as you know, the VB6 is almost 20-years-old, it's the best IDE on the earth, but it also has some problem, just like cannot debug the multithread project ,and you can't written the UTF-8 code or strings in it's source editer, and even could not support X64, it is the time to change it , I hope some master level programer to make a new version of VB6 (IDE and compiler), it's a greate project, would you join in ?
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
VB6 is a great language and builds small fast exes.
The IDE is definitely not the greatest on earth though.
Every time I work in VB6 I find myself missing features that are in my other IDEs and do not exist in the VB6 IDE.
The VB.Net IDE is improved over the one with VB6. Would be great to have those little extras in the VB6 IDE
Probably the features I miss the most are the tabbed code window, auto code formatting and the ability to add #Region tags and collapse the code for a region, function or sub to a single line.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
I like "I LOVE"'s response....
Go ahead...we can test it!
~smile~
(PS-there is NO WAY I could even add anything to something like that....WAY too inexperienced and not trained at all in VB6. I only do the 'simple' things.)
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
I probably should point out that VB7 already exists as does VB 8,9,10 and so on they just use the .Net framework starting at version 7 on up to the current version.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
VB6 and VB.NET are two completely different languages, like two people called Tom, but they are very strange people. Maybe the OP wants to say the *TRUE VB7*
Last edited by dreammanor; Mar 17th, 2017 at 10:16 AM.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by dreammanor
VB6 and VB.NET are two completely different languages
Not really, both are made by MS, both carry the Visual Basic name, both use a visual interface and Basic syntax hence Visual Basic
VB7 is different than VB6 true just as VB6 is different from VB3 which is different from VBDos but all are VB
btw I would imagine that most don't know this but VBDos was capable of building true stand alone exe files.
I think that is the only version that could do so.
Last edited by DataMiser; Mar 17th, 2017 at 10:48 AM.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by DataMiser
Not really, both are made by MS, both carry the Visual Basic name, both use a visual interface and Basic syntax hence Visual Basic
VB7 is different than VB6 true just as VB6 is different from VB3 which is different from VBDos but all are VB
btw I would imagine that most don't know this but VBDos was capable of building true stand alone exe files.
I think that is the only version that could do so.
what exactly do you mean with "true stand alone EXE"?
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by DEXWERX
not depending on a VM or runtime.
ahhh, but IIRC not a single moderm language version does that. no .net any language, etc.
The only problem with that is when you do INSTALLERs, I had to use an external tool like SmartInstaller (a piesce of **** which does unsignable EXEs , by implementing a CRC which is NOT optional), well, that sucks, but today's PCs every PC has already the vb6 runtime dll, si that was more of a problem in the XP era.
Last edited by flyguille; Mar 17th, 2017 at 01:15 PM.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by DEXWERX
not depending on a VM or runtime.
Not true, at all.
It just statically linked the runtime into every program you compiled. That didn't matter as much in the DOS era since you basically only ran one program at a time, so why not waste the memory?
DLLs are shared, so many instances can make use of the same loaded image. This doesn't matter much to Joe Plinker, but if you are creating and using a lot of DLLs and OCXs or writing server-side code it becomes a burden.
Since Windows has shipped with the VB6 runtime for a very long time now this is hardly any kind of detriment anyway.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
I don't know a single thing not doable in VB6, but it is more hard to do some things.
By example, for doing Dynamic DLL linking on demand without a given model.
I did in mASM a little assembler routine wich take 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7 32bits parameters, which the two first are pointers to encrypted strings which contain the library name and function name which to call.
and the callable system dlls are of none, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 parameters.
So it acts like a wrapper for the call , no stack problems, etc. As in VB6 is only able to call to 4 parametters functions dinamically.
And why?, because I didn't wanted the "STRING" with the function name be hardcoded visible in the EXE file.
Last edited by si_the_geek; Mar 18th, 2017 at 05:05 PM.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by dilettante
Not true, at all.
It just statically linked the runtime into every program you compiled.
Hence the term "stand alone". But now you're arguing the semantics, of whether or not an app is dependent on a runtime if it's statically linked.
technically yes - but practically speaking, who cares?
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by dilettante
Not true, at all.
It just statically linked the runtime into every program you compiled. That didn't matter as much in the DOS era since you basically only ran one program at a time, so why not waste the memory?
DLLs are shared, so many instances can make use of the same loaded image. This doesn't matter much to Joe Plinker, but if you are creating and using a lot of DLLs and OCXs or writing server-side code it becomes a burden.
Since Windows has shipped with the VB6 runtime for a very long time now this is hardly any kind of detriment anyway.
To embed the runtime should be an optional feature.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
When I say the VB7 it means "the turely upgrade of VB6", it inherits all of VB6's features and canbe compiled as native-code(against the P-code) which can run more fast, and not need the .net framework.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Isn't this discussion on what it should be capable of and what it's name could be a little to early.
Is vb56390 capable of creating an IDE with more functionality than the VB6 IDE?
Is vb56390 capable of writing a parser and compiler for all said functionality?
I wouldn't bet on it.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by Arnoutdv
Isn't this discussion on what it should be capable of and what it's name could be a little to early.
Is vb56390 capable of creating an IDE with more functionality than the VB6 IDE?
Is vb56390 capable of writing a parser and compiler for all said functionality?
I wouldn't bet on it.
My guess is no... he doesn't. My second guess is that he (and probably most people in this thread) don't know what it takes to make a first class compiler that's as good as VB6 is. And that's just the compiler. there's also the editor to contend with. And just to make it a little more fun, integrated debugging.
So the question is:
Since it needs to do what VB6 does now, plus more... that's where it needs to start... building a compiler that will do what VB6 does now... that's your baseline, once you have a compiler that can do what VB6 does now... then and only then can you talk about taking it to the next step.
My guess: even just getting a VB6 compiler up and running, will fail.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Originally Posted by Eduardo-
Why?
Because there is already a VB7 which is a rewrite of VB6. So best to identify that it will be an extension of VB6 and not VB7 (.NET), a different name would be best.
Now this I know has already been done quite well with years of work. Perhaps I can get Joacim Andersson to chime in on his work on Script Brix™.
VB/Office Guru™ (AKA: Gangsta Yoda™ ®)
I dont answer coding questions via PM. Please post a thread in the appropriate forum.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
Joacim Andersson has developed a scriptBrix similar to VB6. I can't open his link "ScriptBrix for VB developers". I would like to know whether ScriptBrix is 64-bit or 32-bit?
It is the dream of many VB6 programmers to develop or use "True VB7". If there is an IT giants to sponsor this project, maybe it can really succeed.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
I dont recall all of Visual Basics history, but Bill Gates had a lot to do with BASIC. I believe BASIC was originally designed by someone before Gates, but Bill did a lot with it. True Visual Basic died when Gates stepped-down from microsoft and Balmer took over. Thats when .Net came to play. I think Visual Basic was Gates' baby. He had a lot of success with it. Seems when he left MS, so did BASIC.
If Bill was able to continue BASIC and make it better (and easier) back when he first got into computers, then perhaps someone can take over from where he left off.
Correct me if I'm wrong on my history though.......
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
You give Bill Gates more credit than he deserves. Basic was around for a decade before Gates started work on his first interpreter.
What killed Basic for Microsoft was the decision to hire Anders Hejlsberg, who had a grudge against Basic for a long time. VB in particular stuck in his craw because it meant users could finally move to Windows, leaving his cruddy DOS Turbo Pascal in the dust. He tried to fire another volley with his ill-fated "VB Killer" project, which became Delphi. Delphi was never successful on a large scale.
VJ++ was his second attempt to kill VB. When that landed Microsoft in court he quickly started rubbing the serial numbers off it and huddled with a team of lawyers and bribesters to pay off Sun and rebirth it as C#, his 3rd attempt to kill VB.
Finally he huddled with FoxPro folks and created the incompatible VB.Net, meant to strike a final blow at VB. This was used as an excuse to halt the VB 7.0 effort, and stole its name.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
My penny's worth if you do not mind:
I started programming in Basic on one of the first PC's named Wang (1974) with a small cassette tape for data storage - the language resided in ROM, like the first Apple some years later. However, when the first DOS came out, I bought one of the first Basic80 and DOS PC's named Superbrain in 1974 - with two floppy disks of 720 Kbyte each.
Since VB.NET came out I have tried 12 times to convert to it, and although I got to know it quite well at one stage, it irritated me, because it did not have the power of VB6 - even today.
If you wish to build a motorcar by buying a chassis, gearbox and engine, then VB.NET is your partner, but just do not say that you built it yourself. Framework did it for you.
As for myself, my love for programming started in 1968 on a mainframe with Fortran, which taught me to build a car by using nuts, washers and bolts and spanners.
I still wait for something better than VB6 which has tabs, #Regions and a few other things, but I will never let go of MSHFlexgrid and Gosub and will remain a VB6 junkie.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
A possible development for VB7 is to emit WebAssembly/JS for node/electron. These would act like a promising booster-rockets for the language to fly. Clearly a LLVM/C emitting backend would be great too.
But this is not an overnight project and needs a team of experienced devs. Someone who has done some work on compilers/IDEs/debuggers frontends and backends. Probably a simple VBScript-to-C compiler is a necessary roadblock for VB7 to fork and extend and even this "simple" VBScript transpiler seems like a lot of work.
For IDE/debugger implementation better would be to use/integrate with VSCode, get some know-how from their APIs for debuggers support (sourcemap files, whatever) and implement form/control designers like an extension to the editor.
Re: How about we make a VB7 (upgrade version of VB6)
I have heard some people wants to write VB6.1 or VB7 in cooperation just like vb56390
if all of you can cooperate, non-official VB7 maybe come out sooner or later
For the rest of us, we can hope
If there is something I can help, I would like to do it.