seem to have been left holding the fort single handed. Keep it up, though, this is an enjoyable debate now that some of the heat's gone out of it.

    No, as pointed out above just now, that's not true - I've experienced these customer-concerns
    myself already around 2002/2003 or so, when still developing LOB-Apps.
    Then here's my question: why would you continue to advocate it for new development? I know you like it as a language to work in and I can understand why but if it's going to lose you customers then using it for new development is crazy.

    I can understand some of the frustration of those who wrote an app in VB6 in 2000. That could, potentially, create real problems for them over the next few years. I could understand if they went out of business in the next few years. I can't understand how someone can reach a point 14 years later where they're still in business and still haven't dealt with those problems. And I really can't understand how someone could spend the next 14 years continuing to make the same mistake by continuing to write apps in VB6.

    I honestly make no judgement about someone continuing to use VB6. If it's the right choice for you then it's the right choice for you. But I don't understand the mentality that says "I'm going to make a choice. It's the wrong choice because it will cost me money. I'm going to make it anyway. It's Microsoft's fault that it's costing me money."

    FunkyDexter already agreed, that "the guy did nothing wrong".
    I think you're poking fun at me here (in which case, carry on) but just in case you miss-understood, I meant he didn't do anything unreasonable or stupid. Nothing that should merit other developerson a forums several years later pointing at him and saying "you're an idiot, mate". On the other hand, I would say that he made what seemed like a reasonable choice at the time that later turned out to be a bad one through no fault of his own.
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  17. #417
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    Sorry - had to pick a bit, a little "stressed" to keep up with all the replies.

    A bit - e.g. your story about the company who was abandoning a promising
    project due to MS cancelling Silverlight, pretty much proved my point I thought.

    That the developers "learned something" whilst developing against Silverlight,
    is not really surprising - you always learn something that's useful for your next
    project, which deepens your understanding for roughly similar problems.

    What I was trying to point out was simply, that the ones who decide to invest money
    (and in your case this were not the developers who were hired for the Silverlight-project),
    were not able to get a decent ROI, because of the too short "deprecation-period" for
    the MS-tool they were choosing.

    IMO that answers also the thing you brought in a later reply - you were protected
    "by the company" who took the risk... nonetheless the company lost money, whilst not
    really being responsible for the cancelling of the project (the writing-off of the monetary
    efforts which were going into the project till that point in time).
    MS in this case acting irresponsible due to much too short deprecation-periods.
    Personally i think its a bit of both, had our company done more analysis of the product i believe they would never have chosen Silverlight, I certainly wouldn't have is it was my choice, I used Adobe Flex for a while around 6-7 years ago (basically the adobe version of Silverlight, which Silverlight was in direct competition with which compiled into Flash) and it was clear to me even then that these languages (both Flex & Silverlight) would struggle for adoption.

    The pattern in the web development world was moving away from propriety run times in the web, and with the release of HTML5 it the likes of Node and Less it completely killed any need for these languages.

    My company i feel jumped the gun a little using a language that had gained very little traction in the market but i can see why some would feel burned if they did develop in it. (i was working for a pretty large company and your right they could afford to take the hit where others couldn't)

    .Net is not a tool for everyone, and while i can see your problems with it, what i don't understand is yours and others hostility towards .Net. MS Yes i can see why some would be upset with there decision to end vb6 development, but .Net did not kill VB6 MS did.

    Sure - but still there's a whole lot of smaller companies (offering jobs for only 3-5 developers),
    who are not *that* well off with regards to their cash-reserves, to be able to buffer more than
    one "mistake" (due to wrongly believing in the stability of a highly advertised new tech).

    Olaf
    As for .Net being a risk as a language choice .Net has plenty of Traction to the point where often it is the expected tool by our customers.

    I have just moved jobs 3 months ago, to a smaller company of around 30-40 employees (from one of around 2000 employees) and 5 developers, and we extensively use .Net. Part of this is dictated by our Market, we sell software to Lawyers and Barristers and Local Authorities, and they are fairly MS Biased.

    .NET has been a money earner for both my last company and my new one and for us has been a fairly safe bet. It is still seen by our customers as a safe platform
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  18. #418
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I think a good case can be made to move to Java.
    No thanks!
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  19. #419
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    [QUOTE]I think a good case can be made to move to Java.[/QUOTE

    double post
    Last edited by NeedSomeAnswers; Jun 19th, 2014 at 05:09 AM. Reason: Double Post
    Please Mark your Thread "Resolved", if the query is solved & Rate those who have helped you



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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    You do seem to have been left holding the fort single handed. Keep it up, though, this is an enjoyable debate now that some of the heat's gone out of it.
    Wasn't me who brought the heat into the debate - and I know for example Carlos well enough,
    that I can ensure you, he's not somebody who insults others deliberately and unprovoced -
    I've never seen him troll a forum or newsgroup - and we know each other for years now.

    The person who almost always enflames things, is now gone for a while - and we enjoy the
    immediate effects of that decision apparently. No "He-mad?" picture-storm, no other cheap
    and easy to accomplish "no-real-arguments"-replies, cobbled together in a minute - and only
    thought to ridicule, enrage and flood the opponent - not exactly fair if you ask me, since when
    you sit at the receiving end of such nonsense, you cannot really do anything about it without
    getting insulting in your attempts to point out this idiotic behaviour explicitely to those, who
    apparently "have that much fun with it" (thereby forcing you to offer even more of an attack-
    surface, because then the next replies, of the "stop-whining"-kind will kick in - all with much
    glee on the side of the kids of course, who apparently think they just won an argument... sigh.

    Would like a more immediate reaction by the moderators, when such discussion-disrupting
    picture-nonsense starts the next time (when it is solely thought for ridiculing the differing
    opinion of other members).

    I know we're in Chit/Chat here and the "come-on, where's the fun"-thing is kind of expected -
    but if that fun deteriorates into the "pointing fingers, muhaha, look at these idiots"-kind of fun,
    as it did in most of the other threads about this topic, then the "other side" can only come up
    with extremely frustrated replies, which then makes it look as if the ones who started the mess,
    "were right all the time".


    [Customer-hesitation, in choosing products, based on "labeled-deprecated" technologies]
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    Then here's my question: why would you continue to advocate it for new development? I know you like it as a language to work in and I can understand why but if it's going to lose you customers then using it for new development is crazy.
    Because we are all in the same boat apparently?
    My Silverlight-guy example was trying to point out, that this can happen even when
    you choose so called: "bleeding edge tech".

    Several others were pointing out to me, that "the risks lurk everywhere in our profession" -
    and that there is no real "safe bet" to make anymore.

    My point being, with a different behaviour on the side of MS, with more prolonged release-
    cycles, longer periods until tool-deprecation, the "bets on MS-tools" would get a lot more
    safer until some ROI comes in.

    There's some languages and platforms which offer (much) more long-term-stability.
    I've pointed them out already (those which are standardized or OpenSource-driven).

    But i consider .NET as not being among them - I truly don't.

    When the next VB6-Newbie comes along in our forum, asking if VB6 is a good idea to
    start with - I can recommend VB6 without hesitation, because it just *is* a great KISS-
    tool with a very low entry-point (learning-curve-wise) - not much struggling with
    understanding the environment, or pitfalls of the language first - easy to get to
    the meat of the current learning-task very fast and undistracted by other things.

    When I'm being asked directly, what tool to use for professional development,
    and the one who asks already has VB6-experience (and in most cases it *is* for
    the Desktop), then my answer will also be: continue with VB6 - no reason to switch,
    because you can get biten equally easy when you choose .NET.

    When a *common* question is in the room - "what's the best tool to use today" -
    then I only argue *against* those who recommend .NET - because that's not the
    recommendation I would make - I would recommend C++,HTML/JS/jQuery instead -
    no real mistake possible with those choices - many of you misundertand my counter-
    arguments against .NET-recommendations as "recommendation of VB6 instead".

    Please read older replies of mine more carefully in this regard.

    [still the Customer-hesitation-topic]
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I can't understand how someone can reach a point 14 years later where they're still in
    business and still haven't dealt with those problems. And I really can't understand how
    someone could spend the next 14 years continuing to make the same mistake by
    continuing to write apps in VB6.
    That's because there is just no alternative currently where "to move on to" with a
    large VB6-based Desktop-App.

    Even *if* you rewrite everything you already have running (well-tested, with hundreds
    of small bugs eliminated over the last 10 years), with e.g. .NET-Winforms (which most
    of you currently work with) the VB6-developer will accomplish exactly nothing in terms
    of greater "long-term-stability" for the next 20 years, because WinForms will go out of
    scope (with a high probability) at the same time as VB6.

    Porting a large "I made a living from it" VB6-LOB-App with hundreds of Forms, hundreds
    of Modules and hundreds of Classes to .NET-Winforms just doesn't worth the efforts.

    Now, what other alternative techs does the VB6-guy have, to port his App over to,
    when it's not .NET-WinForms?

    Shall he use .NET+WPF? - seems dead to me - and the posting count in the WPF-forum
    here tells the same story...

    Shall he re-write for Metro/WinRT/XAML - not sure if that's a good idea at this point
    in time either.

    That's what I mean with "stability" when we talk about .NET or other "bleeding edge"
    tech from MS - there is no clear roadmap - no horse to place a relative safe bet on
    (aside from moving to C++ which at least as a language is more stable - but there
    you currently also have to wait, what GUI-toolkit of MS will make it in the next years,
    not really sure if XAML will be adopted by "everybody" wholeheartedly - maybe they
    paddle-back again also on that front, with a renewed incarnation of MFC-based GUIs).

    So the only thing remaining for the VB6-guy, in case he wants to start *today*
    (no need to yet, just saying) - is to rewrite "for the Web" - but now in this field
    (albeit ASP.NET being a very good tool) - there's very hard competition and many
    other "nice sisters" to choose from. And even good old classic *.asp is not that bad
    either on the serverside (compatible with VB6-source, when you leave out the Type-
    specifiers - and serverside code tends to be small compared to the clientside JS-
    framework-code you have to write for a modern looking Web-App which offers
    "Desktop-feeling").


    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I honestly make no judgement about someone continuing to use VB6.
    If it's the right choice for you then it's the right choice for you.
    But I don't understand the mentality that says "I'm going to make a choice.
    It's the wrong choice because it will cost me money.
    I'm going to make it anyway. It's Microsoft's fault that it's costing me money."
    Although being long-winded already, let me explain exactly that again (because
    you still have it all backwards):

    You have a large VB6-App today (hundreds of Forms and Classes), are selfemployed and still around.

    - You invested perhaps 0.5Mio into it until 2003 - but already were in the phase of an "OK-ROI" (looking good for the future)
    - Your ROI was cut by an MS-deprecation-announcment - now you encounter difficulties to win new (more "anxious") customers
    - Still it is high enough "to survive" - but your cash-resources to "move over to something else" simply aren't there (due to the announcement)
    - You keep going, satisfying at least your existing customers, weeding out bugs - polishing things...
    - You buy a 350$ Unicode-Controls-Suite, which helps a great deal with a much nicer look - and it won you two new customers "overseas"
    - We have 2007 - your codebase and Form-Count is now twice as large - your accumulated time-investment into your software is >1Mio (15 man-years)
    - Still the ROI is not as high as it could be - but getting better slowly, because you *do* win new customers due to "mouth propagation" and "being still there"-effects
    - Since 2008 you encounter MS behaving more and more "erratically", so you start ruling out "moving to .NET" from your "to-potentially-port-to" list
    - till now, watching in amazement - what MS apparently can get away with - potentially porting to a Web-App goes high up in your list

    So that's basically the story of a small VB6-shop, still around (company not crashing).

    MS hurt you with your ROI (which with a true upward-compatible native VB7 would have looked much better) -
    but as it was, it didn't cause your insolvency - though it reduced the income of the small company to a level,
    which didn't allow a complete re-write (you had to say good bye to 3 of your 5 developers you started with,
    but the remaining two were busy enough already with maintenance and implementing new feature-requests,
    keeping things going as they were).

    [Silverlight-guy]
    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    On the other hand, I would say that he made what seemed like a reasonable choice at the time that later turned out to be a bad one through no fault of his own.
    Thanks, for the recognition again - and that we've established at least that - so my efforts were not entirely wasted...

    Olaf

  21. #421
    PowerPoster SJWhiteley's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    There are plenty of people who still maintain Model T's to this day. They generally are pretty passionate about them. It's just human nature.
    The parallels are uncanny
    "Ok, my response to that is pending a Google search" - Bucky Katt.
    "There are two types of people in the world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets." - Unk.
    "Before you can 'think outside the box' you need to understand where the box is."

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    Personally i think its a bit of both, had our company done more analysis of the product
    i believe they would never have chosen Silverlight,
    Nah, "our silverlight company" was highly motivated after consuming all the advertising -
    Mr. Silverlight-guy also hanging around here in the forum, feeling much encouraged
    by all the positive things he read here, any "MS-bleeding-edge-tech" recommended as
    "always a good idea to move on to". He perhaps got the impression, that any choice was a
    good one, as long as it was *not VB6* (check) - but out of the .NET-basket (double check).

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    I certainly wouldn't have is it was my choice, I used Adobe Flex for a while around 6-7 years ago
    Hah, traitor - how dare you... <g>

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    The pattern in the web development world was moving away from propriety run times in the web,
    and with the release of HTML5 it the likes of Node and Less it completely killed any need for these languages.
    Well, at the point in time, this trend was not yet obvious to our Silverlight-guy -
    HTML5 still in the "cooking"-phase - and JS still that slow, that Silverlight-demos
    were able to run circles around it performance-wise, at appropriate MS-Dev-Conferences.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    .Net is not a tool for everyone, and while i can see your problems with it,
    what i don't understand is yours and others hostility towards .Net.
    At least from me, you will see no real hostility - IMO you just get "unwelcome information"
    into the wrong throat - arguments which you feel "tainting your own perception of things"
    (guy didn't ever use .NET - how dare he post such things about it).

    Believe me, I *did* experiment with .NET - I even followed the implementation-progress
    of Mono very tightly (in my Linux-phase), experimented with each new release of MonoDevelop
    for a while, mostly playing with their GTK# GUI-implementations (their .NET-Windows-Forms-
    implementation still not ready and compatible enough at that time).
    Also tried out ASP.NET - but also Java-Server-Faces (JSF) which came out as a pendant to
    the MS-efforts at roughly that time).
    Also experimented with Vala (an already native compiling C# like language):
    https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala
    https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala...arpProgrammers

    Just to point out a few things to back-up the: "guy knows what he's talking about"-thing.


    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    MS Yes i can see why some would be upset with there decision to end vb6 development,
    but .Net did not kill VB6 MS did.
    That's my entire point here - to sharpen the recognition of what MS *continues* doing.
    The *functionality* .NET provides is great - I ruled it out for other reasons.

    On *only* the tech-side these are:
    - the necessary "blob"-deployment (instead of only choosing the COMponents your App needs).
    (the little "Mandelbrot-competition" we had, showed quite clearly what I mean... the .NET
    implementation was developed against version 2.0 of the framework, to offer roughly the
    same "reach" as the VB6-counterpart - many customers still use XP).

    - the VM-inherent, larger startup-times

    - the Garbage-Collector (it's really not that easy, to reliably wrap flat C-libs behind
    .NET-classes, when the *order* of potentially necessary C-Handle-freeing becomes important)

    - the potential of the GC, to "kick in" at unpleasant times

    - the MSIL not being "true native code" (the "getting hot"-time for the Jitter I've already mentioned -
    but in addition, there *is* a better protection of "Intellectual Property" with native compiled code)

    Note, that I left out "general performance" - because that's roughly equal (as soon as the MSIL
    was jitted) to the VC6-compiler which works underneath the VB6-native-compile-option...

    But the other points above *are* facts, which I've always considered a big show-stopper
    for me (and the reason why I took a good look at Vala - sadly their support for the Win-
    platform is lacking - it's kind of difficult to "get it to work properly over here" (basically the same
    difficulties you will encounter with Mono, when you want to integrate it as an alternative compile-
    option into your VS-IDEs).

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    As for .Net being a risk as a language choice .Net has plenty of Traction to the point where often it is the expected tool by our customers.
    A valid point - but not that much for the small VB6-shop, who made it "through the trouble" so far.
    Please take a look at my reply to FunkyDexter, where I expand a bit more on this point.

    Olaf
    Last edited by Schmidt; Jun 19th, 2014 at 09:32 AM.

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
    The parallels are uncanny
    What's wrong with "polishing my Model T, keeping it in shape" I might ask?
    There's a universe where I can order tuning-parts from - and my "lap-times"
    still hold up to the competition - so, no reason to change it yet...

    Olaf

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    No thanks!
    Reminds me of the old Mendhak joke:

    Knock, knock.
    Who's there?
    (long pause)
    Java.
    "Bones heal. Chicks dig scars. Pain is temporary. Glory is forever." - Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel
    “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.” - Kimi Raikkonen

  25. #425
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    Wasn't me who brought the heat into the debate - and I know for example Carlos well enough,
    that I can ensure you, he's not somebody who insults others deliberately and unprovoced -
    I've never seen him troll a forum or newsgroup - and we know each other for years now.
    You know Carlos AND (you think probably) know Fatina?

    Small world!

    I was thinking about some of the stuff NSA said and realized that in my group (if you can call it that), there is almost a gleeful desire to use a tool that nobody else is using. So, if one person says Node.JS is the shizzle, and somebody else decides to try it, then the first person seems almost obligated to switch to Dojo. If that doesn't sound like a good idea....well, can't argue with that, but there are several other oddities about the situation, as well. Still, I think I envy you associating with a few other people who work in the same language....I think...except that I have no idea what that is like, so I really don't know.
    Would like a more immediate reaction by the moderators, when such discussion-disrupting
    picture-nonsense starts the next time (when it is solely thought for ridiculing the differing
    opinion of other members).
    Not going to happen in Chit-Chat. This has been a discussion of some substance, but there have been some in the past, equally contentious, but regarding more fundamental and controversial subjects (if anybody remembers the immigration thread...). When people feel strongly enough about a subject, you are going to get some odd responses. To some extent, that's got to ride in Chit-Chat or else the community will end up censoring too many views.

    My point being, with a different behaviour on the side of MS, with more prolonged release-
    cycles, longer periods until tool-deprecation, the "bets on MS-tools" would get a lot more
    safer until some ROI comes in.
    Silverlight is kind of the outlier here. When that first came out, I thought MS was nuts to do it, so I wasn't surprised that it failed. Other than that, the time-frame during which they support their technology and keep it viable is in the 10-20 year range (closer to 10 than 20, as noted earlier) that you were asking for. After all, VB6 apps still run fine on all Windows OS (except mobile, where they never ran) now some 12 years after the replacement came out. They kind of suggest that the apps will keep running for another decade, too (though there are other interpretations of that statement).

    When I'm being asked directly, what tool to use for professional development,
    and the one who asks already has VB6-experience (and in most cases it *is* for
    the Desktop), then my answer will also be: continue with VB6 - no reason to switch,
    because you can get biten equally easy when you choose .NET.
    I would answer that you need to look at the job market. You will get higher pay, on average, for C# than for VB.NET, but there are lots of jobs in either. Are there more jobs there than in VB6? I would expect that to be the case (and I would expect that most announcements for VB are looking for .NET not VB6). After all, you can't buy VB6 from MS anymore, so the only people working in it are getting it from MSDN subscriptions, e-bay, other legacy sources, or piracy. I would be surprised if any company was willing to go with any of those routes.
    When a *common* question is in the room - "what's the best tool to use today" -
    then I only argue *against* those who recommend .NET - because that's not the
    recommendation I would make - I would recommend C++,HTML/JS/jQuery instead -
    no real mistake possible with those choices - many of you misundertand my counter-
    arguments against .NET-recommendations as "recommendation of VB6 instead".
    There are mistakes to be made with ALL of those choices. Three of those are web, while the fourth is C++. Is there a good RAD tool that works with C++? Even where I work, where, as I noted, people delight in using different things from each other, NOBODY works in C++, though several of us know it. It's a great language, and was one of the first I learned, but it's not the choice for creating LOB apps.

    As for JS, it may well be around for the duration, but I don't believe it's an evolutionary end, as I've stated before. It's a really poor language in many regards. We can do much better, and I have no doubt that we will. Typescript is headed in that way, and I've heard of other languages that will compile to JS. Eventually, I expect JS to end up as the ASM of the web world...at best (or else I expect it to die entirely). JQuery will live and die on the same timeline, and HTML....isn't a language.

    On the other hand, there are lots of jobs in web development, and JS, JQuery and HTML are all things that you should be pretty familiar with if that is the career you are seeking. They won't do a thing for you in desktop, though. So, it all depends on what career you are looking for, because a job that requires those items will not be advertised the same as a job for a desktop developer.

    Even *if* you rewrite everything you already have running (well-tested, with hundreds
    of small bugs eliminated over the last 10 years), with e.g. .NET-Winforms (which most
    of you currently work with) the VB6-developer will accomplish exactly nothing in terms
    of greater "long-term-stability" for the next 20 years, because WinForms will go out of
    scope (with a high probability) at the same time as VB6.
    That seems like a reasonable bet. There are some suggestions that it won't be the case, but I think it's still more likely than not.
    Porting a large "I made a living from it" VB6-LOB-App with hundreds of Forms, hundreds
    of Modules and hundreds of Classes to .NET-Winforms just doesn't worth the efforts.
    That's situational. I'm actually in that boat. I have a large VB6 LOB app which HAS to go somewhere (the source code was lost in a robbery, of all things). However, that provides an opportunity to re-write and fix many of the design mistakes made. There are ALWAYS design improvements that could be made. I have never taken a VB6 app and ported it to .NET without greatly improving usability in one area or another, not because of differences in the language, but because I better understood the problem domain and had things that should be added.

    So, porting a LOB app as a static port, where the features don't change, is a bad idea. Putting out a new version with several improvements...that's not so bad. I doubt there is a program that can't be improved. Last night I realized that a certain form that I wrote a year ago is a far-from-ideal means to handle certain data entry (it has only two numericupdown controls on it, and even that can get significant improvement). There's always improvements to be made on a large app. That's when you port, not when there are no changes worth making.


    Shall he re-write for Metro/WinRT/XAML - not sure if that's a good idea at this point
    in time either.
    Unfortunately, it may be, but it's a non-starter if we are talking LOB.
    So the only thing remaining for the VB6-guy, in case he wants to start *today*
    (no need to yet, just saying) - is to rewrite "for the Web" - but now in this field
    (albeit ASP.NET being a very good tool) - there's very hard competition and many
    other "nice sisters" to choose from. And even good old classic *.asp is not that bad
    either on the serverside (co
    mpatible with VB6-source, when you leave out the Type-
    specifiers - and serverside code tends to be small compared to the clientside JS-
    framework-code you have to write for a modern looking Web-App which offers
    "Desktop-feeling").
    That web thing is just a fad. It'll never last.

    More seriously, there are apps that the web doesn't handle at all, yet. I would assume that there are lots of VB6 LOB apps that are in that camp.

    - Your ROI was cut by an MS-deprecation-announcment - now you encounter difficulties to win new (more "anxious") customers
    - Still it is high enough "to survive" - but your cash-resources to "move over to something else" simply aren't there (due to the announcement)
    That's not a programming issue, that's a marketing issue. Your customers are going to be concerned whether or not THEIR investment in your software is a good one, not whether you are using a certain technology. If they see you as a drunken meth-head, then it doesn't matter what your app does or what technology you are using. If you convince them that YOU are going to be around, and that this is something you are focused on, then they won't be asking what technology you use. In other words, if you are foolish enough to present your app in the most negative light possible, you get what you deserve. If you come in saying, "well, it does what you need now, but MS could change something and I'll just turn my back on you." then you are dead no matter what you are selling.
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  26. #426
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post

    That's my entire point here - to sharpen the recognition of what MS *continues* doing.
    The *functionality* .NET provides is great - I ruled it out for other reasons.
    I'm not convinced that you did. On the other hand, I'm also not convinced that humans are intelligent, so I will just live with the doubt.
    On *only* the tech-side these are:
    - the necessary "blob"-deployment (instead of only choosing the COMponents your App needs).
    (the little "Mandelbrot-competition" we had, showed quite clearly what I mean... the .NET
    implementation was developed against version 2.0 of the framework, to offer roughly the
    same "reach" as the VB6-counterpart - many customers still use XP).
    That wasn't a good reason to target 2.0 of the framework. XP got 3.5 as an update, just as it got 2.0, except that 2.0 was a mandatory update while 3.5 was not. A better reason to target 2.0 was....why not? 3.5 offered many significant changes, but not ones that woul win speed races. The biggest additions were LINQ and lambdas, which make for VASTLY shorter code, but are slower than the old-fashioned methods. However, had you targeted 4.0 or 4.5, then you'd have the Task parallel library, which is lighter than any threading available to VB6. The Task parallel library arose from the recognition that multi-threading is going to become increasingly important as CPU advances are in core numbers and multi-thread support rather than in clock speed. The 4.0 Task parallel library is pretty complete, while 4.5 adds a couple convenient features.



    - the Garbage-Collector (it's really not that easy, to reliably wrap flat C-libs behind
    .NET-classes, when the *order* of potentially necessary C-Handle-freeing becomes important)

    - the potential of the GC, to "kick in" at unpleasant times
    You see this? In what way? In all these years, I've never seen any impact of the GC on anything.
    - the MSIL not being "true native code" (the "getting hot"-time for the Jitter I've already mentioned -
    but in addition, there *is* a better protection of "Intellectual Property" with native compiled code)
    But that's not true. There isn't ANY protection for intellectual property in either type of code for the desktop other than obfuscation. The thing that protects people is that it's almost always easier to write the program yourself than to crack some other code. When that's not the case, the code is cracked and cracked quickly, it doesn't matter whether it is proprietary or not. The economics of software is that it can be sold because it is cheaper in time and money to pay somebody else for their work than it is to do it yourself. Moti Barski covered this in the final chapter of his book on Battle Programming (though in an inverted fashion). You aren't protected by native code. You are protected by the cost of writing vs the cost of cracking vs the cost of purchase. The rest is all a mirage.
    Note, that I left out "general performance" - because that's roughly equal (as soon as the MSIL
    was jitted) to the VC6-compiler which works underneath the VB6-native-compile-option...
    So, since the .NET native group has stated repeatedly that they will be doing .NET native for the desktop, which removes both the JIT cost, the startup cost, and the (invalid) concern over native code, what will that do to your position?
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  27. #427
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Wasn't me who brought the heat into the debate
    No, I didn't think you were and hope I haven't given that impression. I won't comment on the other protagonists but I agree we probably should have handled it quicker. I think you can blame me for that. As a new mod I sought the opinions and advice of the more senior mods instead of just dealing with it and that introduced some delays. I also hoped that asking people to stop in the thread would be enough but it wasn't. As I grow in confidence I hope I'll do a better job for you.

    The only other thing I would say on the matter is that the handling wasn't influenced at all by which side of the debate the protagonists were on - only by their behaviour.

    Anyway, moving on...


    I think I probably agree with you that VB6 is a good starter language to learn on. Personally I was taught Ada as my first language. That's not just dead, it's fossilised. Actually, you challenged me earlier to name some language I'd worked in that had fallen away and Ada's a good one to cite. You can still compile a program in it but just you try writing a gui or a web page

    I think I might agree with you about VB6 for new development where folks have got VB6 experience too. That means placing a bet on two things: 1. the desktop's going to be around for a while yet and 2: while MS don't want to commit to it, when push comes to shove they'll probably continue to support 6's "it just works" state for as long as they support the desktop. I think I'd probably take both those bets. The only real proviso I'd put on it is that the developer should understand that Microsoft aren't committing to that and that they may lose customers as a result of that choice. They own the choice and they don't get to blame MS for it.

    For the more general "what is the best tool for LOB development" question we differ in that I probably would recommend .Net. It's worked for me and looks to have long legs yet. If the desktop does disappear I can be confident it'll support me through other eco-systems as well.

    That's because there is just no alternative currently where "to move on to" with a large VB6-based Desktop-App
    Here I do disagree with you. There are plenty of other choices and many of them have been identified in this thread. Every day that you don't take one of them that's a choice you've made. For a few years after MS moved away from VB6 I'd have had some sympathy but each passing day diminishes the "It's MS's fault" argument. Every customer you lose because you decided not to take that path is being lost more and more because you chose not to switch and less and less because MS stopped developing VB6. You've already said that you choose to continue to develop in VB6 because it suits you. Well, you make that choice knowing that it might cost you some customers. I'm not saying it's a bad choice. If you're so expert in VB6 that you can churn out high value applications in half the time that it would take you to do so in another language then, demonstrably, it's a good choice. But whichever it is, it's your choice. Own it.

    Other than that I'd only argue that you keep referring to .Net as "Bleeding Edge". It really isn't bleeding edge any more. I'm not sure it's even "edge" anymore. It's "handle".


    edit>
    In all these years, I've never seen any impact of the GC on anything.
    Oh I have. These days I work supporting data scientists and the nature of their work Is about doing massive numbers of small calculations. The problem I see more frequently isn't the GC jumping in at unwelcome times, though, it's that it doesn't jump in soon enough. That's the thing with any Garbage Collector, though, it's an attempt to abstract away an extremely difficult but extremely critical function. You try writing any significant program in C without accidentally overloading the stack by forgetting dispose of some resource or other. Hell, that was such a common problem they named a web site after it. But .Net does fail in this regard if you're seriously pushing the envelope.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Jun 19th, 2014 at 11:40 AM.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill

    Hadoop actually sounds more like the way they greet each other in Yorkshire - Inferrd

  28. #428
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Ada is still alive, at least as much as it ever was. The latest standard came out in 2012.

    GC has nothing whatsoever to do with the stack. GC is all about the heap.


    Desktop .Net programming is also in "it just works" legacy status:

    .NET Goes Open Source

    Microsoft has formed the .NET Foundation with the idea that the best future for the technology is open source. Is this a positive or a negative in the life of .NET?

    It has been said that when a company is bored with a product the best way out is to open source it. It gets rid of the problem and, who knows, if enough people are taken in it might even get the applause for "doing the right thing".
    Microsoft is divesting itself of responsibility for .Net as it moves onward.

  29. #429
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    That would be about the way that Sun divested of Java: It didn't really happen, but they made it more open.

    .NET is actively being advanced and developed. I wouldn't mind if they would fix on a set of features and leave it at that, but it hasn't happened, yet. It's not even cllose to being legacy.
    My usual boring signature: Nothing

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    I'm not convinced that you did.
    Well, I'm conviced that I did.

    [musings about humans intelligence]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    On the other hand, I'm also not convinced that humans are intelligent, so I will just live with the doubt.
    Then live with your doubts, whatever you prefer...

    [runtimes and deployment]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    That wasn't a good reason to target 2.0 of the framework. XP got 3.5 as an update, ...
    Then recompile the .NET-Mandelbrot-App which targetted 2.0 with 3.5, if you prefer.
    Doesn't change a thing - .NET Apps still are less easy to deploy than VB6-Apps.

    A preinstalled VB6-runtime in the right version is a given on all current Win-Versions.
    You cannot seriously claim that the same thing holds true for the different framework-versions.

    [GC]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    You see this? In what way? In all these years, I've never seen any impact of the GC on anything.
    I recommend google, before posting stuff you are not really sure about -
    I am sure - and if it helps - a colleague of you also already disagreed.

    [DeCompiling, DeObfuscation]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    But that's not true.
    It is - same as with the point above - if in doubt, ask Google before posting things
    you're not sure about.

    There's a lot of de-obfuscators for .NET.
    Well, did the googling for you, choosing the second link:
    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...scator-for-net

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    You aren't protected by native code.
    I wrote, that native code offers *better* protection than MSIL (no matter if the IL-code was obfuscated or not).
    Please read my posts more carefully in the future.

    As soon as you come up with the readable sourcecode of the VB6-native-compiled mandelbrot-app
    (using a "NativeCode-to-VB6-code" converter of your choice, wherever you may find it, good luck),
    I promise, to invest about five minutes of my time too, posting the decompiled sources of the .NET-
    version of the same App.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    So, since the .NET native group has stated repeatedly that they will be doing
    .NET native for the desktop, which removes both the JIT cost, the startup cost,
    and the (invalid) concern over native code, what will that do to your position?
    Wouldn't that be speculation Shaggy?

    So, let me revise my opinion about this renewed .NET (which then deserves
    perhaps another name - something with 'next' in it would be fine IMO),
    at the time this native-feature will be broadly available and well-working.

    If the GC is still included (as currently planned for .NET-native), then I will perhaps
    not change much about my opinion ... when you have a list, then you have a list,
    you know.

    Olaf

  31. #431
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    You know Carlos
    Sure - we exchanged E-Mails for years now - doesn't mean, that we plan
    a marriage anytime soon, but he's a nice guy - but I already wrote that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    AND (you think probably) know Fatina?
    No, that's not what I wrote - what about citing me correctly?

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Small world!
    Not sure about the "deeper meaning" of that particular snippet - just in case you mean
    it as an allegation of potential "double-or-triple-accounts" of mine, you mark me a liar -
    therefore a clarification would be nice.

    [plea about more decency]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Not going to happen in Chit-Chat.
    Well, if FunkyDexter didn't mean his reply to me in this regard as a joke,
    then I have a little hope - still only a plea of mine, in case it doesn't fly,
    then I have at least tried.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    When I'm being asked directly, what tool to use for professional development,
    and the one who asks already has VB6-experience ...
    I would answer that you need to look at the job market.
    Again, read more carefully what I wrote...
    When somebody is asking, if he shall continue with professional VB6-development,
    then this one is not an employee - employees who work for somebody else, usually
    do not have free coice about the tools they are using, hence these would not ask.
    So, "answering that with the Job-market" is pointless.

    [C++,HTML/JS/jQuery as safer choices, compared to .NET]
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    There are mistakes to be made with ALL of those choices.
    No, there are not, they are throughout much safer investments than choosing .NET.
    I gave reasons for that already, and will not repeat myself.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    I have a large VB6 LOB app which HAS to go somewhere
    (the source code was lost in a robbery, of all things).
    However, that provides an opportunity to re-write and fix many of the design mistakes made.
    At this point Shaggy, I will end the discussion with you, because I don't see
    how you can conclude from a VB6-App (which you have no Source-Code for),
    what potential "design-mistakes" it contains - I had the impression already earlier,
    but the above clearly indicates (to me at least), that you're telling "stories" - and
    I usually avoid discussions with people who try to make a fool out of me.

    Have a nice day.

    Olaf

  32. #432
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Nah, "our silverlight company" was highly motivated after consuming all the advertising -
    Mr. Silverlight-guy also hanging around here in the forum, feeling much encouraged
    by all the positive things he read here, any "MS-bleeding-edge-tech" recommended as
    "always a good idea to move on to".
    That's a really bad reason to move to a new tech, essentially being swayed by the marketing.

    The company i was working for around 6-7 years ago was doing a lot of web development, and the guys i was working with were much more experienced then me, and we looked at Silverlight (and Flex the adobe alternative which we built a few extra-net sites in), and despite the benefits of both at the time, we decided that we wouldn't build any major apps in either of them.

    The take up of the SilverLight plugin was an issue, and even though Flex targeted the Flash player, we saw the trend even then to move away from run-times in the web for business apps. With SilverLight in particular as well there was the problem with it extensively using the GDU and if you had slow graphics cards in your PC it didn't perform nearly as well.

    So my point is the experienced Web Developers i worked with saw SilverLight as a dead end pretty early on, so using a tech like that (when it is still very new and has low adoption) is a risk that could have been avoided if you have the right people making the decisions.

    Thats not a pop at your guy btw, i just feel SilverLight could have been and was avoided by many who saw it as to risky)

    - .NET Apps still are less easy to deploy than VB6-Apps.
    Now i will have to flat out disagree with that statement. I have yet to have a .Net app where i had any install issues with at all really. Deployment has never as far as i am concerned been a problem with .Net apps, i have never seen a difference.

    Hah, traitor - how dare you... <g>
    I am far from being an MS only guy, despite knowing vb6 and .Net, you need to evaluate which tool is best for the job.

    At least from me, you will see no real hostility - IMO you just get "unwelcome information"
    into the wrong throat - arguments which you feel "tainting your own perception of things"
    (guy didn't ever use .NET - how dare he post such things about it).
    But your tone does comes across as pretty Anti .Net at times and you sometime seem to bundle all users of .net together as one entity, although this may have been just after one of Niya's posts :0)

    .Net doesn't work for you, but it obviously does for so many others, which is kind of the point i have been trying to make. You certainly don't taint my perceptions, but you put up good arguments which make the debate interesting.

    .NET is a good tool, it might not be a good tool for everyone but it does a good job for many others. For me it works well as a RAD development tool, the downsides which you point out, don't affect the business i work for (or my previous ones).

    In my example it did happen - have got "anxious questions" (paraprase - about the use of certain tech)
    I agree this can happen, it just depends on the customer and the market. Some customers do care about what technology is being used and make purchasing decisions based upon it, others don't care at all as long as it works.

    There's some languages and platforms which offer (much) more long-term-stability.
    I've pointed them out already (those which are standardized or OpenSource-driven).

    But i consider .NET as not being among them - I truly don't.
    We will have to disagree on this, i make my living developing and managing a team writing apps primarily (although not exclusively in .Net) and our customers see it as an established platform and a very comfortable with it. The Market we sell into like many many others, is behind the bleeding edge curve, and they will be buying desktop apps for quite some time yet. Yes they want some web and Mobile mixed in but they are stuck primarily on the desktop.

    .Net is established and our products sell, and sell well in part because of the technology we use. My last company (which was a lot larger) was making Millions out of selling .Net products, and my current company is very profitable for a small company also primarily selling .Net apps.

    Just to point out a few things to back-up the: "guy knows what he's talking about"-thing.
    I don't think any of us has the opinion that you aren't knowledgeable Olaf, we may disagree with you but you are pretty much the only person on the VB6 camp that actually puts forward good arguments. Dilettante does too sometime but he is just as likely to enflame the debate, it depends what mood he is in :0).

    The person who almost always enflames things, is now gone for a while
    While i agree with you there , Carlos was not completely innocent in this thread and his arguments are not nearly as well constructed . He has tended to just say .Net is crap (which just as some of the comments you have found insulting, some .Net developers also found these insulting)

    When somebody is asking, if he shall continue with professional VB6-development,
    then this one is not an employee - employees who work for somebody else, usually
    do not have free coice about the tools they are using, hence these would not ask.
    So, "answering that with the Job-market" is pointless.
    What about those starting out there career, or still studying? the Job Market is very important i would say to many of them, i know it was to me, and they do have a choice.

    Certainly were i live it is now very very difficult to find job asking for VB6, where as it is relatively easy to find jobs asking for .Net, and i don't see why this isn't a good argument as to why new developers shouldn't learn and use .Net.

    Now i am not saying it is the only choice or even the best choice as all circumstance are different but for me and many other it has proven a good choice, i have been developing in / managing .Net teams for around 6-7 years now and i would bet i will still be using it for another 10 years+ easy and maybe longer as the .Net tools for Web & Mobile development have improved rapidly and are really quite nice to develop in and produce good quality apps. With something like the telerik control suite you can even build .Net apps and have it compile them to Native mobile apps if you want.

    I am in no way Anti VB6, i still support apps written in VB6, and i can see why in some cases it will be the right tool to do new development in, but in general i think that when advising people on what tools to learn .Net is a better bet in particular if you want to make a living out of software development right now imho.

    I had the impression already earlier,
    but the above clearly indicates (to me at least), that you're telling "stories" - and
    I usually avoid discussions with people who try to make a fool out of me.
    I think you are being unfair there Olaf, Shaggy has been on this forum for along time now and i have read a fair amount of his post across all sorts of topics. Shaggy Style of writing is often like that i.e. story like and full of analogies and puns :0)) and in no way did i read into it that he was trying to make a fool out of you.

    He may disagree with you but he was engaging in honest debate.

    and finally ...

    A valid point - .. olaf
    I will take that :0) i might even put it in my Signature!
    Please Mark your Thread "Resolved", if the query is solved & Rate those who have helped you



  33. #433
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Not sure why anybody should attach any 'suspicion' to Olaf's claim that he knows Carlos. I can confirm that he had a life before VBF as I myself have been corresponding with him since 2008. Pretty sure that I'm not alone in that regard as he is well-known to many VB6-ers and very helpful when approached outside of the context of social fora.

    Just for the record...
    If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there...

    My VB6 love-children: Vee-Hive and Vee-Launcher

  34. #434
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    The company i was working for around 6-7 years ago was doing a lot of web development, and the guys i was working with were much more experienced then me, and we looked at Silverlight (and Flex the adobe alternative which we built a few extra-net sites in), and despite the benefits of both at the time, we decided that we wouldn't build any major apps in either of them.
    The take up of the SilverLight plugin was an issue, and even though Flex targeted the Flash player, we saw the trend even then to move away from run-times in the web for business apps.
    Then you started late enough, to notice the maturing of the HTML5/JS alternative.
    Many companies still use Flash despite its existence.

    And that's because of some tech-goodies which are still not easy to mimick with HTML5/JS -
    and because Adobe still *supports* this developer-tool. My point was that there's many
    vendors who take their responsibility more seriously with regards to those, who they expect
    to invest a lot time and money around the tools they have to offer.

    But I think, we have that well-established now - developer-tools, especially when being
    languages, or thightly related to them, deserve a bit more caution from the vendors-side
    with regards to the eco-systems which evolve around them - a thing MS was very careless
    about in the last years.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    So my point is the experienced Web Developers i worked with saw SilverLight as a dead end pretty early on, so using a tech like that (when it is still very new and has low adoption) is a risk that could have been avoided if you have the right people making the decisions.
    Well, there's always a few who have a good gut-feeling, which later on turns out to be
    the right one - still there's the petition with some 15000 votes, to bring back Silverlight -
    cannot imagine, that each and everybody who voted there was not "enlightened enough" -
    or should be belittled with "man, you should have seen HTML5 coming" ... some were
    using it despite that - Browsers are still in need of a "better internal language" - CoffeeScript,
    TypeScript are attempts which use JS as a kind of "IL" - but also Google is trying with
    Chromes NaCl (native-client), to offer better programming for Browser-Clients.


    [deployment]
    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    Now i will have to flat out disagree with that statement. I have yet to have a .Net app where i had any install issues with at all really. Deployment has never as far as i am concerned been a problem with .Net apps, i have never seen a difference.
    I wrote that it's still *easier* with VB6 (especially when you use regfree COM),
    not that .NET had "issues" with deployment.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    But your tone does comes across as pretty Anti .Net at times and you sometime seem to bundle all users of .net together as one entity, although this may have been just after one of Niya's posts :0)
    I bring (as anybody else) reasons for why I'm personally don't use or like it -
    trying very hard, to not write untruths whilst doing so.
    And you're right - when I make "blanket statements" (which I normally dislike),
    I do it mostly on purpose, in reply to another blanket statement, to point this
    kind of stuff out to others.

    You will see quite a lot of this approach here in this thread, where I hand out the
    same "way of poor arguing" simply back to the one who came up with it first.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    .NET is a good tool, it might not be a good tool for everyone but it does a good job for many others. For me it works well as a RAD development tool, the downsides which you point out, don't affect the business i work for (or my previous ones).
    Now, if only more .NETers would see it the same way as you do - you can even
    replace .NET with VB6 in the above sentence, and it still is true.

    My point being, don't judge VB6ers that fast - there's a lot more reasons many
    in your camp never considered, which play a role why they still use their tool.

    Sorry when I try in the following, to shorten things a bit - this discussion eats
    up too much of my time already - and many things start to become repetitive.

    Since you became a collector of my "I agree" statements recently, maybe it will
    make you happy when I come up with a few more of them:
    - I agree, that .NET in the perception of customers has a better "ranking" than VB6.
    - I agree, that there's more opportunities on the Job-market for .NET than for VB6.
    There - why should I deny obvious facts, when they are brought up.


    [provocations and banishments]
    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    While i agree with you there , Carlos was not completely innocent in this thread and his arguments are not nearly as well constructed . He has tended to just say .Net is crap (which just as some of the comments you have found insulting, some .Net developers also found these insulting)
    Carlos is not a native english-speaker, hard to walk the fine line between insults and
    "stalwart replies" in such heated discussions (had and still have my own problems
    with that) - aside from that, I never was a fan of the "it takes two to dance"-saying -
    I'm a strong believer in causal-chains - find and remove the true cause, and a lot of
    strange effects will never happen.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    What about those starting out there career, or still studying?
    the Job Market is very important i would say to many of them, i know it was to me, and they do have a choice.
    There's a learning-phase which takes a few years, until you can consider taking up
    a career as developer - and in the early phase, as a totally green Newbie, it doesn't
    matter much, which tool to begin with - VB6 will do the Job (learning algorithms
    and patterns) just fine (very good Debugger, Intellisense - any IDE with easy to
    accomplish "try again differently"-cycles will bring a Newbie up to speed).

    When the end of your studies comes near, then it's your responsibility of course,
    to look where the greatest chances are, and to pick a language which you consider
    promising - depending on the field you have the most interest in.
    If it's Web-Programming, then there's many good tools to choose from (not only ASP.NET),
    if you're more the electronics and hardware-guy, then deepening your C-Skills is a good
    idea before knocking on doors there, if you are into "mobile Apps" then Android- or iOS-
    tools are a good idea - and if you consider Win-Desktop-Apps your future playground -
    then looking around, what's currently used (often it's .NET, sometimes C++ or Java) is
    of course right.

    That you started your first steps with VB6 will not hinder you in that later happening
    "refine your skills"-phase.

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    I think you are being unfair there Olaf,...
    He may disagree with you but he was engaging in honest debate.
    That was exactly the point - I feel he dished out an "invented story" -
    not really "honest debate", as I understand the term.

    Olaf

  35. #435
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I think a good case can be made that new programmers should be looking at .Net languages instead of VB6 too.

    For one thing, it is getting hard to obtain a legal copy of VB6 while .Net Express Editions are free downloads. For another, keeping VB6 viable on current versions of Windows requires a lot of knowledge casual users just don't have. One more reason is the huge amount of help and support available from Microsoft and 3rd party programming sites. But the main reason is that .Net comes with a ton of "handouts" in the way of wrappers for almost anything you can think of, this is the gigantic Framework in its many versions.

    This ".Net welfare program" should make it easier to create working .Net applications than VB6 applications on current versions of Windows. There are so many bad examples out there of VB6 code that only works right on Win9x, Win2K, or XP under appcompat conditions, usually elevated rights.

    Leave VB6 to the professional. Casual coders should use .Net, and I'd be glad to see more of them make that choice.

  36. #436
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by Schmidt View Post
    What's wrong with "polishing my Model T, keeping it in shape" I might ask?
    There's a universe where I can order tuning-parts from - and my "lap-times"
    still hold up to the competition - so, no reason to change it yet...

    Olaf
    Just in case someone is wondering, how anybody can accomplish even a
    "single lap" with a "Ford Model T" - sorry for the confusion - thought you meant
    the (also quite old) "Ford Mustang" (which was marketed in germany as "T5").
    http://www.mustangclub.de/index.php/t5-merkmale

    And well, for the sake of being in ChitChat (and the car-lovers who apparently
    hang around here) - not sure if you've ever seen the vid about another "Ford-T",
    pushed to its limits on the Nurburg-Ring whilst taking up the challenge of:

    "What, only 9:59 for the lap, I can do this time in a VAN!"
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc

    Olaf

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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    I like dilettante's last post. It describes perfectly what's .NET for me: a huge library with almost everything one can imagine might need some day, and easy to work with. I like particularly the last sentence. I'm not a VB6 professional, but I understand exactly what he means.

    I also want to thank Olaf for the kind words, and congratulate him for the way he resumed and exposed his point of view on the matter(s). It's Olaf at his best

    About my behavior, I'm not proud of it, but I don't want to talk about it. Not with the other contender banned.

    I know Olaf since 2007 and became a huge fan of his work and knowledge shown is many areas. His uninterested willing to help is something that almost everybody must agree with me, I believe.
    Someone (I din't went back to make sure who) drop some doubts about Olaf knowing me and Fatina, but my impression is that it was just a way to create doubts about some kind of "VB6 club". Not important anyway.

    I will now just seat here in my corner and learn Name:  popcorn2.gif
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  38. #438
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    .Netters can polish their Model A code instead I guess.

  39. #439
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    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    Hurray for Lua!
    Nice tuto, clear and easy understandable.
    LUA 5.2 support Bitwise Operations.
    This library provides bitwise operations. It provides all its functions inside the table bit32.
    I'm studyng LUA but focused to create games. Some guys are working on OOP LUA framework for FPSC:R (reloaded version).

    And yeah, perhaps LUA is the future language for many developers, since....

    Lua is an extension programming language designed to support general procedural programming with data description facilities. It also offers good support for object-oriented programming, functional programming, and data-driven programming. Lua is intended to be used as a powerful, lightweight, embeddable scripting language for any program that needs one. Lua is implemented as a library, written in clean C, the common subset of Standard C and C++.

    Being an extension language, Lua has no notion of a "main" program: it only works embedded in a host client, called the embedding program or simply the host. The host program can invoke functions to execute a piece of Lua code, can write and read Lua variables, and can register C functions to be called by Lua code. Through the use of C functions, Lua can be augmented to cope with a wide range of different domains, thus creating customized programming languages sharing a syntactical framework. The Lua distribution includes a sample host program called lua, which uses the Lua library to offer a complete, standalone Lua interpreter, for interactive or batch use.

  40. #440
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    24,482

    Re: VB6 is DEAD!

    LUA? Seriously?

    Besides never really even being alive as such, this would be the canonical script kiddie's language if AutoIt didn't exist.

    It's really a macro scripting language, meant to be embedded in some larger program.

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