Quote:
Originally Posted by
Schmidt
Wasn't me who brought the heat into the debate - and I know for example Carlos well enough,
that I can ensure you, he's not somebody who insults others deliberately and unprovoced -
I've never seen him troll a forum or newsgroup - and we know each other for years now.
You know Carlos AND (you think probably) know Fatina?
Small world!
I was thinking about some of the stuff NSA said and realized that in my group (if you can call it that), there is almost a gleeful desire to use a tool that nobody else is using. So, if one person says Node.JS is the shizzle, and somebody else decides to try it, then the first person seems almost obligated to switch to Dojo. If that doesn't sound like a good idea....well, can't argue with that, but there are several other oddities about the situation, as well. Still, I think I envy you associating with a few other people who work in the same language....I think...except that I have no idea what that is like, so I really don't know.
Quote:
Would like a more immediate reaction by the moderators, when such discussion-disrupting
picture-nonsense starts the next time (when it is solely thought for ridiculing the differing
opinion of other members).
Not going to happen in Chit-Chat. This has been a discussion of some substance, but there have been some in the past, equally contentious, but regarding more fundamental and controversial subjects (if anybody remembers the immigration thread...). When people feel strongly enough about a subject, you are going to get some odd responses. To some extent, that's got to ride in Chit-Chat or else the community will end up censoring too many views.
Quote:
My point being, with a different behaviour on the side of MS, with more prolonged release-
cycles, longer periods until tool-deprecation, the "bets on MS-tools" would get a lot more
safer until some ROI comes in.
Silverlight is kind of the outlier here. When that first came out, I thought MS was nuts to do it, so I wasn't surprised that it failed. Other than that, the time-frame during which they support their technology and keep it viable is in the 10-20 year range (closer to 10 than 20, as noted earlier) that you were asking for. After all, VB6 apps still run fine on all Windows OS (except mobile, where they never ran) now some 12 years after the replacement came out. They kind of suggest that the apps will keep running for another decade, too (though there are other interpretations of that statement).
Quote:
When I'm being asked directly, what tool to use for professional development,
and the one who asks already has VB6-experience (and in most cases it *is* for
the Desktop), then my answer will also be: continue with VB6 - no reason to switch,
because you can get biten equally easy when you choose .NET.
I would answer that you need to look at the job market. You will get higher pay, on average, for C# than for VB.NET, but there are lots of jobs in either. Are there more jobs there than in VB6? I would expect that to be the case (and I would expect that most announcements for VB are looking for .NET not VB6). After all, you can't buy VB6 from MS anymore, so the only people working in it are getting it from MSDN subscriptions, e-bay, other legacy sources, or piracy. I would be surprised if any company was willing to go with any of those routes.
Quote:
When a *common* question is in the room - "what's the best tool to use today" -
then I only argue *against* those who recommend .NET - because that's not the
recommendation I would make - I would recommend C++,HTML/JS/jQuery instead -
no real mistake possible with those choices - many of you misundertand my counter-
arguments against .NET-recommendations as "recommendation of VB6 instead".
There are mistakes to be made with ALL of those choices. Three of those are web, while the fourth is C++. Is there a good RAD tool that works with C++? Even where I work, where, as I noted, people delight in using different things from each other, NOBODY works in C++, though several of us know it. It's a great language, and was one of the first I learned, but it's not the choice for creating LOB apps.
As for JS, it may well be around for the duration, but I don't believe it's an evolutionary end, as I've stated before. It's a really poor language in many regards. We can do much better, and I have no doubt that we will. Typescript is headed in that way, and I've heard of other languages that will compile to JS. Eventually, I expect JS to end up as the ASM of the web world...at best (or else I expect it to die entirely). JQuery will live and die on the same timeline, and HTML....isn't a language.
On the other hand, there are lots of jobs in web development, and JS, JQuery and HTML are all things that you should be pretty familiar with if that is the career you are seeking. They won't do a thing for you in desktop, though. So, it all depends on what career you are looking for, because a job that requires those items will not be advertised the same as a job for a desktop developer.
Quote:
Even *if* you rewrite everything you already have running (well-tested, with hundreds
of small bugs eliminated over the last 10 years), with e.g. .NET-Winforms (which most
of you currently work with) the VB6-developer will accomplish exactly nothing in terms
of greater "long-term-stability" for the next 20 years, because WinForms will go out of
scope (with a high probability) at the same time as VB6.
That seems like a reasonable bet. There are some suggestions that it won't be the case, but I think it's still more likely than not.
Quote:
Porting a large "I made a living from it" VB6-LOB-App with hundreds of Forms, hundreds
of Modules and hundreds of Classes to .NET-Winforms just doesn't worth the efforts.
That's situational. I'm actually in that boat. I have a large VB6 LOB app which HAS to go somewhere (the source code was lost in a robbery, of all things). However, that provides an opportunity to re-write and fix many of the design mistakes made. There are ALWAYS design improvements that could be made. I have never taken a VB6 app and ported it to .NET without greatly improving usability in one area or another, not because of differences in the language, but because I better understood the problem domain and had things that should be added.
So, porting a LOB app as a static port, where the features don't change, is a bad idea. Putting out a new version with several improvements...that's not so bad. I doubt there is a program that can't be improved. Last night I realized that a certain form that I wrote a year ago is a far-from-ideal means to handle certain data entry (it has only two numericupdown controls on it, and even that can get significant improvement). There's always improvements to be made on a large app. That's when you port, not when there are no changes worth making.
Quote:
Shall he re-write for Metro/WinRT/XAML - not sure if that's a good idea at this point
in time either.
Unfortunately, it may be, but it's a non-starter if we are talking LOB.
Quote:
So the only thing remaining for the VB6-guy, in case he wants to start *today*
(no need to yet, just saying) - is to rewrite "for the Web" - but now in this field
(albeit ASP.NET being a very good tool) - there's very hard competition and many
other "nice sisters" to choose from. And even good old classic *.asp is not that bad
either on the serverside (co
mpatible with VB6-source, when you leave out the Type-
specifiers - and serverside code tends to be small compared to the clientside JS-
framework-code you have to write for a modern looking Web-App which offers
"Desktop-feeling").
That web thing is just a fad. It'll never last.
More seriously, there are apps that the web doesn't handle at all, yet. I would assume that there are lots of VB6 LOB apps that are in that camp.
Quote:
- Your ROI was cut by an MS-deprecation-announcment - now you encounter difficulties to win new (more "anxious") customers
- Still it is high enough "to survive" - but your cash-resources to "move over to something else" simply aren't there (due to the announcement)
That's not a programming issue, that's a marketing issue. Your customers are going to be concerned whether or not THEIR investment in your software is a good one, not whether you are using a certain technology. If they see you as a drunken meth-head, then it doesn't matter what your app does or what technology you are using. If you convince them that YOU are going to be around, and that this is something you are focused on, then they won't be asking what technology you use. In other words, if you are foolish enough to present your app in the most negative light possible, you get what you deserve. If you come in saying, "well, it does what you need now, but MS could change something and I'll just turn my back on you." then you are dead no matter what you are selling.
