Page 3 of 9 FirstFirst 123456 ... LastLast
Results 81 to 120 of 359

Thread: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

  1. #81
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Idaho
    Posts
    38,988

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dz32 View Post

    I dunno I just figure that as long as windows is a viable platform that I would care to actually use..vb6 will still work on it.
    That's what I'd say, too.
    My usual boring signature: Nothing

  2. #82
    Hyperactive Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    380

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Just fix up the IDE's visual designers a little to deal with glitches, ...
    Speaking of designers, does anybody have a copy of or know where to obtain the extremely elusive ActiveX Designer SDK? I've been trying to track it down for weeks now and it seems everybody else who have been searching for it since around 2000 has had no success either. MSDN mentioned the SDK in the What Are ActiveX Designers? topic:

    Quote Originally Posted by MSDN
    Creating ActiveX Designers

    You can use the ActiveX Designer Software Development Kit to create new ActiveX designers for use with Visual Basic. The SDK includes full instructions and sample code. You can find it on the Microsoft Development Network under the heading "SDK Documentation."

    Note The ActiveX Designer SDK requires a C++ compiler, such as Microsoft Visual C++. ActiveX designers cannot be written using Visual Basic.
    Unfortunately, it can't be found in the stated location or anywhere else in the MSDN Library that came with VB6. I couldn't locate it in the VS6 installer CDs either. I even downloaded the earliest version of the MSDN Library (VS '97) that they have at the Internet Archive thinking that it's probably available in prior editions — nope, it still can't be found. The only thing I've been able to dug up so far is this archived copy of the TOC for the ActiveX Designer Programmer's Reference. So, clearly the SDK existed once upon a time (written at the bottom: © 2000 Microsoft Corporation.), but once the .NET plague arrived, it appears little-known articles and SDKs — especially anything COM-related — were purged to make way for new content and discourage developers from writing code that uses obscure COM knowledge.

    The reason I'm eager to acquire that SDK is because: 1) I would like to try a different approach to fixing the Form Designer's graphical issues (by creating a new designer from scratch) and 2) prove MSDN wrong (I don't see any insurmountable problem that prevents ActiveX designers from being written in VB6). I would be extremely grateful to anybody who can point me to a download link or share a copy with me. Thanks!

  3. #83
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    18,263

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by axisdj View Post
    Hello Group,

    I currently have 5 products on the market written in VB6 (entrepreneur) . These products have evolved over the last 10-15 years. I have not come to the point where vb6 has limited the functionality in my software.

    To that point, I just cannot find the motivation to move to another development platform.

    My question is, is that common among you guys on this forum? If VB6 were to break what is your backup plan? Do you think it is irresponsible to wait until it breaks? I feel that point when it breaks will be the only way i will be motivated to move on...

    I have spoken with many upgrade consultants, and many of them have cautioned me on moving languages, they say that they have seen many companies go out of business because of the time spent migrating, made them loose their edge in the market. Because they are spending time trying to get to the same place, when their competitors are working on new features...

    Any wisdom, opinion, or approaches will be greatly appreciated.
    Lots of posts that I didn't fully read - not sure if you ever mentioned if you make your living off these 5 products. Also I would think to ask how many more decades you expect to continue to sell and/or service these clients of yours.

    I've had some of my clients since 1988. In order to keep them I've had to be ahead of where they wanted to go. Didn't get to VB6 with my clients until 2000 actually. About 7 years ago I started crafting the replacement to my VB6 applications.

    In those 7 years I have migrated maybe 50% of my clients. I'm working on the next 25% right now. I expecting at least another decade of programming and growing my business...

    The solution I went with was to primarily use VB.Net running on a web server - web services that do all the database and data manipulation backend work.

    The nice thing about using this technique is that the code-reuse here is at the highest magnitude I've ever achieved. I have one web service for ADD a new record, one for DELETE, one for "create a display", one for "run a report" - one for create an "Excel" file.

    Another really great benefit to using this technique is that the consumer can be just about anything that can POST an AJAX call to a web server.

    That means Android devices - any browser on a desktop - those two I am exploiting now. I will eventually get into iOS - the demand has not been big for me yet in this area.

    Using a web server really forces you to separate DISPLAY from PROCESS and back to the backend - all communication with the web services are done through JSON transmissions with the consumer.

    JSON is designed to be consumed by JavaScript.

    And since the browser is where the UI lives and since JavaScript is designed to modify the DOM (the object model we visually see in a web page) then why would anyone disparage the use of JavaScript for the front end programming language?

    My front end code base of JavaScript is now at around 10,000 lines. in the past 7 years I've become as proficient in JavaScript as I've ever been in any other language (I've been coding for a living since 1981).

    I use jQuery to make DOM manipulation easier. What you use doesn't matter much - it just allows you to focus on thinking about what you want to see visually instead of focusing on how to make the DOM morph.

    I happen to use 4GL techniques to serve my clients - have since I've started my professional career. I create business-logic-agnostic applications so that all my clients use the same code base regardless of if they are collecting taxes in Amish PA or processing purchase orders outside of Boston. Using a Web Server+AJAX+JavaScript+jQuery solution effortlessly melds with my 4GL ideals.

    I despise writing the same code twice just because I have two distinct types of clients...

    My two cents
    Last edited by szlamany; Apr 24th, 2018 at 03:45 PM.

    *** Read the sticky in the DB forum about how to get your question answered quickly!! ***

    Please remember to rate posts! Rate any post you find helpful - even in old threads! Use the link to the left - "Rate this Post".

    Some Informative Links:
    [ SQL Rules to Live By ] [ Reserved SQL keywords ] [ When to use INDEX HINTS! ] [ Passing Multi-item Parameters to STORED PROCEDURES ]
    [ Solution to non-domain Windows Authentication ] [ Crazy things we do to shrink log files ] [ SQL 2005 Features ] [ Loading Pictures from DB ]

    MS MVP 2006, 2007, 2008

  4. #84
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Posts
    3,116

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by Victor Bravo VI View Post
    Speaking of designers, does anybody have a copy of or know where to obtain the extremely elusive ActiveX Designer SDK?
    I hate when stuff like this goes missing.

    Not sure how helpful these will be, but I found some other URL's related to AXD, including one that provides the URL where it could previously be downloaded from, which unfortunately wasn't captured by archive.org:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20001209...gnerwizard.htm

    https://web.archive.org/web/20010124...gnersample.htm

    On my MSDN disk 1, there appears to be quasi-relevant stuff under the "SAMPLES\MSDN\AXDESIGN" folder. It's just a bunch of C++ source and related files, not sure if this is just code that is intended to demonstrate how to use AXD or what. Good luck.

  5. #85
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    42

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    Lots of posts that I didn't fully read - not sure if you ever mentioned if you make your living off these 5 products. Also I would think to ask how many more decades you expect to continue to sell and/or service these clients of yours.

    I've had some of my clients since 1988. In order to keep them I've had to be ahead of where they wanted to go. Didn't get to VB6 with my clients until 2000 actually. About 7 years ago I started crafting the replacement to my VB6 applications.

    In those 7 years I have migrated maybe 50% of my clients. I'm working on the next 25% right now. I expecting at least another decade of programming and growing my business...

    The solution I went with was to primarily use VB.Net running on a web server - web services that do all the database and data manipulation backend work.

    The nice thing about using this technique is that the code-reuse here is at the highest magnitude I've ever achieved. I have one web service for ADD a new record, one for DELETE, one for "create a display", one for "run a report" - one for create an "Excel" file.

    Another really great benefit to using this technique is that the consumer can be just about anything that can POST an AJAX call to a web server.

    That means Android devices - any browser on a desktop - those two I am exploiting now. I will eventually get into iOS - the demand has not been big for me yet in this area.

    Using a web server really forces you to separate DISPLAY from PROCESS and back to the backend - all communication with the web services are done through JSON transmissions with the consumer.

    JSON is designed to be consumed by JavaScript.

    And since the browser is where the UI lives and since JavaScript is designed to modify the DOM (the object model we visually see in a web page) then why would anyone disparage the use of JavaScript for the front end programming language?

    My front end code base of JavaScript is now at around 10,000 lines. in the past 7 years I've become as proficient in JavaScript as I've ever been in any other language (I've been coding for a living since 1981).

    I use jQuery to make DOM manipulation easier. What you use doesn't matter much - it just allows you to focus on thinking about what you want to see visually instead of focusing on how to make the DOM morph.

    I happen to use 4GL techniques to serve my clients - have since I've started my professional career. I create business-logic-agnostic applications so that all my clients use the same code base regardless of if they are collecting taxes in Amish PA or processing purchase orders outside of Boston. Using a Web Server+AJAX+JavaScript+jQuery solution effortlessly melds with my 4GL ideals.

    I despise writing the same code twice just because I have two distinct types of clients...

    My two cents
    This is very impressive to me. I had to look up 4 GL (4th generation languages). As far as i can understand they are like a higher-level again above what we call high level languages.
    It looks like 4GL languages haven't done so well for whatever reason but I imagine that it's the principles behind this that you are applying using 3GL languages.
    It seems like a whole other way of thinking and one I'd love to know more about. Do you know of any good beginner resources that explain what it is?

  6. #86
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Near Nashville TN
    Posts
    9,853

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    I deal with two languages which would probably be called 4GL: 1) Vicon BodyBuilder, and 2) Matlab. And, it's as if both were written with a complete lack of good programming skills.

    The thing that gripes me about both of them is that there's no equivalent to Option Explicit. In both, you just create variables on the fly. You've got no idea if the variable existed previously, or whether you're just creating it.

    Also, in both, there are a variety of different variable types, and you often don't know which type you're creating. For instance, in BodyBuilder, there are parameters (basically IEEE Singles), scalars (basically a one dimensional array of IEEE Singles), vectors (basically a one dimensional array of x,y,z UDT IEEE Singles), and segments (basically nested UDTs of Singles). There are also strings, but they're handled differently.

    If it's a Let (assignment) you're doing, the new variable will be the same type as the old one. If it's the return of a function, the new variable will be what the function returns. However, without some kind of programming standards to name these types, it gets quite confusing.

    Matlab has more variable types, but it's basically the same situation. At times, it just gets virtually impossible to know what you're dealing with when looking at a specific variable.

    Bottom line, I don't mind the idea of 4GL, but they need to remember all the lessons we've learned while programming in 3GL.

    Y'all Take Care,
    Elroy

    EDIT1: I will admit though, I can do in BodyBuilder or Matlab in one line of code what would take me many lines of code in VB6. I still don't see that as a reason to throw out good language development practices.
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

  7. #87
    You don't want to know.
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    4,578

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    I would agree yes, I didn't like the cliff analogy as i posted it and saying "through the dark" is a bit more apt. We don't know where VB6 support is headed, but we know that place is not good.

    I can see not caring if you're at the end of your line, or feel like you'll reach the end before it happens. But don't do newcomers the disservice of pretending it's a good idea to invest in VB6 today or start long-term projects upon it. That's just spiteful.

    If you want to gamble on Windows, go whole hog and write Desktop Client apps in VB6 or WinForms. There is no clear reason why a sane individual would bother with WPF at this point, except as a stepping stone into UWP and this is not a goal of the Windows path in my opinion.

    If you think Windows is a risky gamble, you have a few options. You can hitch yourself to another platform like iOS or Android and face similar risks. OSX-specific development seems unwise. This is why so many mental pathways point at JS frameworks today: every platform has some unique reason why you don't want it to be your only knowledge. JS represents the most widespread and viable way to create an application on all of them so you can choose a nicer path when the dust settles.

    There are other cross-platform experiments but you're really betting on MS again if you go that route. Xamarin Forms is competent, if not frustrating, on iOS and Android, and supposedly by the end of this year it'll produce UWP, Mac OS X, and Linux applications too. On the other hand, some people are building Avalonia, a WPF-based implementation that is already demonstrably running native on Linux. There's also Blazor, some kind of new-fangled thing that runs entire .NET apps in browsers.

    It's an exciting time to be doing just about anything but writing a Windows Client in VB6. Don't mislead the new blood.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

  8. #88
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    18,263

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by C++Novice View Post
    This is very impressive to me. I had to look up 4 GL (4th generation languages). As far as i can understand they are like a higher-level again above what we call high level languages.
    It looks like 4GL languages haven't done so well for whatever reason but I imagine that it's the principles behind this that you are applying using 3GL languages.
    It seems like a whole other way of thinking and one I'd love to know more about. Do you know of any good beginner resources that explain what it is?
    I can share with you the latest genesis of this with my introduction to VB6 back in 2000. I signed a contract with a client that I still have now - part of that contract had me hiring 3 programmers. The project was 18 months and had us taking VAX/VMS mini-computer green screen (actually amber was nicer) maintenance screens and migrating to MS SQL Server and VB6 winforms.

    First form we did - frmUser.frm - that was USER maintenance so we could setup new users and give them roles and permissions. The form had some boilerplate buttons upper left to NEW, VIEW, INQUIRE, SAVE, CANCEL, PRINT - whatever you typically need in a screen like this. To the right of this area were a couple of lookup fields - USERID, USERNAME - simple screen so far. Below all this was an msFlexGrid that showed roles and settings specific to each role. Probably took a week to code this form. I said ok - that was not so bad. We can get through this contract.

    Next screen - Family/Address maintenance. Same boilerplate buttons. Slightly different lookup fields - SSN, MASTERID, NAME. Then it gets complicated - not just one msFlexGrid - let's have several grids. Coding isn't going so fast - each msFlexGrid had all it's own column definitions and unique code to bind to tables and what not.

    At this rate 18 months is not going to fly.

    So I go back to my old 4GL techniques. I create just ONE FORM. All it really has on it is that boilerplate series of buttons. I also have a hidden element of each standard VB6 control type - BUTTONS, INPUT BOXES, DROP DOWN, COMBO - even a hidden msFlexGrid.

    How do I get the USERID and USERNAME lookup fields? The SSN, MASTERID and NAME fields?

    I put a table in my database called FORM_T and list each of these ELEMENTS. I put in that table what I need to position and size the field on the form. When the form loads it simply clones an INPUT ELEMENT (those standard VB6 controls) and gives it the properties needed to be "unique".

    So instead of my programmers putting those properties into the .FRM using the VB6 IDE, they appear in a table in the database.

    Then I only need to have ONE function in my app that reads that information from the FORM_T table.

    Once I clone a form and clone all those input and action elements I'm reusing 100% of the behavior logic.

    *** Read the sticky in the DB forum about how to get your question answered quickly!! ***

    Please remember to rate posts! Rate any post you find helpful - even in old threads! Use the link to the left - "Rate this Post".

    Some Informative Links:
    [ SQL Rules to Live By ] [ Reserved SQL keywords ] [ When to use INDEX HINTS! ] [ Passing Multi-item Parameters to STORED PROCEDURES ]
    [ Solution to non-domain Windows Authentication ] [ Crazy things we do to shrink log files ] [ SQL 2005 Features ] [ Loading Pictures from DB ]

    MS MVP 2006, 2007, 2008

  9. #89
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    42

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    I can share with you the latest genesis of this with my introduction to VB6 back in 2000. I signed a contract with a client that I still have now - part of that contract had me hiring 3 programmers. The project was 18 months and had us taking VAX/VMS mini-computer green screen (actually amber was nicer) maintenance screens and migrating to MS SQL Server and VB6 winforms.

    First form we did - frmUser.frm - that was USER maintenance so we could setup new users and give them roles and permissions. The form had some boilerplate buttons upper left to NEW, VIEW, INQUIRE, SAVE, CANCEL, PRINT - whatever you typically need in a screen like this. To the right of this area were a couple of lookup fields - USERID, USERNAME - simple screen so far. Below all this was an msFlexGrid that showed roles and settings specific to each role. Probably took a week to code this form. I said ok - that was not so bad. We can get through this contract.

    Next screen - Family/Address maintenance. Same boilerplate buttons. Slightly different lookup fields - SSN, MASTERID, NAME. Then it gets complicated - not just one msFlexGrid - let's have several grids. Coding isn't going so fast - each msFlexGrid had all it's own column definitions and unique code to bind to tables and what not.

    At this rate 18 months is not going to fly.

    So I go back to my old 4GL techniques. I create just ONE FORM. All it really has on it is that boilerplate series of buttons. I also have a hidden element of each standard VB6 control type - BUTTONS, INPUT BOXES, DROP DOWN, COMBO - even a hidden msFlexGrid.

    How do I get the USERID and USERNAME lookup fields? The SSN, MASTERID and NAME fields?

    I put a table in my database called FORM_T and list each of these ELEMENTS. I put in that table what I need to position and size the field on the form. When the form loads it simply clones an INPUT ELEMENT (those standard VB6 controls) and gives it the properties needed to be "unique".

    So instead of my programmers putting those properties into the .FRM using the VB6 IDE, they appear in a table in the database.

    Then I only need to have ONE function in my app that reads that information from the FORM_T table.

    Once I clone a form and clone all those input and action elements I'm reusing 100% of the behavior logic.
    This is fascinating, thanks very much. I think I'd need to do something of this sort though to get a proper feel for it.
    Sorry if this is a stupid question but where does the code go on an instance of one of these forms and how do you change it when reusing the form?
    As I am reading it I am wondering if when you design something in say vb6 IDE, do you then programmatically take the information as laid out in the .frm file design part and insert that into a database or is this thought becoming circular!! It's mind bending stuff for me!

  10. #90
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Posts
    3,116

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by OptionBase1 View Post
    I hate when stuff like this goes missing.

    Not sure how helpful these will be, but I found some other URL's related to AXD, including one that provides the URL where it could previously be downloaded from, which unfortunately wasn't captured by archive.org:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20001209...gnerwizard.htm

    https://web.archive.org/web/20010124...gnersample.htm

    On my MSDN disk 1, there appears to be quasi-relevant stuff under the "SAMPLES\MSDN\AXDESIGN" folder. It's just a bunch of C++ source and related files, not sure if this is just code that is intended to demonstrate how to use AXD or what. Good luck.
    I went pretty deep down the Archive.org rabbit hole starting with the results of this page: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http:/...ls/axdesign//*

    I honestly don't remember how I got there, but I found one single page somewhere that had a direct download to all of the Visual Studio 6.0 sample code as of 2002 stored inside a single gigantic .chm file.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20030304...vs6samples.exe

    There's a lot in there, and I didn't see AXD at first glance, but that doesn't mean it isn't buried inside this file somewhere. Hope that helps. Again, good luck.

  11. #91
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    An obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants call it Earth
    Posts
    7,900

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    I deal with two languages which would probably be called 4GL: 1) Vicon BodyBuilder, and 2) Matlab. And, it's as if both were written with a complete lack of good programming skills.
    ...
    I can't speak for Vicon as I've never come across it but I think you might be trying to use MatLab in a way it was never really intended.

    It's a scripting language aimed at data scientists and it's assumed that they will have some rudimentary coding skill and plenty of logical thinking skill. To that end, the coding window is the UI. The language is the system. It's all about hacking small amounts of quick and dirty code together that perform logically small tasks (although often across massive amounts of data)... and then changing it on whim... or throwing it away. It's got a save button but it's meant to be more akin to taking a screen print than compiling a system. In that world things like strong typing are just "in the way".

    If you're using to try and build systems then, yeah, it's horrible.


    Once I clone a form and clone all those input and action elements I'm reusing 100% of the behavior logic.
    Not sure how up you are on Gang of four patterns but you might want to read up on the Template pattern. It sounds almost exactly like what you're doing. It's likely to be actually exactly what you're doing. Congratulations, you're a software engineer
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Apr 25th, 2018 at 06:36 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

  12. #92
    You don't want to know.
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    4,578

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Oooh. I missed the initial szlamany post but all of those are very interesting!

    I also agree with FunkyDexter re: Matlab. It's more like Perl in that it's designed for you to write easily without much consideration for if that can be read easily. That can also be a downside of many modern dynamically-typed languages, and is a big part of why we had the aforementioned JavaScript: the Good Parts.

    It took the software engineering community a few years to decide how to use these toys responsibly. We've got some pretty good ideas of it now, and the languages evolved to patch up their weaknesses. I think that (along with weird hardware changes) contributed to why many of these didn't seem so popular as application languages for a while then suddenly exploded.

    This happens with pretty much every major tech. Early COM practices probably look stupid to veterans today, but sometimes you have to break things to learn how to put them together properly.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

  13. #93
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    18,263

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    Congratulations, you're a software engineer
    I always wanted to be an engineer!

    I ordered "Head First Design Patterns" based on a recommendation from you I believe!

    Sitten mentioned the book "JavaScript the Good Parts" - that is one of my bibles - purchased that when I started this adventure into Rich-Internet Applications.

    Mendhak told me a long, long time ago in my VB6 days that I was destined for the web world. Haven't seen him around here in ages - wonder where he went off to.

    *** Read the sticky in the DB forum about how to get your question answered quickly!! ***

    Please remember to rate posts! Rate any post you find helpful - even in old threads! Use the link to the left - "Rate this Post".

    Some Informative Links:
    [ SQL Rules to Live By ] [ Reserved SQL keywords ] [ When to use INDEX HINTS! ] [ Passing Multi-item Parameters to STORED PROCEDURES ]
    [ Solution to non-domain Windows Authentication ] [ Crazy things we do to shrink log files ] [ SQL 2005 Features ] [ Loading Pictures from DB ]

    MS MVP 2006, 2007, 2008

  14. #94
    Hyperactive Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    380

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by OptionBase1 View Post
    Not sure how helpful these will be, but I found some other URL's related to AXD, ...
    Thanks for that! I've already came across that Building the ActiveX Designer Wizard page and it's actually what led me to the TOC. The CircleDesigner Sample is new to me, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by OptionBase1 View Post
    On my MSDN disk 1, there appears to be quasi-relevant stuff under the "SAMPLES\MSDN\AXDESIGN" folder. It's just a bunch of C++ source and related files, not sure if this is just code that is intended to demonstrate how to use AXD or what.
    Interesting. They do seem to be ActiveX Designer examples. I'm sure they'll prove useful. Thanks!

    Quote Originally Posted by OptionBase1 View Post
    I honestly don't remember how I got there, but I found one single page somewhere that had a direct download to all of the Visual Studio 6.0 sample code as of 2002 stored inside a single gigantic .chm file.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20030304...vs6samples.exe

    There's a lot in there, and I didn't see AXD at first glance, but that doesn't mean it isn't buried inside this file somewhere.
    Great find! I've inspected every sample there, but unfortunately, the ActiveX Designer examples doesn't seem to be included in that compilation. It doesn't really matter because you've already pinpointed above where they are located in the MSDN CDs. Others might still find that archive useful, though. (For those interested, the file's size is 131 MB and it can't be interrupted while being downloaded.)

  15. #95
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    24,482

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    A "software engineer" is not a software engineer. A close analogy might be the oxymoronic "creation scientist" which is almost the opposite of a scientist. Sheer marketing.

    The most fundamental difference is one of blindly following dogma as a substitute for deep understanding. The message is "You're not ignorant, you simply haven't bought my book and memorized its commandments in order to parrot them on demand yet. Thinking is neither necessary nor desirable."

    Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? is a classic admission of its failure. Yet nearly a decade later people are still thumping drums to keep the elephants away.

  16. #96

    Thread Starter
    Hyperactive Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    481

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    The most fundamental difference is one of blindly following dogma as a substitute for deep understanding. The message is "You're not ignorant, you simply haven't bought my book and memorized its commandments in order to parrot them on demand yet. Thinking is neither necessary nor desirable.".
    Brilliant!

  17. #97
    Frenzied Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Posts
    1,025

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    why are we discussing java at all?
    let go back to VB6 and the future plan for world domination.
    i predict that the next OS will be written in VB6 and will take over everything, java we will only read in wikipedia how it failed to be like visual basic.
    Actually Java and JavaScript are unrelated. Java was developed by Sun (now Oracle). JavaScript was developed by Netscape (and the standard is now maintained by Ecma as EcmaScript).
    The use of "Java" in the name "JavaScript" was just a marketing ploy (a bit like Microsoft naming a variant of C# as "VB.Net").


    I brought JavaScript into the discussion when I said that as VB6 looked like lasting as long as Windows there was no point in moving to a different Windows desktop language.
    But as much development is moving away from Windows to Web and Mobile, it may be worth looking at JavaScript to meet these requirements.



    Quote Originally Posted by DataMiser View Post
    Yes it is totally possible that JS has changed a lot since the last I really looked into it but if it has evolved beyond scripting then it is not really JS any more is it.
    You are probably thinking of "vanilla" JavaScript which was (and is) a simple scripting language very like VBScript.

    But JavaScript is now more advanced. You can add widgets (controls) and have a choice of IDE's. And it is portable in that it works in all browsers. It can even be a target for other programming languages to (trans)compile to. And, as Olaf outlined, you can even develop desktop apps.

  18. #98
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    An obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants call it Earth
    Posts
    7,900

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    I ordered "Head First Design Patterns" based on a recommendation from you I believe!
    Yeah, that was me. Sitten's mentioned it too but I have a feeling we might be talking about two different books. Mine is entirely Java based but it's pretty easy to translate the examples to the language of your choice. It has a pretty blond girl on the cover who was also used in an ad for thrush treatments

    I like it because I think it does a great job of demystifying the Gang of Four stuff whereas most sources on them are so dry as to be unreadable and use so much techno-babble that you basically need to understand the subject inside and out before you can read the damn thing. I'm usually left with the feeling that they were written, not to teach, but to give the author a sense of superiority over the reader.

    Haven't seen him around here in ages
    Look, here he is ->

    A "software engineer" is not a software engineer.
    Lol, I know what you mean but I think you're being slightly unfair. The proposition that following some fixed set of dogmatic rules will always result in the desired result is clearly moronic in our world. But I do wish more programmers would spend time learning some of the good design principles that have evolved over the last 20 years or so. To me a "software engineer" is someone who's taken the time to understand those principles as well as why they're important and when they're important. That way we can follow them when they're useful, gaining all the benefit and avoiding the dogma.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Apr 25th, 2018 at 11:44 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

  19. #99
    You don't want to know.
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    4,578

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    To piggyback off user "VB6 Programming"'s post, let me explain what people can mean by "JS" today.

    On the web, it's kind of what it's always been. JS is a scripting language that helps make web pages less static. The groundbreaking change came a long time ago, probably around the time GMail was created. This change allowed a web page to make an HTTP request to the server and process its response without reloading. This is how GMail was able to look and feel like a "real" application even though it ran inside the web browser. It was janky at first, because no one had taken web apps seriously so the palette of tools wasn't sophisticated.

    What people remember as nightmares was very real: every browser had a different, slightly-incompatible JS interpreter and HTML renderer, so if you wanted your page to look and behave the same on many computers your code could quickly become a mishmash of hacks designed to show or hide large segments of your code from different browsers. This is the thing that's been most aggressively attacked, and the reason for the JS/HTML Frameworks is "they do the work of figuring out how to get what you want out of any available browser". (That's what dilettante is attacking, "I want to just say <Button class="fancy"> and get a fancy button, not write a dozen different browser-specific hacks so it looks similar everywhere.")

    This has been taken a step further by frameworks like Electron. Here's a brief explanation.

    It uses the Node.js framework. This is a copy of Google's V8 JavaScript engine that runs as an application and includes APIs for interacting with parts of your machine JS can't traditionally interact with, like the filesystem. It also uses Chromium, the open-source version of Google Chrome.

    Electron uses both of these. An Electron app starts by loading some JS file you specify that does initial setup in the V8 engine. This means it can access the filesystem or other system resources to get its startup data. This file's job is to gather the needed data, then start the Chromium window with the HTML page that represents your app's startup page (read: its job is to create your first Form and show it.) The browser is in a different process than the V8 engine, so Electron provides simple APIs for communication between the two. This is how it lets a web page in a browser do something with your filesystem.

    So Electron is a framework that lets me take what would be a web app and create a native app that runs on your computer. This means it can work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. A similar framework called Cordova is focused on providing the same kind of thing for iOS and Android. There are a handful of other frameworks doing this.

    These aren't small-time frameworks being used only by hobbyists. Facebook's iOS/Android native apps are built on their framework React. Slack and Discord are built with Electron. Evernote's iOS/Android apps are written with a custom framework. Apple's own App Store is written in a custom framework. Microsoft has worked to support Node and Cordova in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code on both Mac and Windows. Microsoft actually assisted with the release of the Windows version of Node.js in 2011. Microsoft created TypeScript, one of the most popular JS transpiled languages designed to address what most people consider weaknesses of the language.

    The companies that shape the direction of our craft are investing heavily.

    So philosophically speaking, you can figure out what year detractors are stuck in by checking this handy list:
    • In 2000, JavaScript and browsers lacked the tools to make any kind of attempt at being anything but "web pages".
    • Around 2005, primitive tools to make a web page "look like an application" appeared. It was very hard to pull this off and Google stands out as one of the few successes.
    • Around 2008, the first decent solutions to the "multiple browsers" issue appeared. Early UI frameworks to manage HTML in a browser-agnostic way started development.
    • In 2011, Node.js released and the concept of taking a web app out of the browser to be native appeared. Many improvements to JavaScript (many from Microsoft) arrived to make the concept of "maintaining a large-scale application" sensible.
    • In 2018, many applications with millions of customers are either entirely in the browser or running as a "hybrid" app with a framework like Electron.


    I think every word dilettante says about anything but VB6 technical issues proves false if you do your own research.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

  20. #100

    Thread Starter
    Hyperactive Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Posts
    481

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Just had a look at the Electron Framework Tutorial Video... And they say VB6 is bad.. oh well

    I now understand why there is a want for people to create a vb6 hybrid that can compile to java script ( i think, correct me if I am wrong)

    The idea would be an updated vb6 IDE that can compile to a JavaScript app that can run on any platform.

    Thoughts?

  21. #101
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    An obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants call it Earth
    Posts
    7,900

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Thoughts?
    From the little I know it's as good an approach as any. I think the biggest obstacle if you're porting an existing project is going to be the UI elements - the VB6 ones aren't cross platform and won't necessarily have direct corollaries in any framework. If you're UI is properly separated that pain would be minimized but VB6 did tend to encourage you to lump it all in together in which case it could be painful. If you've done loads of UI customization that's going to make it even worse.

    For new projects I don't see why it wouldn't work. Again, the UI elements will probably be the biggest pinch point and there'll be something of a learning curve around whatever the chosen framework offers but it probably won't be too bad. The code behind is really just syntax so should be pretty universal and translatable.

    To be honest, though, if you're undertaking a new project, why not just bite the bullet and use something like Electron that already exists. It's only really porting existing stuff that represents a major problem as I see it.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Apr 25th, 2018 at 11:30 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

  22. #102
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,412

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Well I'll buck the trend a bit here and say that I intend to stick with VB6 until after it "ends" - at least on the server-side of my client/server applications.

    This is one reason I'm happy with my investment in vbRichClient5 so many years ago (actually dhRichClient at the time). It's RPC features made me rethink my monolithic desktop application and I split it into a front-end client and back-end server (and some back-end satellite processes that run periodically) that communicate over RC5 RPC.

    The UI-less server-side stuff also runs nicely on Linux under Wine in a VM or on a VPS, so I don't have to worry to much about MS killing VB6 applications entirely since I've been working on non-MS front ends.

    Thanks to that decoupling of front-end UI and backend services, I've been able to use Nginx and my VbFcgi app framework (again all server-side) to interface a client-side browser/JS front-end with my VB6 backend. This did not require a massive rewrite or in fact any re-writing of the bulk of the business logic - I re-use all my existing back-end code and simply added wrapper methods to handle JSON instead of serialized VB6 objects/property bags.

    The previous version of my monolithic desktop VB6 software was first released in 1998 or 1999 and is still in use ~20 years later (though most have moved to the current version). The current version of my software has been around for 7 or so years, and on the back-end at least, I think it will last as long as (or longer than) the previous version. The front-end will have to adapt to whatever the market wants over time, but rebuilding the front end is a much smaller and safer effort than continually rebuilding the back-end.

  23. #103
    You don't want to know.
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    4,578

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    I just watched the entire video and it didn't even mention VB6.

    The only way it came close is pointing out that, to a web developer, topics like "deployment" and "updates" are difficult to learn and overcome when considering desktop applications. This is true much in thesame way that if you're a desktop developer, web development topics like, "dealing with XSS" or "managing state" seem like weird, alien, unapproachable things.

    I feel like the community is the problem with a VB6 transpiler. FD touched on the most obvious technical issue. I have a feeling even if you took the time to create it, it'd be ridiculed as worthless by the people you meant to please. I'd love to be proved wrong.

    The thing jpbro brings up is kind of "smarter" than a transpiler solution. If you run a VB6 app as CGI then you can write server-side logic and even the APIs that drive a hybrid app in VB6.

    What's missing is the part Electron provides: a framework for displaying browser windows as if they were Forms and providing communication between the JS web code and your VB6 backend.

    Some kind of VB6-styled Electron-like framework could have promise, but you still face the issue of, "How long will VB6 function on Windows?" It's been a question mark for a long time, and while we know there is a doomsday coming it's no more clear when that might be than it has been for the last decade.

    I still think the most difficult part of that equation is convincing VB developers to adopt it. Talking computers into doing something new and different is much easier than changing minds.
    Last edited by Sitten Spynne; Apr 25th, 2018 at 11:58 AM.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

  24. #104
    Frenzied Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Posts
    1,055

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    [...]
    Last edited by dz32; Apr 26th, 2019 at 11:22 AM.

  25. #105
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    24,482

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    The groundbreaking change came a long time ago, probably around the time GMail was created. This change allowed a web page to make an HTTP request to the server and process its response without reloading.
    The fact is that this was pioneered in IE 4 back around 1997. Originally a Java applet shipped with IE was used, and this was supplemented by the Tabular Data Control. Later MSXML was shipped and more or less rendered the earlier items obsolete.

    Talk about people making claims but knowing nothing!

  26. #106
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Idaho
    Posts
    38,988

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by axisdj View Post
    Just had a look at the Electron Framework Tutorial Video... And they say VB6 is bad.. oh well

    I now understand why there is a want for people to create a vb6 hybrid that can compile to java script ( i think, correct me if I am wrong)

    The idea would be an updated vb6 IDE that can compile to a JavaScript app that can run on any platform.

    Thoughts?
    VB6 isn't bad, VB6 is controversial. People have pretty strong opinions about it, as we all know.

    Pro Tip: If you are wondering which threads are about "the fate of VB6", they are the ones with more than two pages of replies.


    My feeling about JS is that it is an unevolved proto-language. All the frameworks, including Angular, JQuery, and TypeScript, have been attempts to put more rational bounds around the language. As it is, you can do anything you want with it, including shoot yourself in the foot...over and over and over. It'll even help you. That's great if you want to do absolutely anything, like extend the concept of an integer such that it includes strings, and functions, but it's not so great if you want to get things done, and be maintainable. That video clip I linked to showed a whole lot of things that you CAN do, but the speaker clearly stated that you should NOT do those things.

    So, making a VB6 language that created JS, that would be great. Of course, that would just be another case of using the bounds of VB6 to constrain the wildness of JS into something more productive, while removing some of the more horrific things that JS allows you to do. Therefore, that may not be the best solution. Perhaps a different language entirely would make more sense than something that builds on the sprawling base of JS. What JS has going for it is that all browsers do allow it.

    Other than that, though, I don't think VB6 would be an ideal choice for a front end for JS. One of the biggest issues with JS would be the number and types of controls. VB6 is very much more constrained than the "anything goes" approach of JS. I'm not even sure that there are good matches in JS for many of the controls standard to VB6, and there are certainly some controls available for JS that are far superior to those available to VB6 due to the fact that JS was much more touch oriented from early on.
    My usual boring signature: Nothing

  27. #107
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    24,482

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Actually nothing would prevent a revival of the VB6 Web Classes feature. This part of VB6 hasn't been supported for a long time and no longer works, but its essence is still applicable: HTML pages with code behind them.

  28. #108
    Frenzied Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Posts
    1,025

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by axisdj View Post
    Just had a look at the Electron Framework Tutorial Video... And they say VB6 is bad.. oh well

    I now understand why there is a want for people to create a vb6 hybrid that can compile to java script ( i think, correct me if I am wrong)

    The idea would be an updated vb6 IDE that can compile to a JavaScript app that can run on any platform.

    Thoughts?
    There is already a product (NSBasic) that uses a VB6-like language and transpiles it to JavaScript. It isn't (of course) from Microsoft. It is aimed at Mobiles (Android and iOS) and can use Cordova/PhoneGap and also at Web applications.
    You can copy and paste some VB6 code into NSBasic, but not code that accesses Windows etc.

    It only targets JavaScript (not Node.js which would give more access to the PC).
    Many of the controls provided are matches for the VB6 controls, if you put a control on a form and name it the same as a control in your VB6 app you can copy and paste the VB6 code into NSBasic.

    This is www.nsbasic.com

    I don't know if they plan to take the product more towards desktop apps.

    Here is their (somewhat dated) outline of converting from VB6 http://wiki.nsbasic.com/NSB/App_Stud...o_AppStudio.3F

    Here is a video of a "Hello World" app https://youtu.be/hzyXuOJjp-E
    Last edited by VB6 Programming; Apr 25th, 2018 at 12:44 PM. Reason: Video added

  29. #109
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    18,263

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Pro Tip: If you are wondering which threads are about "the fate of VB6", they are the ones with more than two pages of replies.
    Lol!

    *** Read the sticky in the DB forum about how to get your question answered quickly!! ***

    Please remember to rate posts! Rate any post you find helpful - even in old threads! Use the link to the left - "Rate this Post".

    Some Informative Links:
    [ SQL Rules to Live By ] [ Reserved SQL keywords ] [ When to use INDEX HINTS! ] [ Passing Multi-item Parameters to STORED PROCEDURES ]
    [ Solution to non-domain Windows Authentication ] [ Crazy things we do to shrink log files ] [ SQL 2005 Features ] [ Loading Pictures from DB ]

    MS MVP 2006, 2007, 2008

  30. #110
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,083

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    why are we discussing java at all?
    let go back to VB6 and the future plan for world domination.
    i predict that the next OS will be written in VB6 and will take over everything, java we will only read in wikipedia how it failed to be like visual basic.
    baka's misunderstanding of RC5 is like the misunderstanding of JavaScript and Java.

  31. #111
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,083

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    Lots of posts that I didn't fully read - not sure if you ever mentioned if you make your living off these 5 products. Also I would think to ask how many more decades you expect to continue to sell and/or service these clients of yours.

    I've had some of my clients since 1988. In order to keep them I've had to be ahead of where they wanted to go. Didn't get to VB6 with my clients until 2000 actually. About 7 years ago I started crafting the replacement to my VB6 applications.

    In those 7 years I have migrated maybe 50% of my clients. I'm working on the next 25% right now. I expecting at least another decade of programming and growing my business...

    The solution I went with was to primarily use VB.Net running on a web server - web services that do all the database and data manipulation backend work.

    The nice thing about using this technique is that the code-reuse here is at the highest magnitude I've ever achieved. I have one web service for ADD a new record, one for DELETE, one for "create a display", one for "run a report" - one for create an "Excel" file.

    Another really great benefit to using this technique is that the consumer can be just about anything that can POST an AJAX call to a web server.

    That means Android devices - any browser on a desktop - those two I am exploiting now. I will eventually get into iOS - the demand has not been big for me yet in this area.

    Using a web server really forces you to separate DISPLAY from PROCESS and back to the backend - all communication with the web services are done through JSON transmissions with the consumer.

    JSON is designed to be consumed by JavaScript.

    And since the browser is where the UI lives and since JavaScript is designed to modify the DOM (the object model we visually see in a web page) then why would anyone disparage the use of JavaScript for the front end programming language?

    My front end code base of JavaScript is now at around 10,000 lines. in the past 7 years I've become as proficient in JavaScript as I've ever been in any other language (I've been coding for a living since 1981).

    I use jQuery to make DOM manipulation easier. What you use doesn't matter much - it just allows you to focus on thinking about what you want to see visually instead of focusing on how to make the DOM morph.

    I happen to use 4GL techniques to serve my clients - have since I've started my professional career. I create business-logic-agnostic applications so that all my clients use the same code base regardless of if they are collecting taxes in Amish PA or processing purchase orders outside of Boston. Using a Web Server+AJAX+JavaScript+jQuery solution effortlessly melds with my 4GL ideals.

    I despise writing the same code twice just because I have two distinct types of clients...

    My two cents
    Interesting. I'd like to know what kind of programming work you have done with VB.NET can't be done with VB6. Why?
    Last edited by dreammanor; Apr 28th, 2018 at 05:34 AM.

  32. #112
    The Idiot
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Posts
    2,721

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    baka's misunderstanding of RC5 is like the misunderstanding of JavaScript and Java.
    theres nothing to misunderstand. rc5 is buggy and java has nothing to do with vb. i know theres some "vb-like" languages that are created with java and some will require java when compiled, some will not. even so, this thread is about vb6 and not about java or even rc5. i will start worrying when the next os dont support vb6.

  33. #113
    Frenzied Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    1,253

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    rc5 is buggy
    That's not my experience at all. Far from it. From what I can tell, most of the 'problems' that you have encountered are of your own making, because you do not bother to follow the instructions or make the effort to understand the samples. If you are truly encountering bugs, I'm sure Olaf would be interested to hear what they are, so that he can address them.
    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. #114
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,412

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    theres nothing to misunderstand. rc5 is buggy
    That's quite a claim, care to share some evidence? I've been using vbRichClient5 for many years now in a very large project used by many people, and the vbRichClient5 parts are very stable. Over the years, I think I've only had to report 1 or 2 things that I would classify as bugs, and Olaf fixed those issues promptly. It's even less "buggy" than some commercial components that I rely on for my product and that I've had to spend significant time developing workarounds for since the third-party developers have been unable/unwilling to produce fixes.

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    even so, this thread is about vb6 and not about java or even rc5. i will start worrying when the next os dont support vb6.
    Well RC5 is a big part of what allows me (and others) to continue to use VB6 for our projects today, so I think it is relevant to any discussion of the future of VB6 and how long we'll be sticking with it. I'm pretty sure that I'd have left VB6 a long time ago without it.

  35. #115
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,083

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by jpbro View Post
    Well I'll buck the trend a bit here and say that I intend to stick with VB6 until after it "ends" - at least on the server-side of my client/server applications.

    This is one reason I'm happy with my investment in vbRichClient5 so many years ago (actually dhRichClient at the time). It's RPC features made me rethink my monolithic desktop application and I split it into a front-end client and back-end server (and some back-end satellite processes that run periodically) that communicate over RC5 RPC.

    The UI-less server-side stuff also runs nicely on Linux under Wine in a VM or on a VPS, so I don't have to worry to much about MS killing VB6 applications entirely since I've been working on non-MS front ends.

    Thanks to that decoupling of front-end UI and backend services, I've been able to use Nginx and my VbFcgi app framework (again all server-side) to interface a client-side browser/JS front-end with my VB6 backend. This did not require a massive rewrite or in fact any re-writing of the bulk of the business logic - I re-use all my existing back-end code and simply added wrapper methods to handle JSON instead of serialized VB6 objects/property bags.

    The previous version of my monolithic desktop VB6 software was first released in 1998 or 1999 and is still in use ~20 years later (though most have moved to the current version). The current version of my software has been around for 7 or so years, and on the back-end at least, I think it will last as long as (or longer than) the previous version. The front-end will have to adapt to whatever the market wants over time, but rebuilding the front end is a much smaller and safer effort than continually rebuilding the back-end.
    Hi jpbro, your solution (your app architecture and the tools you use) is the smartest, most creative VB solution I've ever seen, and it's one of the most overlooked solutions.

    I started using dhRichClient3 in 2009. But I was too cautious (like many people in vbForums now) so that I only dared to use dhRichClient3 to deal with Sqlite DB, and I was afraid to use the other parts of dhRichClient3. Carefulness and hesitation made me miss a lot of very good opportunities and waste a lot of time.

    Fortunately, I finally found the most suitable solution for me. It is the same as yours, which is RC5 + vbFcgi + web front-end. Thank you jpbro.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Apr 28th, 2018 at 08:11 PM.

  36. #116
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,412

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    Hi jpbro, your solution (your app architecture and the tools you use) is the smartest, most creative VB solution I've ever seen, and it's one of the most overlooked solutions.
    That's very kind of you to say! I'm not sure how smart or creative it was - it was born out of necessity for me, and the stars kind of aligned to allow it to work relatively painlessly thanks to my previous client/server overhaul using the RC5 RPC classes - but I do appreciate the compliment, and I'm glad that you are finding the work useful too!

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    I started using dhRichClient3 in 2009. But I was too cautious (like many people in vbForums now) so that I only dared to use dhRichClient3 to deal with Sqlite DB, and I was afraid to use the other parts of dhRichClient3, which made me miss some very good opportunities and wasted a lot of time.
    It does seem to be the natural state of VB6 programmers to be very cautious and conservative - it's probably because most of the more adventurous ones have already left VB6 for other languages/platforms. But our hand is slowly being forced, so we've got to have a plan for the future. That might be leaving VB6 entirely for some, but I'm reluctant to drop my entire investment. This was my motivation for developing vbFcgi. Time will tell whether or not that was a smart decision I guess.

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    Fortunately, I finally found the most suitable solution for me. It is the same as yours, which is RC5 + vbFcgi + web front-end. Thank you jpbro.
    Again, I'm glad you have found vbFcgi useful and I wish you all possible success with your project!

  37. #117
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,083

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by baka View Post
    theres nothing to misunderstand. rc5 is buggy and java has nothing to do with vb. i know theres some "vb-like" languages that are created with java and some will require java when compiled, some will not. even so, this thread is about vb6 and not about java or even rc5. i will start worrying when the next os dont support vb6.
    It seems that you haven't understood the relationship between Java and JavaScript until now, and you are really living in 1998. As ColinE66 and jpbro said, the stability of RC5 can be compared with any commercial software(such as Farpoint-Spread I've used for many years), and even far more than Microsoft's DataGrid, FlexGrid and Crystal-Report. I don't understand why you say RC5 is buggy?

    RC5 is the greatest software in the VB world. Can you list a VB product that rivals RC5?

  38. #118
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    2,083

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by jpbro View Post
    ... so I think it is relevant to any discussion of the future of VB6 and how long we'll be sticking with it. I'm pretty sure that I'd have left VB6 a long time ago without it.
    Me too. RC5 is the only reason I decided to continue using VB6. Not only will I continue to use VB6, I'm also teaching my nephew to use VB6 programming.

    IMO, VB6 + RC5 = True-VB7.

    Of course, I'm looking forward to Olaf's VB8.0(64 bit) early release.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Apr 28th, 2018 at 08:45 PM.

  39. #119
    Frenzied Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Posts
    1,055

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    [...]
    Last edited by dz32; Apr 26th, 2019 at 11:21 AM.

  40. #120
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    2,412

    Re: How Many People are Sticking around Until the end of VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by dz32 View Post
    I am impressed wine is up to the task of stably running reliable vb6 backend code.
    I'll preface this by saying that I'm not developing something gigantic like the next Facebook or anything with VB6 under Wine, but I have been very happy with Wine so far (and it keeps getting better). There are few "tricks" to getting things working, but that stuff would probably be best discussed in separate threads.

    I do think that using it for the backend is probably safer/easier than the frontend stuff though - there's no UI/graphics stuff to handle that way, it's mostly just shuffling bits back and forth from storage across the network. The VB6 IDE might still be a problem under Wine (I don't know, I haven't tried it), because I have a feeling the IDE does some "tricky" stuff - even Windows 10 has some problems with it (moving/sizing controls for example).

    So I do all my development on Windows, and then deploy to Linux/Wine for my hosted services. I've only ever had to make one code change for Wine vs. Windows, and I think that may have been fixed in a recent version of Wine.

    One of the things I like about Wine is that you can have per-user installations - so I can have multiple customers' services running on a single VPS very easily.

    Performance is also very good (for my types and scale of workloads at least), so there's been no complaints there.

Page 3 of 9 FirstFirst 123456 ... LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  



Click Here to Expand Forum to Full Width