LET MS know you are using VB6

[Eduardo-]

I agree that it's more nuanced than turning up with large vatfuls of porridge. It's going to require tackling corruption, investment in infrastructure, tackling a variety of diseases, funding education... I could go on listing a bunch of other areas, all of which will require massive investment.

I'm not a Christian (I'm basically agnostic, tending toward atheism) but I really don't understand how you take that quote and twist it to arrive at the conclusion that a new VB6 is a more needful and deserving cause than tackling the suffering of the third world.

I believe it is almost useless to do these kind of things (and probably entirely useless).
You mentioned some of the real problems, still I don't think they go to the root.
Education would be a start.

I've seen some of the pro and con arguments around this get a bit crackpot at times but to compare your plight with that of the third world is a staggering new low.

And do you think that in Africa there aren't programmers ruined by his company?

It is not on his hands to end the hunger in the world, not even being the richest living person. That is in nobody's hands.
But it is on his hands (or more precisely it was -I believe that the time is already over now-) to do the right thing in regards of things that his company did.

[FunkyDexter]

I think I'll simply let your position stand and allow others to judge it on it's merits.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I don't know much about this guy (perhaps as most of the people) but sometimes I thought: Bill Gates has his foundation intended to help people in Africa... if he wants to do some good to humanity, why didn't he start with his clients?
It seems very hypocrite.

I do not know much about this guy (maybe like most people), but sometimes I thought: Bill Gates has his foundation destined to help people in Africa ... if he wanted to do something good for humanity, why didn't he start with his clients?
It seems all very hypocritical.

How did you manage this? We're getting all kinds of duplicate posts, but this is a new one on me. Was this your doing, or something about the forum software? If forum software duplicated your post in a single post...that would be pretty disturbing.

[Shaggy Hiker]

By the way, I had no idea the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation dealt with hunger, so I went looking. Apparently, they had no idea they did that, either, because they don't mention it. Their involvement, which is all over the place, including in the US, is more about medical and economic advancement, and doesn't deal with food. In the US, they appear to mostly be dealing with educational improvements.

So, I guess they agree with you that it is not in their hands to end world hunger.


Would you be better off without Microsoft? Without Microsoft, you certainly wouldn't be complaining about them abandoning VB6, because it never would have existed. There's no similar thing for Apple, Android, or Linux. Did they really harm the world? Are we worse off for having a more or less ubiquitous OS on desktops? That's an interesting debate to have.

[Eduardo-]

How did you manage this? We're getting all kinds of duplicate posts, but this is a new one on me. Was this your doing, or something about the forum software? If forum software duplicated your post in a single post...that would be pretty disturbing.

No, no, no, don't worry.

Sometimes I copy from Google translator.
There was a part of the sentence that I was not sure whether it was well expressed, and I went to Ggogle translator, traslated what I had written in English to Spanish, then I saw it was OK, traslated the Spanish back to English, there were small differences that I liked, then copied back here the double-translation but I forgot to delete the original.
If you compare caresfully you'll notice there are some differences. The first is what I wrote originally, the second is from the translator.

[Eduardo-]

Would you be better off without Microsoft?

Lately I think so. For "lately" I'm talking about days.
Yes, I started to think that we would be better.

I don't know how that situation would be. But there would be a lot of opportunities for sure.

Without Microsoft, you certainly wouldn't be complaining about them abandoning VB6, because it never would have existed.

Yes, and who knows what would be all us doing. Perhaps something for OS2.

There's no similar thing for Apple, Android, or Linux. Did they really harm the world? Are we worse off for having a more or less ubiquitous OS on desktops? That's an interesting debate to have.

Monopolies are most of the times a bad thing.
You could argue that MS is a natural monopoly... but that doesn't make it good.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Monopolies are usually bad....except, I'm kind of wondering if we wouldn't be better off with a single OS.

Back in the early 90s, if I went to the store to buy a computer game, I had to make sure I was in the right section, because there were games for Apple, games for PC, and maybe games for Amiga (I forget when that platform died out). If the game you wanted was written for the platform you had....you were out of luck. There were some Apple games that I would have liked, but I was PC, so that was that.

The same argument could be made for business software at the time. I was using Lotus, which was good on PC, absent on Apple. In another place I was using some biological modeling software which ran only on Macintosh, so I had to find one of those to use, though I had a pretty good PC.

As developers, we'd like to write for the maximum number of people. The fragmentation of the landscape works against our interests, though a monopoly would only support us if the monopoly product was a platform that was good, and without competition, you'd never really know HOW good it was.

I don't have an answer for that, it's just something I've pondered at times. We'd be better off with a consistent platform, but only if it was a good, consistent, platform, and if there was a consistent platform, we'd never know how good it was. So, perhaps we are best off with the scenario we have.

By the way, I'm glad you did that duplication. Those duplicate posts are a nuisance, but if the software could duplicate what you wrote in a single post, that would be seriously annoying for everybody.

[baka]

microsoft is one of the most important happening in the computer history.
they gave us a way to build our own PC and cheaper, to be involved more, not just to buy a "complete" product.
that also pushed competition. others did well, but without microsoft, would others succeed as much?
microsoft is not "perfect", tons of problems, bugs, crappy OS that crashed all the time.
but in the same time, they also gave us a lot. its easier to see all the wrongs.
visualbasic6 is a masterpiece. pity its abandoned by MS, but its not abandoned by us. and theres a reason why.

[Eduardo-]

Monopolies are usually bad....except, I'm kind of wondering if we wouldn't be better off with a single OS.

Back in the early 90s, if I went to the store to buy a computer game, I had to make sure I was in the right section, because there were games for Apple, games for PC, and maybe games for Amiga (I forget when that platform died out). If the game you wanted was written for the platform you had....you were out of luck. There were some Apple games that I would have liked, but I was PC, so that was that.

The same argument could be made for business software at the time. I was using Lotus, which was good on PC, absent on Apple. In another place I was using some biological modeling software which ran only on Macintosh, so I had to find one of those to use, though I had a pretty good PC.

As developers, we'd like to write for the maximum number of people. The fragmentation of the landscape works against our interests, though a monopoly would only support us if the monopoly product was a platform that was good, and without competition, you'd never really know HOW good it was.

I don't have an answer for that, it's just something I've pondered at times. We'd be better off with a consistent platform, but only if it was a good, consistent, platform, and if there was a consistent platform, we'd never know how good it was. So, perhaps we are best off with the scenario we have.

Yes, maybe it was better to have this monopoly these past years.
It would had been like it is now: There are Android, iOS, Linux, Mac and Web. But with even more options.

By the way, I'm glad you did that duplication. Those duplicate posts are a nuisance, but if the software could duplicate what you wrote in a single post, that would be seriously annoying for everybody.

What I experience from the forum update (a month ago or more) is that when I post from a quick reply, then it automatically says that I can't post another message for 30 seconds, but the message was already posted.
I'm quite sure that tha's why you see so many duplicate posts (specially from newcomers), because some people could think that the message was not posted and wait the 30 seconds and send it again.

Also, many times there are several warning messages that appear at the top when I enter a thread.
I can post screenshots if you want.

Edit: the message of 30 seconds doesn't appear always but sometimes.
There is not a coundown. This is the message: "This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between posts. Please try again in 29 seconds."

[NeedSomeAnswers]

The tools for going after the mobile market et al. shouldn't have been the same tools as that of the desktop. They're just too different, and trying to merge them compromised both.

I couldn't disagree more with this statement, i use C# for most of my development and with it i target Desktop (occasionally) and Web & Mobile frequently using the same language for all three is really great.

Although it the same language across the 3 paradigms i have mentioned they all have a fundamental difference in Frameworks.

With Desktop i am targeting Windows Forms, Web - MVC Single page web applications, Mobile - XAML & MVVM, and with the language being the same you can invest your time learning the frameworks and how they work to produce really nice applications.

You don't have to use MS tools there are options out there but my work has led me to using these tools and i am very happy using them also i am very busy, i have a ton of work lined up and i am writing apps that are making my company plenty of money so happy days !

I understand that some people will be eternally frustrated with the decisions MS made in the past but its seems pointless to me 20 years after the last release and 10 years since they withdrew support to still be trying to fight the past.

Decisions have been made new paths have been followed for better or for worse, you dont have to like them (and indeed its clear there are still people who really really hate what happened) but what in the last 10 or 20 years has happened that has given anybody even a slither of hope?

There is nothing wrong with going down all guns blazing on the good ship VB6 if that what you want to do, its your choice (and your life) after all but your just wasting your time if you think any sort of petition is going to help at this point.

MS are investing there money in there latest tooling and thats it, they aren't even investing in the .Net desktop tools any more.

[Eduardo-]

microsoft is one of the most important happening in the computer history.
they gave us a way to build our own PC and cheaper, to be involved more, not just to buy a "complete" product.
that also pushed competition. others did well, but without microsoft, would others succeed as much?
microsoft is not "perfect", tons of problems, bugs, crappy OS that crashed all the time.
but in the same time, they also gave us a lot. its easier to see all the wrongs.
visualbasic6 is a masterpiece. pity its abandoned by MS, but its not abandoned by us. and theres a reason why.

You are talking about the 90's.
I see all wrong with MS is at least the last 15 years.

And the reasons of the success of MS was to invest a lot in publicity and to let people pirate their software.

[Shaggy Hiker]

What I experience from the forum update (a month ago or more) is that when I post from a quick reply, then it automatically says that I can't post another message for 30 seconds, but the message was already posted.
I'm quite sure that tha's why you see so many duplicate posts (specially from newcomers), because some people could think that the message was not posted and wait the 30 seconds and send it again.

Also, many times there are several warning messages that appear at the top when I enter a thread.
I can post screenshots if you want.

Edit: the message of 30 seconds doesn't appear always but sometimes.
There is not a coundown. This is the message: "This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between posts. Please try again in 29 seconds."

There are a few threads on that over in Forum Feedback. You will ALWAYS get a duplicate, plus one of those PHP Warning messages, if you use the HIGHLIGHT tags. You will usually get a duplicate otherwise...except in Chit-Chat, where you NEVER get a duplicate unless you force it with the HIGHLIGHT tags. That's a pretty suggestive pattern, yet it still remains.

Hopefully, this will get fixed.

[jmcilhinney]

I do not know much about this guy (maybe like most people), but sometimes I thought: Bill Gates has his foundation destined to help people in Africa ... if he wanted to do something good for humanity, why didn't he start with his clients?
It seems all very hypocritical.

I don't believe he could be doing any good in Africa while he is ruining other people's lives with his company decissions. Got the point?

What a complete and utter disgrace.

[Eduardo-]

What a complete and utter disgrace.

What do you mean?

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'd say he was referring to Bill Gates trying to help people in a variety of ways when he is also responsible for Microsoft. I'm pretty puzzled at how you find the two to be related, or even vaguely equivalent, even if you hate Microsoft for some reason.

[Eduardo-]

I'd say he was referring to Bill Gates trying to help people in a variety of ways when he is also responsible for Microsoft. I'm pretty puzzled at how you find the two to be related, or even vaguely equivalent, even if you hate Microsoft for some reason.

For me they are obviously related: if you want to help people then start with the people you already have a relation.
What is difficult to understand of that? (it seems more than obvious to me)

[FunkyDexter]

I'm quite sure that tha's why you see so many duplicate posts (specially from newcomers), because some people could think that the message was not posted and wait the 30 seconds and send it again.

The best theory we have is that it always tries to double post. For most members that will manifest as a "you can't post for 30 seconds" message in response to the second post. Mods (and some senior members I think) have the right to double post so both appear in the page. Practically every post I make doubles up and I have to delete one of them afterwards. It's frustrating to say the least.

microsoft is one of the most important happening in the computer history.
they gave us a way to build our own PC and cheaper, to be involved more, not just to buy a "complete" product.
that also pushed competition. others did well, but without microsoft, would others succeed as much?
microsoft is not "perfect", tons of problems, bugs, crappy OS that crashed all the time.
but in the same time, they also gave us a lot. its easier to see all the wrongs.
visualbasic6 is a masterpiece. pity its abandoned by MS, but its not abandoned by us. and theres a reason why.

That pretty much sums up my view. I don't pretend it was all out of the goodness of their hearts but Microsoft did a massive amount to advance our industry. At times they were pretty monopolistic and predatory (anyone remember the IE bundling debacles) and at times weirdly beneficent (bailing out Apple when they were as good as dead in the 90s). Overall, though, I think they've done a whole lot more good than harm.

I don't like monopolies on the whole but one thing they are good for is driving single standards. The IT industry was in dire need of that in the 90s. To be honest, I think we're in dire need again now - at least in the mobile market. It's looking like Google are going to be our most likely saviours there. God help us.

I won't comment further on the whole Bill Gates foundation thing because it'll just derail the thread. It might be worth taking over to the world events forum in ChitChat though. We haven't had a good bust up in there for ages and I reckon this'd be a doozy.

[Eduardo-]

Unfortunately nobody told me that it was something so idiotic to spend years learning a language that was closed source from an company (I was going to say from "an evil company" but saying just from "a company" seems now enough reason).
I was younger and I didn't realize what I was doing.

But I think I realized of that 13 years ago already, the issue is "what to do then?".
So far I've been working in VB6 because I had projects to work on, but now...

Edit: anyway, I enjoyed it. I'll consider that I did it for fun. The issue is that now I need to make money.

[dilettante]

The money isn't in programming as such anymore. That has been so outsourced and offshored and undermined to the point where flipping burgers makes almost as much sense.

The money seems to be in creating tinker toy disposable stuff now like scripting language du jour. To keep the money rolling in you have to be careful to create new incompatible versions, forks, or just dump it all as unsupported on a rapid schedule.

Just look at Python Documentation by Version. Or .Net, or TypeScript, etc.

[FunkyDexter]

nobody told me that it was something so idiotic to spend years learning a language

I don't think that was idiotic at all. I think it was a smart choice learning to program at all. I spent most of my 20s answering the phones in a British Gas call centre and I count myself lucky that I found programming in my late 20s. Believe me, any kind of programming job is better than that.

And it certainly wasn't wasted effort because now you're got choices. You can stick with VB6, embrace one of the "next VB6" projects that community members are pursuing or move to another language entirely. Whichever of these options you pick, VB6 has given you a wealth of experience and skills that will stand you in good stead. Be grateful for that, and then look to the future and make a choice about which way to jump. You're as well equipped as any of us to make that choice. None of us have crystal balls.

anyway, I enjoyed it. I'll consider that I did it for fun.

Now that is the best reason you'll ever find. If you're passionate about programming you probably be good at programming.

[Eduardo-]

I don't think that was idiotic at all. I think it was a smart choice learning to program at all. I spent most of my 20s answering the phones in a British Gas call centre and I count myself lucky that I found programming in my late 20s. Believe me, any kind of programming job is better than that.

I also started with VB in my late 20s and before that I worked in electronics.
I liked programming much, much more than electronics.
In the last years in electronics I had repaired TVs, something that I never liked. I enjoy making new things, not repairing.

And it certainly wasn't wasted effort because now you're got choices. You can stick with VB6, embrace one of the "next VB6" projects that community members are pursuing or move to another language entirely. Whichever of these options you pick, VB6 has given you a wealth of experience and skills that will stand you in good stead. Be grateful for that, and then look to the future and make a choice about which way to jump. You're as well equipped as any of us to make that choice. None of us have crystal balls.

I would probably had developed skills if I had chosen other programming language. I'm not sure how much merit had VB6 on that I learned to program.

Now I can say that I like it and I don't like semicolons and curly braces, but I can't say what would had happened if VB6 didn't exist (I mean: maybe I would be used to them).

About where to go now... my current idea is that the future is with Web Apps. I think that I would prefer to invest time in learning something to work on Web Apps.

Web Apps will run on any device. And it is much more difficult that a company could render the techology you invested years obsolete. But of course take care to use open source techonology.

[Shaggy Hiker]

In my case, I dabbled in both ASM and C++, but got paid for things in...well, Quattro Pro....then VBA, then VB6, then VB.NET. I think that dabbling in ASM and C++ was a good thing in some ways, but bad in some others. I always wanted VB6 to be structured more like C++, which meant that moving to VB.NET had no real learning curve. However, my latest program was written in JavaScript, and I also did a trivial app in PHP. It just seems to me that programming is programming. The big divide is block structure (or whatever it's called) over to OO. C++ and .NET are totally OO (everything is an object), while there aren't really any widely popular, block structured languages that I can think of at the moment. JS isn't block structured or OO, it's just weird. Instead of everything is an object, JS says that everything is....oh never mind, it can be whatever you want at any time. It could be an object, a function, an integer, and change from one to the other. Strange doggone language.

My point is that programming is the skill, the language is just a detail, as is the IDE. MS makes the best IDEs, these days, but you still have to learn the idiosyncrasies of the language syntax. The programming sill remains the same. You are still painting pictures with logic, your brushes have just changed a bit.

[Eduardo-]

I think that there is a percentage of the expertise that is for programming in general (what you say), some percentage is for Windows and some percentage is for the language itself.

For example, it might be:
70% of the skill acquired is for programming.
10% is for Windows (knowing APIs, window messages, how things work, Etc.)
20% for the particular language

Still, when starting with something new you know nothing. It is not that you'll be able to do the 70%.

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's true, but it also means that the learning curve is a whole lot less steep. You know the structure of what you want, you just have to figure the constructs in the current language and for the current OS. It isn't nothing, but it isn't as bad as needing to learn that AND needing to learn how to structure a program. Furthermore, if you stick to Windows desktop, you can drop that 10%, as well.

I find that if you understand the fundamentals of programming, you can step to some pretty peculiar platforms with ease. I programmed CR-10 dataloggers, which have a language all their own. Byte codes, really, so it's more like coding in machine language against a VERY small instruction set. I also programmed a short-lived robotic controller, which used what they called "VB6", but it wasn't. I can't say what it really was. They took a stripped-down VB6 syntax and translated it into C for use on a PIC micro controller. Interesting stuff, and just barely useful.

[baka]

i started with Amos in amiga500 to turbo pascal when Dos and later ada in unix and visual basic when Windows and a bit of java and other script languages.
the thing is that when u get used to something its harder to start from scratch. im so used and addicted to vb6 that its not easy to start with something else.
people here told me, why vb6 when u dont use the common controls, but for me its not that part that i like, never did actually. but its something with the language itself that i enjoy.

[VB6 Programming]

I understand that some people will be eternally frustrated with the decisions MS made in the past but its seems pointless to me 20 years after the last release and 10 years since they withdrew support to still be trying to fight the past.

Decisions have been made new paths have been followed for better or for worse, you dont have to like them (and indeed its clear there are still people who really really hate what happened) but what in the last 10 or 20 years has happened that has given anybody even a slither of hope?

There is nothing wrong with going down all guns blazing on the good ship VB6 if that what you want to do, its your choice (and your life) after all but your just wasting your time if you think any sort of petition is going to help at this point.

MS are investing there money in there latest tooling and thats it, they aren't even investing in the .Net desktop tools any more.

Don't forget, VB6 still works just fine. The IDE and the apps work Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, just like they worked on every version of Windows since Windows 95. And the programs you wrote for Windows 95 can be brought forward to Windows 10 without change, or updated to a modern look and feel if you prefer. Microsoft still support VB6 too https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pre...support-policy

We can quite happily carry on using VB6 until Windows desktop is no more. It isn't a case of going down with the good ship VB6, more likely that Windows itself will run aground one day.

Until that happens VB6 will continue to be used (often with the extra features found in this forums codebank).

But we would like the same changes that Microsoft added to VB6's sister language VBA. There are only a handful of changes (mainly for 64 bit). Olaf Schmidt outlined the changes in post #35.
This is, for Microsoft, a relatively small cost. A tiny fraction of what whey have wasted on other projects.

Your point "your just wasting your time if you think any sort of petition is going to help at this point" is understood, but don't forget it is pressure put on Microsoft over the years (admittedly they listen to large enterprises more than individual users) that has kept VB6 support in each new release of Windows.

A recent Cloud Foundry survey showing the top 10 languages for Enterprise Development is interesting...

1. Java ................58%
2. JavaScript ........57%
3. C++ ................46%
4. C# ..................26%
5. Python .............25%
6. PHP .................22%
7. VB.NET.............17%
8. C ....................16%
9. Visual Basic 6 ...16%
10. VBA ................15%

Not only does it show VB6 almost as popular as VB.Net in Enterprises, it shows VB6+VBA combined as more popular than C#.

The request for Microsoft to update VB6 is here https://developercommunity.visualstu...grade-vb6.html

[Shaggy Hiker]

But that survey is being used in a misleading fashion, just as Tiobe has been. You have no idea what that survey means because they didn't publish their methodology. The most obvious reading of what little they did publish is that all they are showing is what languages are still being used by companies. That doesn't mean new development. It doesn't necessarily mean much of anything. I still have VB6 applications that I support, so if I were asked, I might list VB6, but I haven't written a new program in VB6 since 2003. Therefore, I don't think that anybody would see my use of VB6 as equivalent of my use of .NET or JS, both of which I have used to write programs. They might not even see it the same as my use of PHP, which I have written in within the last five years, though it was trivial.

Based on what little was published, we can't tell whether they are using those languages for new development, maintenance, or both. That's significant, because it has to do with moving forwards. There are likely millions of programs out there that are only in maintenance mode. There may be millions of VB6 programs out there that are only in maintenance mode. If the survey shows CURRENT development, then there is a case for advancement, if the survey shows both current and maintenance, then it says nothing. In fact, it pretty much says nothing about anything to anybody. If all the VB6 is maintenance and all the new development is C#, then that would be considerably different than if it was all current development. The way the survey was reported on, we have no idea.

In short: It's either a bad study or it's a bad report of a good study...or both.

[quickbbbb]

A recent Cloud Foundry survey showing the top 10 languages for Enterprise Development is interesting...

1. Java ................58%
2. JavaScript ........57%
3. C++ ................46%
4. C# ..................26%
5. Python .............25%
6. PHP .................22%
7. VB.NET.............17%
8. C ....................16%
9. Visual Basic 6 ...16%
10. VBA ................15%

please tell me URL of top 10 data is where

thank you

[Shaggy Hiker]

Don't use it. Without the necessary context, it is only being used incorrectly.

[VB6 Programming]

please tell me URL of top 10 data is where

thank you

https://www.cloudfoundry.org/wp-cont...port_FINAL.pdf

[VB6 Programming]

Don't use it. Without the necessary context, it is only being used incorrectly.

The survey describes itself as tracking

the languages used most frequently for application development among enterprise developers worldwide.

Interesting to note that (in common with some other surveys) Java and JavaScript are way ahead of the pack. In North America Javascript scores 67% to Java's 58%.

They do emphasize that a language's tier or grouping is more relevant than simple numerical ranking. So C#, Python and PHP are all regarded as 'Tier 3' languages.

The survey looked at over 25 languages, but over half of those were used so infrequently as to receive a single digit percentage.

[DllHell]

The money isn't in programming as such anymore.

wat

The money seems to be in creating tinker toy disposable stuff now like scripting language du jour. To keep the money rolling in you have to be careful to create new incompatible versions, forks, or just dump it all as unsupported on a rapid schedule.

This is a management problem. The people at the top can't make technical evaluations so the programmers pad their resumes with the latest tech before moving on to the next lucrative gig. It's never been a better time to be a programmer.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The survey describes itself as tracking

Yeah, they make the statement you quote, but the rest of the document muddies the water consistently. That's the problem I have with it. Their section on methodology is totally deficient, and I have a deep mistrust of surveys where you can't see the questions asked. They don't seem clear as to whether they are talking about new development or maintenance. All they talk about is working with a language. Aside from that one statement, they seem particularly fuzzy about their definition of "application development". For one thing, they clearly use "developer" to mean programmer. That's pretty common, but misleading. You program if you are doing maintenance, but you develop new software. You can be a developer and do either new or maintenance, especially if your definition of developer is programmer, as it clearly is with that group.

So, since they are using developer as programmer, do they really mean new development when they talk about application development? It may well be that they do, but it's equally likely that they do not.

They also seem to have a focus on cloud, which is not a place for VB6. So, when they talk about the increase of polyglot practices, they explicitly say that it is enabled by the move towards cloud-native practices, which is a move that would exclude VB6.

Then there's this quote, that you touched on briefly:

Overall, IT Decision Makers (ITDMs) report
using over 25 total languages—but over half of
those languages are used so infrequently as to
receive a single digit percentage.

They talk of using a whole bunch of languages. They don't talk of new development in those languages, just using them. They also talk about some "used so infrequently", which sure doesn't sound like new development, to me.

So, your interpretation may be correct, but the fuzziness in the language and the lack of methodology (what they included was laughable) leaves the whole thing unclear. It didn't have to be that way, but it is. Reading anything much into that study is pretty dangerous, especially if you read more than "Java and JS are pretty ubiquitous." Beyond that one statement, I wouldn't put much stock in any particular interpretation of those results unless I saw the questions being asked.

[FunkyDexter]

From the survey notes:-

The quantitative portion of the GPS consisted of a global survey of IT Decision Makers from March 19th to 28th. The survey consisted of 601 respondents from a leading global online panel provider. Respondents were selected from the panel provider based on geographic and role-based quotas, as well as screening questions based on role in IT, decision-making role, company size, and how long they have been in IT. Selected respondents were further screened based on self-reported IT knowledge and attentiveness to survey questions. These interviews were distributed across four major IT Decision Maker roles: Developers, Ops, IT manager and Line of Business.

Two things anyone who deals with statistics should go looking for whenever they see "survey results": the sample size and the possibility of selection bias.

The survey size was 607 respondents. Is that a large enough dataset to draw conclusions about the millions of IT professionals out there, particularly when given the range of possible factors that could affect the responses? I would argue not.

Re the possibility of selection bias, there simply isn't enough information given here to say. It gives a bunch of criteria used to screen them but gives no information about how those criteria were applied. E.g. it says they were screened by geographical area. That hopefully means they were taken as a representative cross sample of all areas but it could equally or was it limited entirely to Silicon Valley and a small village outside Nantwich. It says they were screened by how long they've been in IT. Does that mean they only took respondents who had a certain level of experience, a representative cross section, or just hungry young bucks who were still cutting their teeth?

The survey is probably a good indication of activity... probably. But given the published information it's impossible to say for sure. I certainly wouldn't base my business decisions on it without accessing the underlying data first and, given the sample size, I'd still be sceptical then.

And Shaggy has also touched on the problem with not seeing the questions asked. This isn't particularly useful without a definition of terms.

[Elroy]

Two things anyone who deals with statistics should go looking for whenever they see "survey results": the sample size and the possibility of selection bias.

Okay, I was staying out of this one, but you hit directly on one of my strongest suits. Strictly speaking "selection bias" isn't a statistics problem. It's a methodology problem, which can't be answered with statistics. Ideally, we'd find every programmer in the world who meet our inclusion criteria, and then randomly sample from those to gather our polling sample. However, that's often impractical, so we use panels and other methods to derive a quasi-random-sample. And it's always an open question as to how well these quasi-random-samples actually represent our true population (i.e., all the programmers with certain criteria). And, for those reasons, I'll leave that as an outstanding question.

Now, the sample size certainly is a statistics question. Specifically, it has to do with something called "Statistical Power". Basically, this is how well any particular sample is able to estimate the entire population. For the Cloud Foundry survey, they just gave us the descriptive statistics (i.e., the percentages) derived from the sample. However, based on the sample size, they could have provided something called Confidence Intervals (usually established as 95% Confidence Intervals).

Using the reported percentages, I worked up a mock-dataset with 97 users using VB6 and 510 not using VB6 (totaling 607). This was as close as I could get to the reported 16% VB6 users. (We'll notice that their data total to >100%, but that shouldn't bother us.)

I did all of this because, to my eyes, a dataset of N=607 wasn't too bad. I threw the mock-dataset into SPSS and ran a Confidence Interval. It turned out that, in the population (yes, given that the panel accurately represents the population), approximately between 13.2% and 19.0% of programmers should be expected to use VB6.



Yeah, it's a bit of a range, but it's not too bad.

Take Care,
Elroy

EDIT1: And even if the "True" answer is at the low end of the range (13.2%), that's still a fairly impressive number for a 20 year old programming language.

[VB6 Programming]

It's a survey

In the context I used it

don't forget it is pressure put on Microsoft over the years (admittedly they listen to large enterprises more than individual users) that has kept VB6 support in each new release of Windows.

it doesn't really matter whether we are talking of new development or maintenance.
That it is in major use by enterprises is a (the?) reason that Microsoft keeps VB6 running on each new release of Windows.

That it tracks

the languages used most frequently for application development among enterprise developers worldwide.

tells us enough.

If you need further details or need definitions of the words "developer" and "development" ask the Cloud Foundry Foundation or Clear Path Strategies.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would argue that in the way you want it to be used, to put pressure on MS, then new development or maintenance is the WHOLE question.

My reasoning is this: We all know that VB6 can still be used, and programs written in VB6 still work, right through modern Windows (with all the annual release flavors). So, if all you are doing is maintenance, then you have no need for a new VB6, or any changes to the existing VB6. It already works, it still works, so why change it? If you have a 20 year old LOB application, you don't care one whit about moving it to 64-bit. That gains you nothing at all. Furthermore, if any new VB6 introduced even a single bug that impacted you, it would be a net negative, because what you have currently doesn't have that bug. You would only need a new VB6 if you are trying to do something that the current VB6 does not.

So, if all you are talking about is maintenance of long-standing VB6 programs (which is all I have), then that's not an argument FOR a change from MS, that's an argument AGAINST a change. The argument for a change is an argument if and only if you want to do something that the current VB6 doesn't already do. Otherwise, you shouldn't even WANT to change. That's actually why I still have a project in VS2010. For other projects, I use VS2017, because there are features (like a really good JS editor) that didn't exist in VS2010, but for the project I keep in VS2010, I keep it there because it has what I need for that project, and VS2010 was the best version of VS ever released (that's my opinion, of course, and is based on a variety of factors, but I stand by it). I could move the project to VS2017, and it would be painless to do so, but why? The same argument can be made if all you are doing with a VB6 project is maintenance.

Thus, if you want to make your case with MS, you need to be talking about new development, and that survey doesn't really help because it can be so easily interpreted to fit whatever inclination you have. It may very well be that they are talking about new development. Had they published their methodology and their questions, we'd be able to make an informed decision on that. As it stands, we can't, so the survey is useless.

[Elroy]

Shaggy,

Your argument in post #117 doesn't hold for me. My primary project is a very richly featured and robust project that would take many months to transition to .NET. Therefore, I'm stuck with VB6. However, this project is also still very much under development, with updates released every few months. Furthermore, much of the reporting is achieved through Word and Excel automation.

What I'd like more than anything is to be able to offer a 64-bit version of this project, and to continue development for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions (hopefully with the same source code as is possible with the VBA).

Also, possibly someday, the 32-bit version could be abandoned, carrying only the 64-bit version forward, but that would still be a few years out.

And, just to say it, for my application, I'm totally comfortable staying within a Windows environment, as are my clients.

I don't really know, but I suspect many here on this forum feel the same way. We'd just like to be developing for the most modern hardware and Windows OS (without using the WoW mode), and still use the VB6 syntax.

Best Regards,
Elroy

[DEXWERX]

Other than say compatibility with Office 64 VBA,
What are the advantages of going 64bit?

[VB6 Programming]

I don't really know, but I suspect many here on this forum feel the same way. We'd just like to be developing for the most modern hardware and Windows OS (without using the WoW mode), and still use the VB6 syntax.

Exactly that.
I have projects that are sold commercially, and are continually updated. They run on Windows desktops using SQL Server or Oracle databases.
I too would like to be able to offer 64 bit versions.
Certainly I can't justify rewriting the software in some other language. (There is a JavaScript app for remote inquiry).
I've already had to rewrite the mobile component (it was in VB.Net on Windows Mobile devices) to be a hybrid JavaScript app on Android devices.