So...you were coding a pet were you? Did you decide to use Moti's girlfriend code in animal-brain mode?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
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So...you were coding a pet were you? Did you decide to use Moti's girlfriend code in animal-brain mode?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
No but its a good idea....I'll have to hit up Moti and see what we could work out :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
If you can get a look at his code, do share. A few of us asked repeatedly in the AI thread, but he never offered us anything other than the book. After seeing the videos, it was clear that the code was doing something....but Moti only knows what.
Now I'm really curious. Must be pretty revolutionary code if he is keeping it locked down so tight. Wonder if his AI gf can cook....
Shhh, its top secret military grade A/I it even has an animal brain.... although that is kinda sounding like a Cyborg now!!Quote:
Now I'm really curious. Must be pretty revolutionary code if he is keeping it locked down so tight.
This may well be in the new edition of Battle Programming (Blaze Edition) that i am so looking forward too.Quote:
Wonder if his AI gf can cook
I pre-ordered
I said the exact same thing about Lebron James.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
Haha Lol, Moving to vb.net bye bye vb6 you are no more..
Good idea but don't think its going to be as easy as that. It will take you a while to learn your way around(took me about a month) but when you do, you'll wonder why you didn't move across sooner. You won't regret changing in the end. This is a fact!Quote:
Originally Posted by hamza.saleem
Zombie movies are just past peak of their return; perhaps VB6 is trying to ride the wave?
Good name for this new VB6 axixdj wants so bad.......ZombieVB. I could already picture the logo for it :D
I know WP doesn't want to hear about Tiobe, but since it has been put forward as an indication of the popularity of VB6, I have some bad news for the fans: I just talked to one of the guys there, and (Visual) Basic most certainly does not indicate VB6. However, he said that VB6 should clearly have its own category, and so he told me to expect it next month. He also made it fairly clear that the VB6 fans are going to be very disappointed. Apparently, VB6 is a small fraction of the (Visual) Basic category.
So this is what the news means when they talk about the "1%"Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I'd be shocked if this shocks anyone. Clearly there is more wisdom in the crowd than the VB6 fanatics would have us believe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I think all the ranting and raving by Fatina, Carlos, Olaf and axisdj may have left the impression that there is a huge body of discontent among developers over the abandonment of VB6 by MS when the truth is the world has moved on. There are only a handful of vocal members. I was among the voices of discontentment but had to make a decision and when I saw how good VB.Net I was pretty much done with all the crying and moaning. Most of the world apparently did the same. There are only a handful of stubborn hold outs who continue to be annoying with their wailing.
Guys, you can offend VB6 anytime but could you please be more careful on touching other peoples belief?
What do you mean ?Quote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
I will be shocked if you are shocked that this shocks anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
How shocking!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
The references to religion in the last few posts weren't nice to religious people, so I've removed them.... please keep this to one divisive topic!
Based on some of the sensible discussion of their category definitions over the last couple of months it doesn't surprise me that VB6 is a marginal player... I look forward to seeing what the actual situation is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Quote:
Guys, you can offend VB6 anytime but could you please be more careful on touching other peoples belief?
Wow i had a post removed, i think that is a first.Quote:
The references to religion in the last few posts weren't nice to religious people, so I've removed them.... please keep this to one divisive topic!
Apologies Dee-U, i didn't see what posts where after mine (if there where any) but my post was not meant to be a pop at religion, more the fervor of those supporting the return of VB6, and a play on Homers Lebron James comment.
Actually I am looking forward to the new refined results. I don't really care if vb6 is popular. What I do care about is my code base/products. My goal in the near future is still to find a solution to porting my project so it can continue to evolve and make me a living.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
There is even more un certainty now about which direction to go. My ideal solution is either OLAF's new ide/compiler or a binding to Lazarus. Even a binding to .net when it becomes NATIVE will not be out of the question. The future of desktop has become fuzzy.
In no terms do I want people not to tell me the truth, that would be insanity. If vb6 is the 100th most popular on TIOBE, it really does not matter to me, I still have a product to evolve.
Thanks
Pleasant day!
WP
Good post. That seems like a pretty clear-eyed view of the situation. I wish the future of the desktop was more clear than it is....but that wish isn't coming true anytime soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by axisdj
I would not be surprised in the least if Tiobe's re-jiggered metrics show that a ton of what they had been counting as "Visual Basic" turns out to be some VB.Net they couldn't isolate out plus a lot of VBA.
But then "jiggering" seems to be what they are best at, otherwise it is hard to fathom how C, C++, Objective-C, a hatful of bizarre *nix-centric scripting languages, F#, etc. consistently rank so high.
I suppose you could turn it around. Based on their sources of statistics these might really be rankings of "languages having the most groaning and moaning and cries for help."
Once Windows 9 gets close to RTM we may be able to breathe a sigh of relief about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Desktop PCs and the Windows desktop: Endangered species? has a more positive outlook than the title suggests.
out of interest what is your application? i am sure you must have said before but i missed it!Quote:
What I do care about is my code base/products. My goal in the near future is still to find a solution to porting my project so it can continue to evolve and make me a living.
Quite so, except for Objective-C. That's a closed ecosystem and I would expect it to rank fairly high. The other languages (with the possible exception of C and maybe C++) are generalist languages that you can use to write apps for several different platforms, so people can move from one to another. If you write in Objective-C, you are probably almost exclusively focused on that. This has always been a quirk with Apple. For a long time, Apple could bill itself as the most popular computer, because Apple sold more than any other computer company. Of course, the PC was VASTLY more common than Apple, but there were so many ways to buy/build a PC that no one company could match the sales of the sole-source Apple. Similarly, Objective-C might always rank high.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
I also think that C and possibly C++ could be elevated for the same reason. You can use C to code for some highly specialized hardware, such as the PIC line of microprocessors. It may also be used for embedded systems more than any other language. So, there could be whole sectors of programming that are essentially C-only domains.
What baffles me is the large monthly swings seen in the graphs of pretty much every language. That may just indicate the variability around the count, but those jumps can be pretty big month-to-month.
There is also the possibility that the more complicated and difficult the language, the more resources there will have to be to help people. The same argument has been made in this forum to argue about the number of threads created in the different VB forums.
It sounds like control of widely used, but very specialized hardware used in theatrical productions. A niche market, but not a small niche market.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
It is Stage Production (Concerts)/Theatrical/Nightclub/Architectural lighting control.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
Different branches of the software controls different aspects.
Also do Radio Automation Software.
WP
This is your cause for all this ruckus over VB6 ? VB6 is hardly the only language suitable for this kind of thing. In fact, this kind of thing would probably have a much cleaner implementation in C moreso than any other language.Quote:
Originally Posted by axisdj
My focus is GUI? why would c be better suited, which IDE would you recommend? Not sure I understand, can you expand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
Thanks
WP
You said your app does lighting control so I imagine that you're interfacing with hardware, perhaps some sort of controller through a COM port or something. What I'm saying is that it may have been better if you wrote all that in C/C++ instead and created a DLL which you can then call from your VB6 program. It would certainly make a rewrite easier if you used VB6 to develop the GUI since the meat would actually be in a DLL. VB6 is kinda clumsy and outdated when it comes to talking to hardware anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by axisdj
That is how it works now, hardware communication through c++ DLL. The GUI code is WAY more complex than the hardware stuff. Hardware code is only about 5%, 95% GUIQuote:
Originally Posted by Niya
WP
How can a GUI be more complex than the hardware stuff?Quote:
Originally Posted by axisdj
Well instead of crying over the doom of VB6 maybe you should start rewriting your GUI in Java. I think Java is probably the safest bet if you're paranoid about your language and development tools being abandoned by their creators. Java is the most cross-platform of all existing runtimes, it was a very large user base, it has been around since before VB6 and as far as I know and its still being updated so its very mature and very entrenched in IT culture so it's probably going to survive for a very long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by axisdj
I myself am considering learning Java one day as a safety net given the recent surge of popularity of mobile devices and MS's lack of progress into that market. If MS doesn't get a handle on this soon, Windows developers might find themselves an endangered species.
Well assuming he didn't write the DLL then from his perspective it would be more complicated as he didn't have to wrestle with all the issues of low level hardware communication himself. If he did write it himself, well it must be very unsophisticated hardware.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightwalker83
Have you thought about using Web Services to wrap the c++ dll and provide an interface to them that you can then talk to via a web front end? (you could wither host the web app your self or provide it as a locally running intranet app.)Quote:
It is Stage Production (Concerts)/Theatrical/Nightclub/Architectural lighting control.
If it was me i would probably be looking along those lines, re-writing in another desktop language just seems like a lot of work for potentially the same problems a few years down the line. (and if Win9 supports the VB6 run-times then your app will work for a while yet on desktops)
While non of us know the future, i would bet on the web being around far longer than the current desktop.
A good GUI is almost always the most complex part. Interacting with hardware is relatively easy unless you have to discover the protocols yourself. Presenting that data in a pleasing fashion, and making the interface easy to work with is a very complex subject that usually involves lots of trial and error to get right. For DB front-end types of apps, I generally find that the GUI is where I spend about 90% of my time. When working on robotics code, I was spending more time with the logic, but even then it was only about 50-50.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightwalker83
Oh come on. Low level hardware stuff is trivial. It HAS to be trivial. Even if you look at some hardware as complex as an x86 CPU, there are only a couple hundred instructions. Interacting with the wet-ware at the keyboard is going to take far more time. Consider the simple case where you have a light with variable brightness. At most, the hardware interface is an on/off and a level. Most likely, it is even less than that. So, you might have an address and a couple more bytes. Meanwhile, the range of alternatives you have to interact with the user are as numerous as your imagination will allow. You could have a radio button and a NumericUpDown control at the low end, or you could have a custom-drawn 3D knob control controlled by mouse, keyboard, joystick, or nose-tracker (MS did create such a thing, but it got killed off before ever seeing the light of day).Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
Dealing with hardware is never trivial. Getting it to respond to code is but getting to behave in a specific way according to the needs of a client will always lead to some gotchas. Even with relatively simple hardware like pole displays, I've found some measure of frustration trying to get them to do something interesting even with the full documentation at hand. I succeeded but was surprised that I wasn't able to do exactly what was asked of me in a couple minutes. There's always some quirk you have to work around.
axisdj is talking about controlling lighting in a room and yes it might be simple to turn it on and turn it off with a simple call but just wait till clients start asking you to make the lights dance or to respond to movement. You're gonna find yourself running into quite a few quirks I'll bet.
Wow, that is the first. If you are not using C# already perhaps you may want to try it now just to familiarize yourself with those curly braces, then Java will not be difficult, I will also do an application using it one of these days to enhance my basic skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
Well I wrote a lot of C++ code back when I used VB6 so I'm not unfamiliar with curly braces. I hate them but if one day I'm forced to endure them, I won't have a choice and I suspect I will become comfortable with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
Thing is, it's not really about the language alone. Its everything together provided by MS. I'm really hoping that I'm not forced one day to abandon Visual Studio and Windows as a development platform. It will be such a shame, I don't think there are better tools for app development than Visual Studio. And coding against the .Net Framework with Visual Studio+VB.Net is the best experience I've ever had as a developer. Its a perfect marriage of IDE, language, runtime and OS. Anything else would be a step backward.
I doubt Android developers have any IDE comparable to Visual Studio or a language as expressive as C#/VB.Net or a Framework as robust, powerful and organized as .Net or a runtime as stable and flexible as the CLR.
It is funny because over on the other side of the fence they often mock Visual Studio as a usability disaster. I think everyone just gets "invested" in their tools. They tend to resist change and quibble over small things.
Android Java developers have at least 3 mainstream IDE alternatives and a few minor players to choose from. This keeps competition alive which in turn drives innovation and improvement. There are even more alternatives for JVM (conventional Oracle) Java.
I think the "B4-family" tools (Basic4android, B4J, very soon perhaps B4i) can be useful as a bridge to Java for Basic programmers. B4J is free so it gives you an alternative to MS Basics you can start with immediately. People are writing B4J programs and running them even on RaspberryPi controllers/miniPCs.
You might look at Third Party Dev Tools Strike Back for an entrenched Microsoft patriot's slow coming to grips with change.
He's still desperately clinging to superstitious beliefs and trying to make lemonade from his .Net lemon even though he has the facts right before him. What he never mentions in his blog posts are how lousy the results produced by Xamarin are: bloated install packages, slow execution, high memory consumption, and lack of access to native platform features.
However there is no telling whether Xamarin will continue to improve at doing what they do given time.
I've used some of those a bit. In general, there are some things that they all share, and all are ok to one extent or another. Essentially, an IDE is a word processor with some special formatting quirks. You can write .NET with Notepad if you are a masochist. What sets most IDE's apart from one another is how they handle the formatting quirks. VS does a nice job with that. Aside from the formatting, you need a debugger that is functional and the rest is gravy.
Some people loved the VB6 IDE. Witis posted a link from some guy who hated all other VB variations because the IDE wasn't
the VB6 IDE. He found the .NET IDE too complicated to deal with. That guy isn't alone. There's a petition over on user voice to change the .NET IDE so that you open each method individually in a code page. That seems totally insane to me, but the person who created the post talked in terms of the purity of one method at a time, and one method only. Open a new tab page if you want to edit a different method.
What this tells me is: No IDE is best. There are so many differences of opinion out there that it's all down to personal opinion. After all, do people remember that thread in General Developer that linked to the crank running on about the evil of #Region directives being able to collapse code? He wasn't speaking about his preference, he was arguing that there was only one right way and anybody who felt differently wasn't a real coder. People are going to be dogmatic. I prefer to be cathartic, and RobDogg is apparently auto-magic (and Witis may be veggie-magic).
spoken like someone who has never written a GUI! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightwalker83
Wisis also casts anthropomorph-magic. A truly terrifying blend when melded with veggie-magic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Now I know why the fireworks are gone, Schmidt is banned again.
I hope its not permanent. His condescending attitude and all his irrational VB6 fanboyism aside, he is an extremely knowledgeable individual. I enjoy reading many of his posts. It would be a terrible loss to this community if he was permanently gone.Quote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
Can any of the admins/moderators confirm if it is temporary or permanent?
I've known from looking at his profile that he is banned when I noticed he was not reacting to the 'DoEvents is evil' remark in the VB6 forums. :bigyello:
lol. You expected a response from him to that comment ?Quote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
Very disappointed to read that Olaf Schmidt has been banned. His posts were the reason I came here so often. Olaf's vbRichClient tool set has saved me a lot of agony as it has allowed me to postpone my migration from VB6 to another language. It is a robust tool set developed by a very astute programmer.
Can he come across as a little brusque now and then? Yes, but who cares? He is a brilliant and resourceful developer who has created excellent tools that have helped so many.
Banning Olaf permanently would be a huge mistake. He has made powerful contributions to VBForums in terms of solutions, code and libraries.
Most likely, it is temporary. He is a pretty sharp guy, but he has a nasty habit of sabotaging his own posts with utterly superfluous, condescending comments. That's behavior that isn't tolerated forever. The pity of it is that those comments are never necessary.
I get the impression he has an inferiority complex. People who like to belittle others as much as he does usually do it to hide their insecurities.
So true. It's second to none!Quote:
You forgot to mention the documentation too. MSDN's documentation on C#, C++, and VB.Net are nothing short of remarkable.
Dead or alive you're coming with me.
Yeah, such a snazzy IDE. I hear they're even considering letting you choose menus that aren't all uppercase letters!
Visual Studio 14 CTP 2 - NO CAPS
And then they have some kind of "light bulb" thing that sounds like a return to Clippy the Annoying PaperClip.
Best part?
More evidence that .Net is being phased out/dumped on Xamarin.Quote:
As a long-time Visual Studio user I have to say that I still cannot come to terms with the fact that JavaScript and Python figure in the list of project types. OK, you have to download the extra tools to work with Python or Node.js but the fact that you can do it is still unexpected
If .Net isn't dead it sure seems to be on Death Row.
Then why are they still updating the Framework ?Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
Just to piss off dil. It's a conspiracy I tell ya!Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya