Open Reply to User V(ery) Basic

I don't want to start a fire fight, but I feel this is something that has to be addressed. First I will give my opinion on VB and then answer some questions put forward by V(ery) Basic in another thread.

VB is a simple tool to allow you to create quick and dirty apps for a Wintel system. It is a GUI step up from shell scripting. I do see uses for VB, but just like shell scripting, you must remember your limits. Serious, commercial grade programming should be done in a more robust language; C/C++, Visual C. Web development should be done in Java, Perl, or whatever that ASP stuff is.

Now to reply to V(ery)'s points:

"If you use C++ or stuff like that, you have to learn so much just to write a program that would take 1 minute in VB. All the classes and stuff just make it impossible. Oh, and C++ files are quite big, because they don't need any special DLLs. I just thought I'd mention that."

True, you have to learn more to use C++. VB is, as I said before, quick and dirty. Here your advantage with C/C++ is, portablity and functionality. If you want to write exclusively for Wintel boxes (then you have more serious problems), fine. You may not need C/C++.

"Oh, and by the way, what are these bad habits you pick up in VB? I'd like to know so that I don't pick them up myself"

A few habits that you pick up with VB, having no prior experience:
- Too much reliance on the Variant class
- Dependence on End Loop or Goto. These hurt OO.
- You don't experience certain fun tricks, short circuiting, pointers (anonymous data structures, functions, and arrays of objects pointing to each other), bitwise operations, null filehandles. Some of these I have to believe are possible in VB. But I have yet to see it, or find doco on it. But that is still my biggest gripe about VB. Every book ever published on the language is lame. Even the O'Rielly ones.
- Lack of concern for portablity issues

VB has OO potential. But it is a step behind C/C++. You shouldn't get used to VBs take on the world. It is simplified just enough to make it easier and faster to program with.

I'm sure there are other bad habits you'd develop. I started with C++ when I started serious programming, so I missed all that. I still have some bad habits of my own. I get caught up in banging out the code, that I don't immediately see where I should shuffle code to functions for modularity. I also don't comment any thing. I am very much of the mind set that if you don't know what the code is doing, don't touch it. I need to get out of that and into the mind set of, TIAMTOW (there is always more than one way). In TIAMTOW I put comments because you may expect me to do something different because it is how you would have addressed the issue.

I have a few friends who have no un*x or programming background, and they are happy that VB7 will have "much more functionality." All I have to say is, if you find yourself unable to do something with the language, then it is time to move on. VB is still BASIC, and should be used as a stepping stone.

Regretably, I can't get VB to ftp, and I can't do this in any other language (Perl/TK) because I am trying to finish this project, turn it over, and get the hell out of here. And these people have very limited computer background, they are grappling to learn VB. You think they could learn Perl?

What a lovely speech. Congratulate yourself on understanding some clever computing terms but give yourself nought out of ten for your valid pointmaking skills.

VB is a high level language, it doesn't claim to be anything else, I could probably give a very similar speech on why you shouldn't use C or C++ you should use ASM, the fact is VB is a very fast way to design front ends, and for that it is great. This is Windows Programming, the whole Idea of windows programming is that all programs have the same UI and that is why VB is fairly restrictive, as for pointers etc, who cares, If I need the programming speed advandages of using pointers then I'll write a C++ back end, while I admit VB is weak for bitwise operations and there are a couple of things you just can't do, there is very little a VB front end can't do if it has a C++ backend, that's what COM is for.

as for your bad habit list I'm happy to say I never use varients, I keep my programs as OO as possible and I have never used End Loop or Goto. I also had a full understanding of pointers, bitwise operations and the like before I started to program in C++ oh and my apps are commented fully and I always think about code before I write it.

VB is an exelent tool to design apps quickly and consistantly,
all you are doing by voicing those opinions is showing your ignorance about the power of VB and the place it has in modern development.

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Originally posted by ptgThug
I don't want to start a fire fight, but

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... you're going to anyway.

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VB is a simple tool to allow you to create quick and dirty apps for a Wintel system. It is a GUI step up from shell scripting. I do see uses for VB, but just like shell scripting, you must remember your limits. Serious, commercial grade programming should be done in a more robust language; C/C++, Visual C. Web development should be done in Java, Perl, or whatever that ASP stuff is.

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What rubbish. VB isn't simple. You can write simple applications using it, yes, OTOH you can write very complicated programs too. I do agree however that VB does have it's problems and limits, but so does C and C++. C doesn't have classes, C++ produces bloated executables. What is this Visual C you mention btw? ITYM C++.

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Now to reply to V(ery)'s points:

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"If you use C++ or stuff like that, you have to learn so much just to write a program that would take 1 minute in VB. All the classes and stuff just make it impossible. Oh, and C++ files are quite big, because they don't need any special DLLs. I just thought I'd mention that."

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True, you have to learn more to use C++. VB is, as I said before, quick and dirty. Here your advantage with C/C++ is, portablity and functionality. If you want to write exclusively for Wintel boxes (then you have more serious problems), fine. You may not need C/C++.

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Two things - quick and dirty is a result of the programmer, not his/her tools, and C and C++ are not the only languages that aren't cross platform. (VB on Mac's anyone?).

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"Oh, and by the way, what are these bad habits you pick up in VB? I'd like to know so that I don't pick them up myself"

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A few habits that you pick up with VB, having no prior experience:
- Too much reliance on the Variant class
- Dependence on End Loop or Goto. These hurt OO.
- You don't experience certain fun tricks, short circuiting, pointers (anonymous data structures, functions, and arrays of objects pointing to each other), bitwise operations, null filehandles. Some of these I have to believe are possible in VB. But I have yet to see it, or find doco on it. But that is still my biggest gripe about VB. Every book ever published on the language is lame. Even the O'Rielly ones.
- Lack of concern for portablity issues

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How is the lack of experience of 'fun tricks'(?!?) a bad habit? I'm of the opinion that over dependance on certain of these tricks is a bad habit.

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VB has OO potential. But it is a step behind C/C++. You shouldn't get used to VBs take on the world. It is simplified just enough to make it easier and faster to program with.

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You can write OO code in any language. However your mention of C in this paragraph is IMHO flawed. C was not designed as an OO language.

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I'm sure there are other bad habits you'd develop. I started with C++ when I started serious programming, so I missed all that. I still have some bad habits of my own. I get caught up in banging out the code, that I don't immediately see where I should shuffle code to functions for modularity. I also don't comment any thing.

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You hold yourself up as a serious programmer then tell us you 'bang out code' and 'don't comment'. How strange.

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I am very much of the mind set that if you don't know what the code is doing, don't touch it.

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This is why we comment it. So it's more readable. Having said that you should be writing your code so it's readable.

Nice Troll post btw, it got me biting.

Hopefully not getting the Batman involved...but this is a joke right...you ain't serious in posting this right...why not go all the way and say C++ is easy to use and real applications should be written in assembly.

Flee this site...never return...leave the rest of us to produce commercial quality software in vb

Just a thought... But for a moment, maybe you should think about what site you are on. If you were on something like c-world, or whatever, I would think posting that would be just fine. But on VB-World? It's like a british going into the german camp alone and saying germans suck. Oh yeah, and Jethro, that is some speech you put in there.:D

There are three types of VB programmers. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
(Great speech, eh?)
The good VB programmer can write better, more powerful apps than average C++ programmers.
The bad VB programmer sounds like you, ptgThug
The ugly VB programmer is me.

As for VB being a

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Quick and dirty

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language, at least it's not a SLOW and dirty language like C++.

Only really good C++ programmers can use its full potential, and they are few and far between.

I, myself, haven't found a limitation in VB, yet. If I do find one, there's always a way round it.

VB is written by programmers a hell of a lot btter than any of us (please don't sue me for that).
It's because of this that Visual Basic can be very powerful.

One of the most costly viruses in the world was written in VBScript. Don't call VB 'weak'. Some programmers are weak, their language isn't.