Ooh, I do like being called Sir. Let's have some more of that.
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Ooh, I do like being called Sir. Let's have some more of that.
Sir.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Fatina did iimprove, I just with she had given a bit of background. I actually always thought of her as female, though I recognized it was because the name was fa (which I overlooked) tina (which is a female name in the US). Since that was invalid considering the international nature of the forum, I tried to use gender neutral pronouns. However, once she said she was female, then that makes it easier. After all, there just aren't that many gender neutral pronouns, and "they" just sounds awkward in some sentences.
@Carlos: By this point, it doesn't mean a thing. Nobody is even attempting to have an argument or even a discussion anymore. I think that's what Schmidt was saying, too. Until these threads came up, the only discriminatory views in programming that I was aware of was C users looking down on VB as a toy language. That's been around since the 90s. As for MS abandoning you: Big deal, they abandon everybody sooner or later. Apple is even worse for that. It's just something that happens. I have an app based on XNA, which has also been abandoned/ignored by MS. The only difference is that it is the highest vote getter, has a viable open-source community advancing it, and MS hasn't explicitly thumbed their nose at the petition. None of that really matters, though, it's still abandoned at this point.
So, all you have left are people tossing chum (hoo-boy did I have a bad typo in that word, glad I caught it) in the water to get people riled up. There's nothing productive about it and there hasn't been...perhaps in this entire thread. That's the reason I'd suggest that it be closed, too. After all, nobody is debating anything. Nobody is trying to persuade anybody to change their position. Nobody is comparing languages, functionality, performance, suitability, or anything else that could be considered even vaguely constructive. It's all just chumming the water on both sides.
Would closing the thread silence anybody? It wouldn't silence anybody who has anything to say. The thread started with a lament about MS stating that it would not revive VB6. There is a viable thread by Schmidt over in....where...projects?....I can't remember the name of the forum...that is talking at least a little bit about how to move forwards. A constructive thread could be started on that subject here, though this is chit-chat and things tend to go in weird directions. But without something like what Schmidt started in that other thread, what's the point of any thread on VB6? If you aren't talking about how to move it forwards on your own (MS certainly isn't going to help), then aren't all threads on the subject some form of crying in your beer or venting your spleen over the wrongness of MS? And, since this isn't an echo chamber for that kind of view, you're going to get all kinds of replies, many of which don't agree with you. There are suitable echo chambers for MS bashing, or VB6 lamenting, this just isn't one of them.
I'd agree that this thread ought to be closed because there isn't a useful discussion and all we get is divisive vitriol being tossed out to rile people up.
Merge the two?
Why stop there? Merge ALL CC threads into the post race. The post race would become the ONLY thread in CC and would be even more sprawling and baffling than it already is.
Buy Opel Corsa.
@Chaggy,
Maybe "VB6 lamenting" is useless, but the reasons behind it gives MS victims the right to bash them. This thread is (was) about this, imo, untill the "usual suspects" started demoting VB6ers, trying to make fun of them while advocating .NET.
Ridiculous, to say the least. But it's ok, I'm done with it.
You have the right to bash MS even without this. It's going to get a response, though, so you shouldn't expect to do so in a forum of this nature without getting a certain amount of derision for it. If you don't want push-back for views like that, then there are plenty of places where you won't get any...but not here. This isn't a VB6 only forum, or even a VB6 majority forum. There are a wide variety of views on the subject here. The ones you call the "usual suspects" fall into that category because they happen to be a subset with one set of views just as the VB6 partisans are a subset with one set of views. Those who don't fall into either of those camps also have a set of views, but a set that means they have nothing to say on this subject, or don't want to get involved in it. There are other hot-button issues that various people chum the waters with at times, and you can always pretty much predict the fish that will bite depending on what bait is used. VB6, pro or con, is just another example (two, actually, as both the pro and the con will get different groups to respond). Other things, such as anti-Java, or anti-C, gets pretty nearly no response because the community here doesn't contain many people who would respond to either position.
On the other hand, very few people here have any impact on what MS does, so whining for or against ANY issue on here is just about responses. It generally changes nothing.
And finally we arrive at the heart of the matter.....the victim mentality. I guess a lot of people enjoy playing the victim which is why we get threads like this. Sorry guys, I just don't do the crying victim thing. Seems weak to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
I don't think it really needs to be closed. Whats wrong with healthy disagreeing as long as it does not get heated and turns to insults.Quote:
I vote for this thread to be swallowed up by the post race. Can somebody get a moderator involved?
I'l always remember going down to pc world the day after boxing day 1999/2000 to get a copy of VB6. Cost around £70 installed it, took it back as seemed faulty and they gave me a copy of C++ as a replacement. (i/we didnt know the difference.) memory's are a great thing. VB6 like MSN chat will always be good memory's. But that's it. Unless you have big money in current vb6 apps like IMB then there is no reason to really use vb6.
VB6 will run atleast till 2024, it's old like my cat was last week at 23 we had to put down. Good times and memory's but let's just move on.
@Ident, it's not VB6 that matters, it's his killing in favor of the ****** .NET, which came, as some pointed out, to fight Java.
There's more than one reason to M$ decline, but this is certainly one of them. If not VB6 death in particular, .NET birth is for sure. Some just refuse to see what's right in front of them and keep advocating it's use as and intelligent thing to do. Go figure. :confused:
Yeah but its annoying hearing the illogical arguments that come from it. Typically from the pro VB6 side. Sounds like a broken record mixed with name callingQuote:
Originally Posted by ident
Isn't it the same thing? It was the birth of .NET that killed VB Classic.Quote:
Carlos, you confuse me a lot. Are you upset about the death of VB6 or the birth of .NET?
EDIT: But I'm all against .NET, as I don't like Java or any other interpreted language, independently of Classic VB death.
Ok, that's got some meat on it. So, why are you so opposed to .NET? It isn't an interpreted language when it is run, it is only an intermediate language at one point in the middle. If it were truly an interpreted language, the performance would be horrible, which it is not. The JIT compiler does take some time, which can make for a slow iniital startup, but once JIT compiled, .NET appears to generally run faster than VB6 more often than not. Though that's only on trivial comparisons like math functions, because even VB6 didn't run as fast as VB6 on larger things like database access where VB6 had at least three different mainstream options to choose from (DAO, RDO, and ADO) with different performance on each.
There are some people who feel that they are vulnerable to decompiling, but I'm not sure that anybody in that camp has that good a claim. After all, there really isn't all that much that is original about any code, and all code can be decompiled. I seem to remember that my sister had written something that took apart VB6 apps for some purpose. It was a long time ago, though, and she may not have written it, and it might not have been taking apart VB6 apps, but the VB6 IDE (it was probably that, now that I think about it).
I've been looking for a sensible answer to this since the last million threads about this topic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
What is VB
Slow initial startup? that's it? no, it isn't. I still remember the first ATI control panel made with .NET. It was simply scaring!! "what is this, what did I do wrong, and only clicked that button...?". But it wasn't me, it was .NET fault. In the first opportunity I switched to Nvidia , naturally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
.NET is newer than the "old" Win32, so maybe it relies on faster technology, but the principal factor is that .NET steals all the resources for itself (as does MS Office) what leads to the speed impression you might have, but it's completely artificial. Don't you think that, had Classic VB been evolved till now, it would be a lot faster now than back in 2000? and less resource hungry than .NET? Please be serious if you answer to this.
I can understand Java popularity as a way to develop multi-platform stuff, but .NET???
Don't know nothing about DAO or RDO, but I use ADO in my language (not within VB) to import data from legacy databases. Nothing bad to say about it.
I now use Olaf's SQLite wrapper, exclusively. I believe it will be extended to PostgreSQL in the future, and that's all I need. In fact I never used SQLServer or Access databases, and never will.
I'm aware of ADO.NET, and maybe it's better than legacy ADO, but again, how would be ADO by now had it's development didn't stop?
.NET was a mistake, a big one, and Windows is suffering a lot because of that wrong move. C'mon, admit it, as M$ already did.
We know Fatina is actually a Greek word. Comes from Fato (meaning Take it all) and Ina(meaning inside) So, take it all inside!!...
Ok not true but close enough.
It is sad.Quote:
XNA was abandoned by MS. I can't believe how much time and effort I put behind it and now it's not supported!
I suppose what I'll do is:
A) Move onto the next thing whenever it comes and
B) Build off of what I've already learned from programming in XNA
I can not understand why many programs to create video games, end up failing or being abandoned by their creators.
DivGames studio, FPS Creator, Torque3D; the latter two are still worked, but ....
The latest vesion of FPS called Reloaded includes support for LUA language, but not just been completed, and its support 64bit platform, still does not work on all computers.
I stopped reading these posts. I am just commenting
Poorly written code is poorly written code. It doesn't matter which language.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
Ok, here's the serious answer: I see no reason to think that VB classic would be a lot faster now than back in 2000. Why should it be? Both VB classic and VB.NET could improve on speed by improving the compiler performance. There are limits on that, of course, but neither language hit those limits and I have always felt that there was a reason for that. I have never bothered to confirm this, but I always felt that both VB classic and .NET accepted limits to some performance in exchange for making life a bit easier for the developer. For instance, it appears that both use some pointers (internally, of course) that focus more on safety than raw speed, which is a trade-off I have always been content with. I have also always assumed that MS held a position in regards to the trade-off of speed/safety that they haven't deviated from, and assumed that was why the speed was not as fast as it could have been. If that is even reasonably correct then there is no reason to think that any form of VB would get significantly faster than what has already been done because MS simply has chosen against the fastest speed in favor of greater ease of use.Quote:
Don't you think that, had Classic VB been evolved till now, it would be a lot faster now than back in 2000? and less resource hungry than .NET? Please be serious if you answer to this.
Additionally, VB classic was not moving in the direction of increased speed. Instead, it was moving in the other direction when it comes to database access. DAO was considerably faster than ADO. ADO.NET is an improvement on ADO, certainly, but not an improvement up to the speed of DAO (though the comparison is no longer apples to apples, because ADO.NET can be VASTLY faster than either DAO or ADO if it is used differently, which it can be, but doesn't have to be). Especially in the area of database access, MS has not been attempting to improve performance, they have been diligently attempting to improve ease of use, and have been doing so since before VB6 hit the market. That hasn't slowed or stopped, with the result that you can be far more abstracted away in .NET than you could in VB6. Fortunately, you don't HAVE to be, as you still have all the underlying tools if you want them....and I do, because all the abstraction, while amazingly fast to turn into a working app, turns database work into a black box for lots of people.
Still, the fact remains that MS is not trying to improve speed in VB and never have been. I would expect that if VB Classic had been continued you'd be looking at lots of the features that have been added both with ADO.NET, then the EF, and so on. It would be quicker and easier than ever before to create a database driven app....you just might be able to create one without haveing the slightest idea what is happening. Heck, the EF will now create the DB for you, so you don't even have to create a table. So, NO: MS would have made VB classic slower, not faster, because they favored ease of use over speed. They clearly favor C++ for speed and VB for convenience.
You CAN understand it? I can't. As far as I can tell, when Sun came out with Java they promised the world and never delivered. People flocked to it for that cross-platform that they fell so far short on, and because it wasn't MS. There was LOTS of MS-bashing in the 90s. So, here's a language that is kind of like a proprietary C++ which promised a bunch that they couldn't deliver, which was sold as being offered up for standardization...then was taken back to locked-down proprietary. Sun went back on their promises a fair amount through the 90s and into the early part of the next decade. In the end, what did we end up with? What does Java offer that other languages do not? I can see JavaScript, even though I feel it is a proto-language that will be eventually replaced for actual writing much as higher level languages replaced ASM: There will come a time when you can still code in it, but nobody does except for specialized things.Quote:
I can understand Java popularity as a way to develop multi-platform stuff, but .NET???
I used DAO exclusively with VB6. There were some websites that did head-to-head comparisons between DAO and ADO (possibly RDO, too), and DAO was considerably faster than ADO. Of course, it doesn't really matter. Database front-end apps rarely live or die on the speed of the database technology. Most such apps (and all of mine in VB6) spent most of their time sitting around waiting for the meatbag at the keyboard to press a key.Quote:
Don't know nothing about DAO or RDO, but I use ADO in my language (not within VB) to import data from legacy databases. Nothing bad to say about it.
Make your case. I don't see it as a mistake, and I don't see Windows suffering in any way because of it. I do see Windows suffering, but only because of the serious decline in PC sales and the significant rise in mobile platforms, which MS has done a feeble job of getting into. It was feeble from the start, though. After all, I got into .NET because it WOULD run on a PDA, while VB6 never did. PDA's went the way of the dodo in short order, of course, and that was the end of that (smartphones don't fill the niche that I was writing for with PDA's, though tablets will do so).Quote:
.NET was a mistake, a big one, and Windows is suffering a lot because of that wrong move. C'mon, admit it, as M$ already did.
So, make your case.
Only a poor workman blames his tools. Cliche, I know but it definitely applies here. I get no problem with my VB.Net apps other than the typical errors we make as coders like off-by-one errors or null references.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
You do know that ALL software in Windows uses the Win32 API right ? VB6 apps, .Net apps, Delphi apps. The VB6 runtime wraps these calls. The ActiveX components you may be using would also wrap these calls. The .Net Framework also wraps these calls. You can't escape Win32.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
Typically my .Net apps use around 8 MB of memory. I have 2 GB of RAM with around 800 MB free at any given time. How is that even close to using all the resources ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
Perhaps, but customers users don't really care about millisecond improvements as long as their favorite apps are fast enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
How can it be a failure when its been embraced by millions and MS still updates it to this day. Wishing for it to fail doesn't make it so. MS abandoned VB6 something like 15 or 16 years now. VB.Net was its successor. If it failed, then why don't you have a new VB6 ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlos Rocha
I thought we agreed this is equivalent to the post race?Quote:
Move to the post race dclamp!
It IS sad, but what's their revenue model? Lots of people (relatively speaking) create game engines for their own games, then license them out. Those often cost some serious cash, which is because there aren't that many buyers. Once software is written, it costs darn near nothing to make a copy, but you have to recoup the cost of the development in the sales. So, if you expect to sell to a dozen people, the cost per unit has to be really high. If you expect to sell to hundreds of thousands, or millions, the cost per unit can be tiny or even free.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3com
The problem with game creation tools, in my opinion, is that they expect to sell a very low volume, but their customer base also tends to be relatively poor. The customers are generally not companies, but enthusiastic hobbyists, or people making a go of some game. Those folks don't have the deep pockets that companies would. That kind of traps the tool developers: They have to charge a lot to recoup their development cost, but they can't charge a lot and expect many sales. They have to charge little to boost sales, but the total customer pool isn't large enough for them to make a living with a low charge.
Therefore, I have always felt that most of those tools were created by enthusiasts who eventually lose their fire and move on.
There are lots of libraries apart from the core 3 DLLs (User32, Kernel32 and gdi32) and lots of ways to reach (or wrap) the needed functionality, as you know. Because you know everything, right? like my mother-in-law?
Ouch. The old "mother in law" insult.
Is she hot?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Can't we all just get a long?
OK, now I am going to put my mod hat on. Stop with the mud slinging or we'll close the thread.
This thread has the capacity to be an interesting debate and I'd personally rather not see it closed. It might contain some good information. It might contain some bad information. The truth is most of it's subjective anyway so there's no empirical value for right or wrong, there's just opinion. That can be expressed well or poorly and that's fine (we're in ChitChat after all) but it shouldn't be expressed rudely.
Why is it impossible to express the merits of one language with out slagging of another?
while mildly amusing do you know how ridiculous you all sound?
'meh vb6 is soooo better than pooey.Net'
'no its not .Net is way better than stinky vb6'
... you cant say that i am going to run and tell my dad on you all now. And you will all be sorry!
Okay, that is something I have to quote. If indeed a workman uses his tools efficiently then he is not poor, if those VB6 programmers are more productive in using VB6 then they should keep using it if they want to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niya
I am going to start a fundraiser to send Niya and Carlos to a counseling retreat in the mountains. Get some fresh air and resolve their differences.
Who wants to donate?
I'm going to be a lot more direct. Niya and Carlos Rocha have both violated the rules of the site and will get banned if they do it again.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
http://www.jonrb.com/emoticons/ban-rollerbanana.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by Steve R Jones
You come to that conclusion, because you think rationally, and because you don'tQuote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
post untruths *against* your own better knowledge, just to provoce somebody
(IIRC, that's called "decency" - a rare thing to find these days).
What I'm shaking my head about always when it comes up in these discussions is,
that many of you .NETers already noticed, that MS is abandoning Tools and Techs
left and right (e.g. dday9, who states, that he "wasted a whole lot of time with
XNA" - or others who invested their time into Silverlight).
What's amazing then is, that instead of criticising the ones who "lured" you into
using tools they only a few years later don't consider worthy to support anymore,
most of you defend them with: "that's the way it is - let's just learn something else".
And instead of truly learning "something else" (as in: "not from this vendor again",
which would be the logical thing to do), you enter the next round in always the
same game - learning the next "soon to be abandoned tech" from the same source).
E.g. imagine a selfemployed developer, who has founded a small company, trusting MS
in the phase where they marketed Silverlight as the next best invention since sliced
bread - even hiring a few developers - then developing something like the "next picasa"
for example - a great tool, even better than the Google-pendant...
Then when it comes to your "return on investment" (the phase after you invested
3 years of your time, also paying hundred-thousands of dollars for the developers
you hired), MS announces that it's abandoned tech now... well - not really abandoned,
since it "still works" - but your *potential* customers noticed MS' announcement too -
and will decide to not bet on this "dead horse tech" - not using your great picasa-
replacment in their own products.
Now consider this .NET-guy (existence in shambles) reading something many of you
write here: "No problem, then I just 'move on', learning the next thing MS has to offer".
He would (perhaps somewhat enraged) point out to you, that this is the opinion
of an *amateur* (a hobbyist, nothing a professional would say, because professionals
are defined as: "making money relying on the tools they bought for their daily work").
Decency and logic would demand, that you (being amateurs) have an understanding for
that professional - that it's not him who is to blame for the crash of his small company -
but perhaps you will ridicule him as oldfashioned and backwards, along with:
"stop your ridiculous MS-bashing, there are vendors who are far worse".
The whole thing is (to bring a really hard example) IMO comparable to a scenario
like "rape in marriage".
There's those, who endure that only one single time - and then get a divorce.
Then there's others who just endure it and endure it, never saying a thing.
And then there's also a third group, who experience it themselves, but mark
those who "talked about it" (making it public in getting divorced) as "incapable
of leading a successful relationship, sullying the "holy bond of marriage") -
blaming the "victim" - who truly is not - not anymore, she's free again -
it's those who choose to "go on", who are the true victims).
Sorry to say, but many of you .NETers are doing exactly as the members of
that third group (bashing and ridiculing the innocent).
Olaf
Oh, come on. That analogy is thoroughly flawed. MS didn't rape us. At worst they divorced us and didn't pay the alimony. More accurately they divorced us and introduced us to to their younger hotter sister.
And I really don't see how you can describe .Net as a "soon to be forgotton" tech. It's been around for nearly a decade and a half and, despite what Dilitante says, is still going strong. There have been some "sub-techs" like like XNA and silverlight that have come and gone but you've only got to look at the number of old diss-used java lirbaries that are out there to see that's mot a problem that's specific to MS. that's just a sad truth of software development. We live in a changing world and our development tools neeed to change to accomodate that world. Sometimes that means incremental improvements, which we always prefer, but sometimes it just means the abandonment of an idea that's had it's time, which we have to swallow. I'd rather that abandonment with a viable replacement than the extension of a paradigm past it's usefulness, though.
Personally I do desktop dev. I've haven't had to change a thing since framework 1.0. And before you pat yourself on the back that VB6 hasn't required you to change anything in that time, it hasn't enabled you to go anywhere new either. It hasn't let you develop web pages. It's not going to let you develop mobile apps. It's not going to let you develop cranial implant when some bright spark invents them. The .Net ecosystem already enables me to do the first two (very well for web, can't speak for mobile as I don't do it but I know the facility's there). And I can be reasonably confident that they'll offer me something to support the cranial implants too. For you to work in new enviroments involves you moving out to completely different techs. At least I get to stay in the same family.
I can understand that the move from VB6 to .Net was a hard cut off. But the various evolutions in .Net since really aren't.
I've been making a living from MS dev tools from VB6 through .Net - it's all good. Why all this constant bashing. It makes no sense.
With .Net I've been able to expand way past desktop - doing web apps - android apps that talks to .Net web methods. All in a nicely documented and easy to understand library.
And I really don't see how .Net was modeled after Java - just because of the "." structure? That's in jQuery - it's probably in most properly created object oriented libraries.
And I still have VB6 code I support - have one XP machine that I keep around for just that purpose. And I have to say that app is showing signs of stress as newer versions of MS SQL come out. Migrating those customers to a web app...
Things move on - development tools change. Am I crying about not having that VAX and fortran around from my salad days? I use all the same coding tricks - language and platform should not matter if you are a business programmer.
As often in these discussions, what I wrote is getting ignored.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
So let us go more slowly...
I brought an example (of a .NET-guy who trusted a well-marketed technology,
taking MS seriously in their "promise" - and he entered a "bond", so to say) -
investing huge amounts of time and money, trusting them.
The first thing you should come up with is, to point out if you consider my example
of such a "trusting .NET developer" an unrealistic one.
Do you?
For my part I think, it's a pretty realistic scenario, which could have happened
exactly as I wrote it - so in the following I assume, that you at least *try* to put
yourself into the shoes of this .NET-developer for a few minutes, who chose MS-
Silverlight, to use it as the base for a truly amazing new product, which was then
brought into shape (by investing large amounts of time and money), the product
then finally "ready to sell".
Now, what MS was doing then is, that they didn't honor the trust you gave them,
they were just breaking "the bond" - and they truly *hurt* you (financially) -
you will have a hard time to recover in the next decade, to pay-back all the
money you borrowed, to finance your product (which is great - but now nobody
has a larger interest in it anymore - the only interest being the one you now pay
for all the credits you took up, to get "this far").
So, where's the "hotter sister" you introduced above in that scenario.
She doesn't come into play here as far as I see it, since your existence is destroyed,
you are broken, a wreck (feeling "raped").
I nowhere mentioned VB6 so far - so there's no point (yet) to discuss it -
let's just stick with the example as I wrote it (and now explained in more detail) -
and so please try to comment on that first, before we come to the VB6-topic...
Can you do that?
I mean, many of you pointed out, that there was "an argumentation" going on here in
this thread - I for my part didn't really see anything in that regard - so could you at least
try to act decently, respecting the points I already brought - not ignoring them, not ridiculing
them, not taking any "evasive action", because that's what's normally avoided "among decently
arguing participants".
Olaf
I coded mobile apps with Pocket PC's from HP and the compact framework. Phys Ed teachers used them for years - loved them. That went away. I could easily do it again on a Android.
Actually new platforms kind of drive my income stream.
PDP-11's went away - replaced by VAX's. Then Digital Equip itself went away. That killed 20 years of my development portfolio.
And I re-wrote it all and re-sold it all.
Never did I feel raped or taken advantage of or lied to.
The hardware and OS and platform folks do it to make money. Need to compete against whatever is hot and looks better.
Us software folks should do the exact same thing.
Back in Y2K there was mass exodus from COBOL in manufacturing to SAP apps. That was just another revenue stream for programmers like me. What were we doing to do? Stop the century from flipping over?
I've got a UI that I created in WPF right now for a app that is not even being sold yet. That's a shaky platform - I know it and still use it. If it dies I move to another platform. I'm not sure I see a "bond" between me and MS in any of this...
Ok, so you were lucky - but now - what about our poor .NET-guy from theQuote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
example I gave?
Is a timespan of only "5-years-until-deprecation" for software-tools now
considered "normal" in your book (above you write of some 20years, which
truly is a different thing IMO, since it allows - after a development-phase of
some 3-4 years still some time to earn a ROI)...
and would you mark this .NET-guy "an idiot", "incapable of change"?
Olaf
Is this your SILVERLIGHT guy? SILVERLIGHT - imo - was always a fresh out of the box maybe goes no where thing.
Back in 2001 when I left that VAX world for PC's I decided that this .Net thing was just too new - and coded my world in VB6. I've always had a guarded approach to new tech - waiting for wide spread adoption. That decision might have been wrong. Regardless I got a good decade out of the VB6 portfolio. Half the time of my VAX world (most of that time the manufacturer was already out of business!!)
You either choose stable, cutting edge or bleeding edge. Go with bleeding edge and you take the most risk.
Actually flip table for a second. MS spends all this money creating a Silverlight platform - thinking the world will adopt it and forget flash or whatever else it competes with.
Wide spread adoption never happens.
Is that MS's fault?
There is no blame - this is the most evolving industry in the world imo and those who can ride wave are successful.
I will try and answer you point as much as i can Olaf.Quote:
What I'm shaking my head about always when it comes up in these discussions is,
that many of you .NETers already noticed, that MS is abandoning Tools and Techs
left and right (e.g. dday9, who states, that he "wasted a whole lot of time with
XNA" - or others who invested their time into Silverlight).
What's amazing then is, that instead of criticising the ones who "lured" you into
using tools they only a few years later don't consider worthy to support anymore,
most of you defend them with: "that's the way it is - let's just learn something else".
The thing is your analogy just doesn't fit for me or for a lot of people.
Most developers (me included - although i do more managing than deving these days) do not work for themselves they work for companies, and it is normally the company that takes the hit when Technology changes rather than the developer.
When i couldn't get vb6 jobs anymore i learnt .Net C# and vb.Net. It wasn't hard and there were a lot of jobs out there ( And they paid more) Even now there are loads of .Net jobs (in the UK), far more than any other dev language that i know of.
A team at my last work did exactly what you describe, they developed a whole application in SilverLight, then just as they were due to complete, the company pulled the project for fears about the future direction of Silverlight.
The company took a big hit on this, the developers got assigned to other projects and there lives moved on. I spoke to a couple of the dev's who worked on that project and they didn't see it as a waste of time despite the technology, they still thought they learnt a lot of stuff that would cross over to other areas.
For me advising someone to learn C# for instance is unlikely to be a bad thing because even if Desktop development does die a death, you can also develop Web & Mobile apps with it which means that the live span of C# is likely to last for quite some time yet and you are learning the C# Syntax which while not the same as C++ or Java would be a good basis for someone wanting to move to one of those languages.
Form what i understand in your case your an Independent Software Vendor, and your pressures will be completely different than mine, and i can understand why you would potentially be far more affected by choosing a technology that died soon after then i would.
My world is really barely affected if MS chooses to end of life one of there languages, or another vendor (as we don't exclusively use MS here). In a strange way it can even drive sales as when we bring out a new version of something in a new technology we can charge all over again for it.
The other thing is lead times for our customers to move to newer version of our software is slow. We still have a fair number of customers using VB6 versions of a number of our programs (Hell i until 2 months a go we still had 1 customer on our old Cobol product that was built 20 years ago) and we still support and make changes to them.
The .Net products we sell will still need to be supported and new features added for many many years also.
So for me advising some to use .NET (either C# or VB.Net) i just dont see as a bad thing especially if they are looking into a career in Software Dev.
If i was advising an ISV on the what language they should invest in for the long term then my answer would probably be different.
As for the Learn something else line, During my career i have learnt web and desktop, and done some mobile and with each one i have had to learn a new way of doing things. Then MVC came out for instance ( for .Net) and had to learn that. Things do change in Software dev and if you are smart you can use that to your advantage to further your career.
So in conclusion what might be true for you is not true for me, and i believe that many of the other on this site will be in a similar boat to me which is why you will see a lot of .net users and a lot of people talking it up. It does a good job for us, and it is nice to use.
In fact the one really true bit of the VB6 vs .Net argument is the .Net Visual Studio IDE is a lot better than VB6 one and as a Dev it does make your life easier.
Right guys. I've just spent the last 20 minutes going through the last few ages of the thread and cleaning it up. I've tried to leave as much as I think I can get away with and if you look at the strength of what's left that should give a pretty good indication of what I had to remove.
Thankfully the thread seems to be to be taking a turn back toward the more constructive. I'm therefore still not going to close it because, honestly, I hate the idea of stopping a discussion, particularly in Chit Chat. Please... please... do not make me regret that decision.
We can disagree. We should disagree. If we didn't we really would all be drones. But we should also respect each other.
[TakesModHatOffHopefullyForTheLastTimeThisWeek]
That would be .Net;) although I did think you were talking about VB6 when I wrote it. If you want me to come up with a metaphor for her in the context of Silverlight guy I'd say it was HTML5. While not actually an MS product they have invested pretty heavily in the standard and it does make Silverlight pretty much redundant. Not to mention that Silverlight guy probably also spotted JavaScript girl down a back alley way somewhere. She'd been around the block a few time but boy did she know how to please a man. MS could have continued to invest time and money into Silverlight but why bother? Silverlight guy can still go round to Silverlight's house for dinner (his application will continue to function) but he gets to dive into bed with the younger, sexier HTML5 or the deftly experience JavaScript when he fancies a bit of excitement. I think I've probably milked that metaphor as far as I can now.Quote:
So, where's the "hotter sister" you introduced above in that scenario.
The point is the MS didn't drop Silverlight for the heck of it. They dropped it because it didn't make sense to develop it further. Realistically t just wasn't offering us devs anything that we couldn't get better elsewhere. And Silverlight guy hasn't been abandoned. He can still roll out his app and it will continue to work for any user. And there's nothing to stop him bringing in other technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript either.
Perhaps future browsers may not support Silverlight but the major players are so far and, for the same reasons the VB6 runtime continues to be supported at least for now, Silverlight applications will probably have a pretty healthy shelf-life ahead of them too. Quite simply, it wouldn't pay a browser producer not to support it.
So now your Silverlight guy is faced with the choice of what he should do next. Should he abandon MS in a fit of pique and go elsewhere? Hell no. That would be unprofessional. What he should do is assess the world as it stands now and make his choice based on that.
I hope that answers where I'd stand on the likes of Silverlight being dropped so I'll touch on VB6 again now (it's what this thread was originally about after all) . You talked about return on investment. Do you not think MS have given you plenty of time to recoup your VB6 investment in the last decade? How long would be enough? I actually think MS has a pretty good track record of not just leaving it's developers out in the cold.
NSA covered pretty much everything I would say to most of this post: I work for somebody else, and they largely determine which tools I use. If one goes away, it doesn't make any dent in my income. That's not the case with axisdj, to be sure, but it is the case with me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmidt
Still, I AM annoyed that MS abandons viable tech right and left. I'm still working with XNA, and there is a chance that it will come back. On the other hand, tech companies have stupidly ignored the influence of games on computer development for most of the 90s, and could easily go right back to that. Fortunately, XNA is still advancing by open source, and MS hasn't totally closed the door on it...so who knows. However, the reason I'm still using XNA is that there isn't a great alternative for what I need to do.
That's the point to the whole thing: Even if I'm pissed at MS for abandoning tech, what's the alternative? Apple has a FAR worse track record for abandoning things. Google has very little track record at all, but what record it has is indifferent, at best. Linux is a dead end. There was a chance that it could become the universal OS a decade, or so, back, but that chance is pretty much gone. It is a niche player and is likely to remain so. ReactOS looks nice, in theory, but isn't all that in practice, yet. When it comes to development tools, the situation is even worse. MS has the best, and the rest are a long ways down from there.
So, even if I am pissed at MS for the choices they have made (which I'm not, though I am a bit annoyed when I think about it), what is my alternative as a hobbyist? As an employed coder, I have no choice at all other than quitting my job, because I work for a group that has a contract with MS and all the systems I am writing for run MS products. The job is most excellent, though, so quitting in a fit of pique over MS would be masochistic.
I think I want to meet this JavaScript Girl lolQuote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Why - do you need some "closure"??Quote:
Originally Posted by RobDog888
You probably have to be a JS coder to even get that ;)
Either that or an "escape" from reality lolQuote:
Originally Posted by szlamany
No, no, keep going. Who knows where you will end up.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
So, to summarize:
.NET = breasts
JavaScript = hooker/tramp
By that analogy, if you end up with a lot of .NET built onto JS, you have an app that will be both pay as you go, and a bit more expensive than other apps.
I think I just figured out the MS strategy.
Sod it i'm turning to Jscript/brainF(cant name it)
Ok, are you saying that this epic has epochs? Was there the age of despair (the original post and the few following), the age of condemnation, the witness of wittis, the age of sushi, the age of vitriol, and the age of moderation and banishment?Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Doggone it, I had a better word play than the epoch of the epic, and it totally slipped my mind. Here you were, coming down through the ages weeding out the calumny like a wolf upon the fold, and I clean forgot the words to eloquently skewer that statement, typo that it may be. What tragedy, what misfortune, that here in the latter days of this august thread, aged as a fine Microsoft whine, when the ancient and venerable discourse of those now so many days older and doubtless wiser, no fitting riposte, no suitable bon Moti, no sufficiently quarlesome quip, should dull the sting of your perspicatious moderation. The aeons of this thread, though seeming endless, are but days. The thread is still young. The age of enlightenment has yet to flower. Indeed, when it comes to enlightenment, the only buds yet opened by this thread are those that don't make the reader wiser, but rather weiser. And so, beer in mind, we stumble towards no truth of any consequence, but tumble, yowling and spitting, into a querolous future.
Or are you saying that you just p'd off about the last few pages?
Where Is .NET Headed?
Now where it really gets interesting is in feedback comments, such as:Quote:
What To Do?
If your business or company still relies solely on components delivered to developers through an MSDN subscription, then it is past time to start looking beyond what Microsoft offers for .NET development so you won’t be left behind in 5 years. Embrace and support open source.
If you get a sense of deja vu from this, you should. It does sound just like the straws some VB6 programmers were grasping for after VB6 went legacy back in 2008.Quote:
At this point, I beleive the best move Microsoft can make is to make .NET Open Source, and then launch a program like Apache Incubator around that - so that some serious OSS development can happen around the .NET ecosystem. The real problem with .NET is the unavailability of frameworks for solving new age problems - .NET developers are cramped with the nonavailability of Proven libraries for Machine Learning, Distributed Processing, Text Processing etc - Talk about Solr, Lucene, Mahout, Storm, etc. The CLR and C# are awesome - but MS just can't push forward the development of mature libraries around the same, with out participation from OSS community. Hopefully, if Azure turns out to be a big success story, then Microsoft won't mind open sourcing the Entire .NET stack OSS ;).
May I ask which rules they have broken so I don't brake them? Also, this thread could be used as an example of how not to break said rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve R Jones
It was a typo but it was an apt one, given the length of the thread, and I have to ask (because your puns so oft fly below the radar of my wit) was this deliberate:-Quote:
typo that it may be
? Because if it was then you, sir, deserve cake.Quote:
aged as a fine Microsoft whine
Very poetic, by the way.
General aggressiveness specifically covered by these two clauses:-Quote:
May I ask which rules they have broken
•You will not behave in an abusive and/or hateful manner, and will not harass, threaten, nor attack anyone.
•You will not use profanity and will neither post with language or Content that is obscene, sexually oriented, sexually suggestive or otherwise objectionable, nor link to websites that contain such content.
Hopefully you won't find any evidence of it, though, because I went to considerable pains to remove it.
OH GOD. The wrath of FunkyDexter has come. He is not CC Mod.
Big Blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
[The discontinued Silverlight and "the hotter sister"]
Nah - for me the ".NET-sister" was always the "clumsier one" (a bit too much resemblingQuote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
the role-model for a Rubens-picture) ... but tastes differ of course.
That would be a step-down from Silverlight (when looking at things technologically) -Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
the only thing in favour of HTML5 is, that it's a standard (now) - but still many Browser-
engines implement things differently - and the JS-frameworks still need to dance around a
lot off issues with their "browser-vendor-specific-quirks-modes", to offer a commonly usable
API and the same visual appearances on the outside.
So, no - when we talk about "sensual experiences" after being "in bed" with Silverlight
and after that with HTML5/JS as the "RichClient-like" alternative approach, then one
needs to be a masochist, to label the latter experience a "sexual highlight" (there's a
reason for things like TypeScript, you know).
But the MS-announcement already broke him (financially), because the potential customer-baseQuote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
was breaking away along with it...
Not possible currently, borrowed money is gone - very hard marketing now for him, to sellQuote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
to at least "a few" - the current ROI barely covering the interests for the borrowed money.
So, what did the guy do wrong exactly?
Was it his fault?
In my opinion the MS deprecation-cycles for developer-tools/techs are far too short currently.
At least 10 years would be much better - especially when they promote a tool *as much* as
they did in case of Silverlight. And in case they are unsure about the long-term-success (or their
own strategic plans) for a certain tool, why not label it clearly as "experimental" (for a time).
Amazing (and contradicting) logic you show there - I say: "Hell yes!".Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
If that wasn't a "fool me once"-experience, then what is?
And your "younger hotter sister" (the HTML5/JS one - albeit not really being hotter)
offers that way out for him (in case he's still on to "the web-thing").
He'll still need some years to recover though - let's hope he's finally learned his
lesson, that it's a good idea to use either well-established standards - or well-
known and actively-developed OpenSource tools for his "next business idea".
So, my small example with the Silverlight-guy apparently didn't make it through -Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
MS does *not* have a "good track record" (not anymore since VB6), when it comes
to offering developers long-term-usable tools they can truly rely and build a business
on for a decade or two (aside from their C/C++ platform).
Larger companies can live better with that short-term-policy of MS (larger cash-reserves),
but for self-employed developers or smaller companies, using any MS-tools is quite risky
(if they plan something bigger which takes 3-4 years development-time - and choose
something different from MS-C/C++).
In my opinion the Silverlight-guy did nothing wrong - and in case he will decide to
make another attempt in continuing his career in selfemployment, running his own
small company, then carefully choosing non-MS-tools would be (in my book) a very
good idea for him.
And to come back to VB6 finally - that's what *many* (not all) VB6-developers
have learned already - most experienced ones who still run a small company, will
look very carefully, what technology or language or platform they will choose for
their next projects - not all of them ruling out MS-tech entirely, but others are
quite consequent in applying the "fool-me-once"-rule - and there's nothing wrong
with that.
Speaking for myself, I invested my time into C/C++, HTML/JS/JS-frameworks +
multiplatform-OpenSource-libs + algorithms and patterns in general.
I feel quite well-prepared for the future - still love the simplicity (paired with
entirely sufficient comfort) of the VB6-compiler I use for Win-Desktop-Apps -
and cannot see any reason why this should cause a "living in the past"-attitude
towards me from the end of some .NET-devs.
Switching over to .NET is just *one-of-many* alternatives for VB6-developers -
there's loads of other interesting stuff to "move on to", so please try to not be that
adamant about ".NET being the *only* logical choice for a VB6-dev" - especially now,
that the "end of the desktop is proclaimed" (though as for that, I differ for example
from dilettantes opinion, that the desktop will die *soon*). Nevertheless I feel prepared
for the possibility, reading much about the different cloud-approaches (not only the
MS-one) - I write more WebApps already (currently using classic *.asp at the server-end,
and HTML5/jQuery at the clientside - but already experimenting with Node.js - to use
JS-classes as the "intermediate glue" on both ends).
As for the point some others have brought up in the discussion, who are:
"... not selfemployed - and work for a company who dictates which tools they have to use" -
not much to comment about that - there's no larger lever to influence decisions, other than
trying to apply a bit of "soft-pressure" in a team-meeting or something, e.g. how great
your "latest experiment with Node.js" worked out - things like that.
Olaf
Well since i started this Let me chime in...
So i have realized at some point I will have to re-write my vb6 apps that are making me a living right now.
The question is when should i do it. I have read many studies saying that a rewrite can be disasterous, here is one:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articl...000000069.html
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid...-Software.aspx
Ok, so here is my train of thought. I think im going to wait till vb6 breaks. In the mean time i will continue to see what develops with vbrichclient. I am also learning lazarus which i think is a viable vb6 replacement/ native/ cross platform.
Logically it seems that when vb6 apps break all others like lazarus/qt/etc that compile native will break also
In the mean time i am Going to clean up my code and remove as much ms dependencies as possible.
So time will tell, those that are capable i encourage you to help the vbrichclient project, i believe its the only way foward for exusting v 6 code. And let me just say the creator of vbrichclient showed me how to do proper multi threading in vb6 and to this day i am amazed by it, because everyone said it was impossible. Its not. The automation software i wrote run 24/7 and never crashes running multiple threads with vb6 created app. You can hear my station at www.sadanceradio.com
Have a nice day everyone!
Silverlight:
It was obviously targeted as a Flash killer/sequel/steamroller/alternative.
.NET programmers, though, weren't interested in the Flash-targetted market, so Silverlight failed. Not 'failed' as in gone away, but it really isn't a viable alternative, because alternatives really aren't good for the consumer in the development market.
however, it will be around for a while - Netflix uses silverlight as their movie client. HTML5 does not have the richness of Silverlight or Flash. Flash is annoying as hell. Silverlight (appears) to have a fairly unintrusive client side implementation.
That sounds contradictory, but this is the future of choosing the right technology: make your choice, knowing at some point, you will not be in the majority. VB6 had a good run, can still be used, but is overshadowed by more capable technologies. Just because a handful of people can knock out fantastic apps in VB6 does not mean VB6 is a viable development tool.
Remember, Macs were few and far between, but people still developed for them. They knew their market was small. Doesn't mean that there was no future in it. Conversely, computer systems are developing rapidly; how can any serious developer believe that their language of choice should live on forever?