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Thread: Where to go now?

  1. #1

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    Where to go now?

    Hi Guys

    I have never had any formal programming training. My interest is in using technology for educational purposes. I am self-taught in VB6 and have reached a level of competence where I can develop educational programs that are appreciated by other teachers. I am now looking for a new challenge and in particular something that will allow me to produce programs beyond the Windows platform, e.g. Android or web-based software. Can you suggest a direction I might take that would follow on from what I have learned in VB?

    Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

  2. #2
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Where to go now?

    One option is to look at moving to .NET. You could start with VB.NET and let your VB6 knowledge help you get comfortable and then learn C# syntax. I suggest this because .NET is getting genuinely cross-platform these days, so you can build apps for Windows, iOS, Android and others from within Visual Studio. Some of the cross-platform tools and functionality is still a bit clunky but it is getting better all the time.

    I mention C# because some of those tools do not support VB at this time. There's suggestions that they will but VB doesn't have as broad appeal as C# so there's no guarantee that it will happen. Some VB developers feel slighted at that but, while there is demand there, it's not the same degree as in C# and, to be honest, if you are comfortable with VB.NET then learning C# is not much of a stretch. That said, some who really enjoy the VB syntax don't like C#'s C-based syntax, with lots of braces and semicolons.

    Note that Microsoft offer a Community Edition of VS that is free for most people and supports most of the power of VS Pro. I'm not sure whether Xamarin, which is one of the cross-platform tools, is support but, since it was acquired by Microsoft, I would expect that it is or will be.

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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Where to go now?

    Cordova for Android in VS2017 seems like one route you could take. As far as I know, there's no real VB6-like language that is all that cross-platform. Some people like B4A, which means essentially Basic for Android, so you might look at that. Cordova would be Javascript, which is a very common web language these days. The JS IDE in VS2017 is much improved over what was available in 2015, though there is still room for further improvement. TypeScript would feel a bit better coming from VB6, but TypeScript is just strongly typed JS, since it ends up as JS.
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    Re: Where to go now?

    I was using Eclipse 5 years ago to create Android Apps, it was using Java and was pretty good but I'm not sure on the current status.
    A couple of months ago we assign a company to build us an Android - IOS application for web selling and they used Xamarin to port .net code.

    So I guess if you decide to use .net you can use Xamarin (and yes it can use also VB.net so that is good, for me at least) or you can just split the action and learn Objective C for IOS and Java for Android.
    That would have been my choice if I was in a non Microsoft Products company, break each development to it's original software but for now I'm in .Net .
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    Re: Where to go now?

    My opinion hinges on what you mean by "What I have learned in VB"

    If you mean "I want to use a language with the syntax of VB" then you don't have a lot of options other than VB .NET. Or: the options you have aren't my wheelhouse and someone else can explain them in more detail. In my travels this is the only place I've seen other professionals mention BASIC-based products, but we can chalk some of that up to unfair bias.

    If you mean, "my general skills as a programmer", the world's real friendly these days.

    I think the most generally-applicable solutions will involve using JavaScript as the programming language and HTML as your UI. The Glitch service at glitch.com is a great way to play around with this, once you learn some basics. It seems a lot of people really like using the TypeScript transpiler and Angular for the UI, but there are a bewildering number of choices you can make if you take this path. The nice thing about this path is it works on every computer and mobile device without a lot of fuss.

    In terms of app development languages, the water's a little muddy right now. Java remains the "most cross-platform" language but writing an app for Windows and Android with shared code isn't exactly the main use case. C# is working really hard at unifying that and at some point in 2018 a Xamarin Forms application in C# will run the same code on iOS/Android/Mac/Linux/Windows 10. Like JMC, I'm not exactly sure how far you'll get down that road for free, but I expect in 2019 MS will get aggressive on that front. Especially if they quit being coy and finally pull the plug on Windows.

    Swift is a good honorable mention but so far you'll only be writing OSX or iOS apps with it, so it feels limiting. Developers still like Objective-C but it's clear Apple intends to deprecate it at some point. They aren't as kind as Microsoft, when they say "Objective-C is not supported as of <year>", they're pulling the plug on exactly the day they say. That year hasn't come yet, but they're investing so heavily in Swift I think the writing is on the wall.

    My basic advice is: "At this juncture, ignore anything that only works on Windows." The only exception to this rule is if you invest a little bit of time in learning WPF via C# instead of Windows Forms via VB, then you'll be about 2 weeks of cognitive dissonance away from Xamarin Forms which is the current frontrunner for "UI Framework Microsoft might kill in 3 years", like they did with WPF, then Silverlight, then HTML/JS Windows extensions, then Metro, then "I can't legally call it Metro", then "Modern Windows Applications".
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    Re: Where to go now?

    Thanks for the advice guys. Plenty to think about there.

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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Where to go now?

    I think Sitten almost summed it up pretty well as: At this time, the future is more cloudy than at any time in the last two decades.

    In the 90s, you were writing for Windows, or you were in the niche of writing for Apple. Then the web and Linux got added, but Windows still dominated. These days, it's fairly unclear what the landscape is going to look like in a decade. I expect that Windows desktop applications will still be around, and will still likely dominate for LOB types of applications, but they aren't sexy now, and won't be sexy then. I doubt that either Apple, Linux, or Android will have supplanted Windows on the desktop...I'm just not sure how much the desktop will matter, by then. There is nothing out there that is clearly a replacement for business, and it isn't clear that the things that COULD be replacements for business won't converge towards the desktop rather than replacing it. For example, phones may become so powerful that the only thing they lack is the keyboard and multiple monitors, so I do think it likely that we'll eventually carry our computer with us, and just plug it into a docking station to get the peripherals. If that happens, will it be Windows? Will it be WPF or HTML5, such that it can readily handle shifting between resolutions? Hard to say.

    Meanwhile, there are tablets and mobile apps, which are the sexy thing. In my line of work, we're stuffing tablets into roles it's hard to say they are suited for. What this means is tablet applications, for which I use Cordova (JS within Visual Studio 2017), and have tried Xamarin. Sitten mentioned that Xamarin
    s the current frontrunner for "UI Framework Microsoft might kill in 3 years"
    and that feels about right. MS will either make Xamarin much better (it could stand improvements), or kill it entirely, as they have so often in the past. Cordova seems likely to have better legs, in that regard.

    So, will tablets remain tablets, or will they become the computers of the future (the MS Surface is an example of where that could go, as it has the power of a desktop in a tablet format)? Will we be using Windows Forms? Will we be using something like JS (which is really a language likely to mutate greatly, in my opinion), or something like Xamarin in .NET? Or maybe even straight up .NET? Or all Swift? It's less clear than I can remember it being, and our guesses at the future were always pretty much wrong in the past, at that, even when it seemed more predictable.
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    Re: Where to go now?

    Yeah.

    I made fun of the iPhone when it came out and thought it was the stupidest thing. I made fun of the iPad when it came out and watched it drive such a powerful thirst for HTML apps it destroyed the things I'd invested in to be "ahead of the curve".

    Now I don't laugh when something comes out until the quarterly earnings arrive.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

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    Re: Where to go now?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    Yeah.

    I made fun of the iPhone when it came out and thought it was the stupidest thing. I made fun of the iPad when it came out and watched it drive such a powerful thirst for HTML apps it destroyed the things I'd invested in to be "ahead of the curve".

    Now I don't laugh when something comes out until the quarterly earnings arrive.
    I may have been wrong for everything else but I was dead on for Windows Mobile(ugly thing RIP!).
    I think we forgot something here. C++ . You can't go wrong with it if you are creating specific things that other frameworks are slooooowwwww. Games for example. You may get to the point that tablets will rule the universe, you may get to the point that mobiles will make coffee for you but C++ will be the to embarrass the hell out of them when a calculation of 1 minute in the latest cool language will take 1 second in C++ .
    And now the pirate song. Arrrggg C++ C++, me loving me C++, C++ C++, yo ho ho and a barrel of pixels!
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    πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν·

  10. #10
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Where to go now?

    Why go that far? Stick with C! Then when somebody asks, "O, say can you C?", you'll be able to answer, "Yes! Yes, I can!".
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    Re: Where to go now?

    C++ has 2 crosses (+ + ) and as I am orthodox I prefer that.
    I wouldn't mind using C also but the main courses at the university where C++ .
    Also C ,C++ can integrate assembly code that I was always fond of but never got the change to learn in deep.
    ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
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    Junior Member Johannah's Avatar
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    Re: Where to go now?

    Quote Originally Posted by sapator View Post
    C++ has 2 crosses (+ + ) and as I am orthodox I prefer that.
    I wouldn't mind using C also but the main courses at the university where C++ .
    Also C ,C++ can integrate assembly code that I was always fond of but never got the change to learn in deep.
    Exactly, dying with C++ in class at the moment...
    "The science of today is the technology of tomorrow" - Edward Teller

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    Re: Where to go now?

    C and C++ will always be around because they are systems languages, and when "I need to implement my own memory manager" is a thing you can say about your project you'd be a fool to pick another language.

    But most of us have things to get done and "finish this month" is more exciting than "perform 10% faster". Every tool has its place but I feel like the altar of performance is somehow simultaneously too neglected and too highly regarded.

    I see arguments back and forth about whether it will "die" or whether we'll go back to it and it all feels silly. I have an electric stove and a microwave, but I still cook with fire. Programming languages aren't generally tools designed to kill each other off: they tend to settle into niches.

    What is true is if you're serious about professional development, it's worth being proficient enough with C to at least work through some random college's 101/201 level classwork. Understanding pointers makes a lot of .NET concepts easier to conceptualize. And if you get into the nuts and bolts of "How C++ implements OOP" (and by that I mean understanding what a vtable is) it helps you understand that OOP is just one way to express API design, and most others have the same kinds of concepts. You really get a dose of this if you dabble in Scheme or some other language where step 1 is "Write the programming language you'd rather use instead."
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

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    Re: Where to go now?

    Quote Originally Posted by Johannah View Post
    Exactly, dying with C++ in class at the moment...
    I remember hating the C++ lessons back then but now I realize that it probably was the best thing I ever had to learn in the university.
    GO C++ !!
    ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
    πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν·

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