No troll. What are the (legitimate) reasons people are still using VB6 ?

VB6 is vintage stuff.
Bought it in 1999 and the guy who directed me to a shop was my wife's obstetrician when she gave birth to our son !
Now my son is a soldier, in the mountainous assault units !

But the latter editions are rueful.
What can we do ?
Tried the 2004 edition, some improvements, better looking buttons and textboxes but unthinkable trouble.
Element arrays gone, even the save to disc command was some mysterious roundabout thing you had to do - I don't remember now.
The editions beyond 2004 are just as bad.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

VB6 is vintage stuff.
Bought it in 1999 and the guy who directed me to a shop was my wife's obstetrician when she gave birth to our son !
Now my son is a soldier, in the mountainous assault units !

But the latter editions are rueful.
What can we do ?
Tried the 2004 edition, some improvements, better looking buttons and textboxes but unthinkable trouble.
Element arrays gone, even the save to disc command was some mysterious roundabout thing you had to do - I don't remember now.
The editions beyond 2004 are just as bad.

---

I'm just an applications programmer, so I can't speak to what is under the hood but, I support a myriad of systems that are now a cross between VB 6.0 and VB .Net. I've come to like VB .net better.

From vb6 to vb.net migration forget it rather.
I created a big program using vb.net, it was included in a newspaper cd gift as well, but I never used it again.
Many features of vb6 were gone (for the sake of some nebulous concept of political correctness ?). One day's work was becoming two days work.

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Originally Posted by Eduardo-

Isn't this a VB oriented forum?

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That's my point, though I wasn't explicit about it. The number of viewers for any forum should not be used to evaluate the popularity of a language simply because the distribution is likely to be due to factors other than popularity.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

From vb6 to vb.net migration forget it rather.
I created a big program using vb.net, it was included in a newspaper cd gift as well, but I never used it again.
Many features of vb6 were gone (for the sake of some nebulous concept of political correctness ?). One day's work was becoming two days work.

---

That's largely a matter of opinion, and everybody has one. I was fast in VB6, I was fast in VB.NET, and I'm fast in JavaScript....which sucks rocks, though it is also cool in some ways. They aren't all the same, to be sure, and everybody will have a preference...which also won't all be the same.

I'm not sure much will come of it, but Static TypeScript looks interesting:

Static TypeScript Launched

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A user’s STS program is compiled to machine code in the browser and linked against a precompiled C++ runtime, producing an executable that is more efficient than the more usual embedded interpreter approach, extending battery life and making it possible to run on devices with as little as 16 kB of RAM (such as the BBC micro:bit).

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I'm not sure why the same language couldn't be expanded to other target platforms including Windows. Of course targeting specific OS-less platforms has its advantages for getting a compiler together quickly.

I'm not sure anyone has the will to do it though. This may be just another dancing bear project doomed to quick obscurity.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

That's largely a matter of opinion, and everybody has one. I was fast in VB6, I was fast in VB.NET, and I'm fast in JavaScript....which sucks rocks, though it is also cool in some ways. They aren't all the same, to be sure, and everybody will have a preference...which also won't all be the same.

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Java is for web browsers, we talk about downloadables and cds.
I had many problems especially with the element arrays that are not allowed (and the explanation given by ms is pathetic).
My computer back then -2013- was XP so that could have been a contributing factor, but I did n't like it.
I just think ms wanted to deliberately downgrade the product.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

Java is for web browsers

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Javascript! - and no it isn't.

I'm not sure what an element array is. Do you mean control arrays? They served a purpose in VB6, but a different mechanism served the same purpose in .NET, which meant they were not needed. However, a fair number of people used a feature of them that made them convenient in VB6 that seems like kind of an accident. The purpose was to allow one handler to handle events from multiple controls, which is easy enough to do in either language. People seemed to use them more as a means to make a quick collection of like controls in VB6, because that was easy to do, while having one event handler handle events from multiple controls isn't all that common, in practice. Making a collection of whatever became considerably easier from 2005 on, once generics were introduced, and because a single line once LINQ was added in 2008 (though I'm not a fan of LINQ, in general). A single line is still harder than what I think you can do to make a control array in VB6, but not by a whole lot. I think it was drag and drop in VB6, and now it takes a line of code.

Of course, that might not be what you were talking about.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

I'm not sure what an element array is. Do you mean control arrays? They served a purpose in VB6, but a different mechanism served the same purpose in .NET, which meant they were not needed. However, a fair number of people used a feature of them that made them convenient in VB6 that seems like kind of an accident. The purpose was to allow one handler to handle events from multiple controls, which is easy enough to do in either language. People seemed to use them more as a means to make a quick collection of like controls in VB6, because that was easy to do, while having one event handler handle events from multiple controls isn't all that common, in practice. Making a collection of whatever became considerably easier from 2005 on, once generics were introduced, and because a single line once LINQ was added in 2008 (though I'm not a fan of LINQ, in general). A single line is still harder than what I think you can do to make a control array in VB6, but not by a whole lot. I think it was drag and drop in VB6, and now it takes a line of code.

Of course, that might not be what you were talking about.

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The lack of control arrays in vb.net was iirc one of the major complaints at the time vb.net came out first.
It made the migration of programs that used them heavily much more difficult.
I think it was suggested that they could not be accommodated because they didn't fit the OO model somehow.
However RealBasic/Xojo is fully OO and also has control arrays since forever so I think that answer may have been a spurious one.
Just one aspect of a sad story.

You can add suspicion as to how MS likes to deprecate technologies as it suits them. I am sure they would have fully deprecated .NET if their misguided attempts toward a tablet ecosystem had gone down as planned. It felt as if that plan was actually put in action for a while and not yet fully abandoned...

How else could MS force you to accept their latest strategy?

Deprecation forced me out of the MS camp in the 1990s, once burnt, twice shy. I am now only here for the 'fun' of seeing what I missed and in so doing learning the process of building an application, migrating it through the versions. Suspicion prevents me from fully jumping on the current MS bandwagon be it .NET or UWP.

Whether any of this is true or not is partly irrelevant - suspicion is the key thing, it is suspicion that kept me here.

In addition, I have just been reading the posts regarding the slowness of the latest IDE of 2019 where devs have experienced 20-30 sec delays in reacting to a compile-button press. I prefer to take advantage of the speed of newer computer technology to make IDEs operate faster, to take the speed increase that way. The other way is to make the IDE do a lot more for you (supposedly to assist but in reality slowing down your productive IDE workhorse to a crawl).

I am not in the position to afford a powerful development box, at least not yet and one of the benefits for me of picking up VB6 at this stage was to find how immensely quick the IDE is to operate and compile on this old core2duo laptop with 4gb ram and an SSD. I have a couple of other faster desktops but this machine flies with VB6. Its a dream.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

You can add suspicion as to how MS likes to deprecate technologies as it suits them. I am sure they would have fully deprecated .NET if their misguided attempts toward a tablet ecosystem had gone down as planned. It felt as if that plan was actually put in action for a while and not yet fully abandoned...

How else could MS force you to accept their latest strategy?

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I personally think that is an unfair argument, the fact VB6 still runs on Windows 10. Considering VB6 was created around 1998 and officially support ended in 2008 the fact it still runs over 10 years later on operating systems that didn't even exist back then shows just how much MS values backwards comparability. Just about every version of .Net is still supported (even 1.0) and the existence of .Net core doesn't mean you can't continue to use .Net Framework.

Most new versions of the framework are almost 100% source compatible with earlier versions, although core can cause some problems due to it being a fairly major rewrite. Saying that though I have managed to take a couple of .Net 2.0 winform apps and convert them to Core 3.0 with no code changes and only about 30 minutes of changes to the .csproj files, most of which was just getting the correct packages installed.

Compare that to the likes of Apple who frequently throw away backwards comparability and force changes onto people....

But the threat was real and is always there... and backwards compatibility is a great argument if it applied in this case.

MS does n't like people to create apps, in much the same way as the Soviet Union was not allowing you to sell your paintings if you were a painter (only state painters making portraits of Stalin - Nikita Krustchev were allowed).
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

MS does n't like people to create apps, in much the same way as the Soviet Union was not allowing you to sell your paintings if you were a painter (only state painters making portraits of Stalin - Nikita Krustchev were allowed).
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

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Doesn't like people to create apps? Really not sure where you are coming from on that one. MS have a pretty decent legacy of providing developer tools, they give VS Code away for free, there is a free version of Visual Studio, they provide free access to their devops platform for teams of 5 or less, they have open sourced dotnet core, they have made dotnet core cross platform as well, Xamarin is also free if you are doing mobile development, also open source (under MIT)

To me all of those things sound like a company that is encouraging people to develop software and make applications.

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Originally Posted by PlausiblyDamp

Most new versions of the framework are almost 100% source compatible with earlier versions

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large portions are also being opensourced which means that if they ever "moved on", .net developers would have a ton of resources to extend its life.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

I am not in the position to afford a powerful development box, at least not yet and one of the benefits for me of picking up VB6 at this stage was to find how immensely quick the IDE is to operate and compile on this old core2duo laptop with 4gb ram and an SSD. I have a couple of other faster desktops but this machine flies with VB6. Its a dream.

---

Old software runs good on old hardware. News at 9.

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Originally Posted by PlausiblyDamp

Doesn't like people to create apps? Really not sure where you are coming from on that one. MS have a pretty decent legacy of providing developer tools, they give VS Code away for free, there is a free version of Visual Studio, they provide free access to their devops platform for teams of 5 or less, they have open sourced dotnet core, they have made dotnet core cross platform as well, Xamarin is also free if you are doing mobile development, also open source (under MIT)

To me all of those things sound like a company that is encouraging people to develop software and make applications.

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Word requires subscription !

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Originally Posted by DllHell

Old software runs good on old hardware. News at 9.

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Actually, it is old software on new hardware, relatively speaking and that is why it is fast.

Nobody complains when you put a V8 in an MG - it just goes faster - and that's the point isn't it?

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

MS does n't like people to create apps...
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

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Suspicion and paranoia go hand in hand. They ARE out to get you. :)

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

Actually, it is old software on new hardware, relatively speaking and that is why it is fast.

Nobody complains when you put a V8 in an MG - it just goes faster - and that's the point isn't it?

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perhaps i should have said "really old software runs fast on somewhat old hardware" :lol:

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

Suspicion and paranoia go hand in hand. They ARE out to get you. :)

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Ms damage control alert. All hands on deck.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

Suspicion and paranoia go hand in hand. They ARE out to get you. :)

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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that they are NOT out to get me.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

Word requires subscription !

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That's true...ish, I think. I assume that's Office 365, of which I have no first hand knowledge. The reason I have no first hand knowledge is that Libre Office is an open source project that can replace almost all of Office (not Access, as far as I know, though I haven't looked).

I understand the concept behind the subscription system for Office 365. While I don't like it, I do understand it. I'm not going to explain it here, though, because my views on this would be one of those lengthy posts that nobody really wants to read.

Another thing vb.net does and makes you want to murder everybody is this:
When you write a line of code it takes whatever looks similar from above and completes the line for you.
You may of course not want this, you want to write something else, but there it is, you have to press delete-delete-delete every time.
In this way it takes you one year to write ten lines.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that they are NOT out to get me.

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The first step is to determine whether you are actually paranoid or not. That is important.

The second step is to come to the realisation that you are using very, very old software.

Regardless of the two above they may still be coming to get you (they tried to get me but I hid).

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

Another thing vb.net does and makes you want to murder everybody is this:
When you write a line of code it takes whatever looks similar from above and completes the line for you.
You may of course not want this, you want to write something else, but there it is, you have to press delete-delete-delete every time.
In this way it takes you one year to write ten lines.

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What version of the IDE are you using that does that? I've never seen that happen... The only one I haven't had the chance to use has been VS2019. But I've used pretty much all others, and have never ever seen that happen. Closest I've seen is intellisense, but that just does auto complete words and maybe some method signatures, but never entire code lines and never previous lines.

Perhaps you've got some plugin that's being too helpful.

-tg

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

That's true...ish, I think.

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You can still purchase office
https://products.office.com/en-us/ge...#compare_table

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

Another thing vb.net does and makes you want to murder everybody is this:
When you write a line of code it takes whatever looks similar from above and completes the line for you.
You may of course not want this, you want to write something else, but there it is, you have to press delete-delete-delete every time.
In this way it takes you one year to write ten lines.

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This is something that can be turned off if you don't like it

You can also buy office if you don't want to lease it (https://products.office.com/en-us/ge...#compare_table)

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because my views on this would be one of those lengthy posts that nobody really wants to read.

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Too late :p

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

Another thing vb.net does and makes you want to murder everybody is this:
When you write a line of code it takes whatever looks similar from above and completes the line for you.
You may of course not want this, you want to write something else, but there it is, you have to press delete-delete-delete every time.
In this way it takes you one year to write ten lines.

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I've seen that in Excel, but never in .NET. I agree that it would be pretty annoying if it did that, it just doesn't do that for me, nor has it ever. I've used 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010 (extensively), 2012, 2013, 2015 (a fair amount), and 2017(extensively), so if it did that in 2002, they removed it. On the other hand DllHell seems to know what you are referencing.

What are the (legitimate) reasons why people are still using VB6?

Have we reached any conclusions yet? Although I am a mere mortal among the VbForums Titans, but I want to say that this site is a vb language paradigm, and what you write here is of great relevance.

We focus on the focus of the title. I look forward to seeing the result of the opinions. What are the (legitimate) reasons people are still using VB6.

Very very very thanks ...

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Originally Posted by Episcopal

What are the (legitimate) reasons why people are still using VB6?

Have we reached any conclusions yet? Although I am a mere mortal among the VbForums Titans, but I want to say that this site is a vb language paradigm, and what you write here is of great relevance.

We focus on the focus of the title. I look forward to seeing the result of the opinions. What are the (legitimate) reasons people are still using VB6.

Very very very thanks ...

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No control arrrays.
MS should wipe the slate clean and release an enhanced edition of vb6.

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Originally Posted by johnywalker

No control arrrays.

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Go on finish that sentence properly... "... at design time" ... seriously... thats' what this is all about when people civitch about the lack of control arrays... it's the lack of deisgn time support for them. Which is only half of it. Because you can easily create an aray of controls, just like any thing else. It just takes some effort. But as VB developers, we've gotten lazy and used to the IDE doing it for us. And so no that the IDE doesn't, we get all whiney. So if the lack of a built-in control array is your only reason for sticking with VB6 perhaps you should pull up your big boy programer undies and learn a couple new tricks.

As for releasing a new "updated" version of VB6. MS is never going to do that. I they were, they would have done it years ago, when the voices were loudest. They didn't then, they aren't going to do it now. No amount of petitions are ever going to change that. It's going to take a community effort to get it done... and even that is having trouble getting any kind of serious traction going. Just look at the threads in our own forums for that evidence. If there is ever a singular place where there is going to be a serous place where VB6 could be revived and moved ot the next place, it would be here... and yet... here we are.

Honestly, I don't think it's going to get much better than it is at the moment. You've got VB6 running on Win10. the RichClient library from Olaf, Krool's custom controls, and a couple of other pretty cool things out there. And a pretty hard core community at this point. To be perfectly one of two things will happen - VB6 as it is will become a cockroach language and keep on living, despite the harsh environments, it will keep going. Even after MS finds a way to mAke it so that the IDE "stops working" .... people will find a way to make shims or something to keep it going, or will develop a new IDE/compiler/run-time to keep it alive. I just don't see it happening right now.

-tg

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Originally Posted by techgnome

. If there is ever a singular place where there is going to be a serous place where VB6 could be revived and moved to the next place, it would be here... and yet... here we are.

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Yup... but we must be positive and we have RadBasic and PrimeDivine's possible offerings and a new way forward.

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Originally Posted by techgnome

Honestly, I don't think it's going to get much better than it is at the moment.

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It might!

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Originally Posted by techgnome

a cockroach language

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I love that.

There are many ways forward, it all depends on what is an acceptable way forwards. Lots of people are sticking with VB6 because they have large code bases in VB6 and don't want to re-write. For such people, a way forward is only viable if it doesn't involve a re-write, which means that the language has to load and run VB6 files. As far as I know, there currently is no viable way forward for people in that situation. Those alternatives are just wishful thinking.

On the other hand, if you don't care about carrying forward existing source code without changes, then you have any number of alternatives. Once again, which ones are viable to you depends on what you find to be acceptable. Most people are probably in this camp, as most people have moved to other languages, whether .NET, Java, Python, JavaScript, or whatever else interested them. The options are too numerous to list, these days, which likely makes the decision far worse, rather than any better.

Alternatively, don't move on. VB6 still runs. It doesn't have to forever, it just has to for as long as you care. That's one of the things about change. In computers, it's sure to happen, it just doesn't have to end up mattering to you. If you're going to retire in a couple years, there's no reason to move to anything.

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Originally Posted by techgnome

Go on finish that sentence properly... "... at design time" ... seriously... thats' what this is all about when people civitch about the lack of control arrays... it's the lack of deisgn time support for them. Which is only half of it. Because you can easily create an aray of controls, just like any thing else. It just takes some effort. But as VB developers, we've gotten lazy and used to the IDE doing it for us. And so no that the IDE doesn't, we get all whiney. So if the lack of a built-in control array is your only reason for sticking with VB6 perhaps you should pull up your big boy programer undies and learn a couple new tricks.

As for releasing a new "updated" version of VB6. MS is never going to do that. I they were, they would have done it years ago, when the voices were loudest. They didn't then, they aren't going to do it now. No amount of petitions are ever going to change that. It's going to take a community effort to get it done... and even that is having trouble getting any kind of serious traction going. Just look at the threads in our own forums for that evidence. If there is ever a singular place where there is going to be a serous place where VB6 could be revived and moved ot the next place, it would be here... and yet... here we are.

Honestly, I don't think it's going to get much better than it is at the moment. You've got VB6 running on Win10. the RichClient library from Olaf, Krool's custom controls, and a couple of other pretty cool things out there. And a pretty hard core community at this point. To be perfectly one of two things will happen - VB6 as it is will become a cockroach language and keep on living, despite the harsh environments, it will keep going. Even after MS finds a way to mAke it so that the IDE "stops working" .... people will find a way to make shims or something to keep it going, or will develop a new IDE/compiler/run-time to keep it alive. I just don't see it happening right now.

-tg

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Don't Trump me.

Yeah, I thought something similar, but he does have a point. Control arrays aren't really an issue. There are actually more options in .NET than there were in VB6 in this regard, but what is missing is the ability to make control arrays in the designer. That was probably removed for the reasons I stated before. Control arrays are there so that one handler can handle events from several controls. That features is NOT missing from the .NET designer, so MS probably figured they had covered control arrays. However, since people appear to have been using control arrays for other purposes (which are also possible in .NET, just can't be done in the designer), the solution they had in the designer made it look like control arrays had gone away. They haven't, though. It's just that the way you set them up has changed.

Still though, I hear what the man was saying. Controls arrays in the designer are very useful (and therefore GOOD) design time element. As everything today is WYSIWYG then having to create the same control in code is a retrograde step. That is PRECISELY what a GUI IDE is for.

It is great creating controls dynamically but if there was once another way and it was better - then the removal of that feature is not an improvement and cannot be argued away cleverly. I suppose we could just do away with the IDE altogether, forget all the control elements and start to handcraft all our buttons, sliders and treeviews ourselves just like we used to - but things have come on since those days, haven't they?

Controls are still created in the designer (though they don't have to be). Hooking multiple controls to the same event handler is still in the designer (though they don't have to be). What is not in the designer is creating a control array for any reason other than hooking one event handler to multiple events. For that, it depends on why you want them in a collection. After all, they are already in a collection already, so it may be that no action need be taken of any sort. Or perhaps that collection isn't suitable for one reason or another, in which case you can create your own collection with a single line (though it would be ever so slightly more efficient to do so using more than one line).

In other words, creating control arrays in the designer was intended to solve one problem, which is still solved in the designer, but was used for other purposes by people. It could only server one such other purpose, and now there are several. You may already have your needs met (put the controls on a panel or in a groupbox, and you already have your control array built for you), or you may not, in which case you have a variety of simple solutions to meet your specific needs.

It's not that you can't achieve the same ends. In fact, depending on the specific objective, you might have what you want without doing anything at all. What has changed is the means to achieve that end, and it was changed to make it more versatile. So, the real complaint is that somebody moved the cheese.

Where's the cheese?


Scone.





Sorry

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

So, the real complaint is that somebody moved the cheese.

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careful, you don't want to rile up the .not group :lol:

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Originally Posted by DllHell

careful, you don't want to rile up the .not group :lol:

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I think we can all agree we like cheese. Having said that, we have better cheese here.

I am .not in the .net .not group, well .not .yet.

I aim to be in the .net group, just .not .now.

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Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber

I think we can all agree we like cheese. Having said that, we have better cheese here.

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It would be a sad life if you restricted yourself to only one type of cheese

I was sitting here perusing this thread when I suddenly came over all peckish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A

The whole thread could probably be summed up with this statement as well! Maybe we're onto something with the whole cheese thing...

I knew what that had to link to before looking, but it's a good one.

This one is just as appropriate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVGVXPuO3xQ

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Originally Posted by wqweto

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Originally Posted by Schmidt

This will never happen, because they only dump stuff which is no longer relevant in terms of revenue.
VBA is still one of the most important parts of the MS-Office-Cash-Cow...

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Why would they ship c2.exe with office?

Anyway, I though office was moving to "normal" languages like Python and JS. . .

cheers,
</wqw>

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I saw this comment while searching for information. I'm thinking about a question:

If one day, all MS Office components are developed with JS, does that mean Windows (including VB6) is about to die? Because the browser will be OS.

to kill vb6 they need to reform the entire OS, and that means a new OS created from scratch.
I think microsoft did say windows 10 will be the last, or at least for a long time.
vb6 will keep working for a long time.
and, in 20-30 years, if this new OS would appear, im sure we will find workaround,
like they do with WineHQ.

If all MS Office components can be developed with JS, it means that the OS can also be developed with JS, and mean that the browser has become an OS.

So, what does the browser run on? Right now, the browser does run on something. It could become an OS such that the OS simply produced the host for JS, but there certainly doesn't appear to be any advantage to doing so.

If the browser becomes an OS, then it will run directly on the hardware (the browser will have BIOS boot features) or it will be solidified in the hardware.

The browser as an OS isn't likely to work very well... even Google has pulled the plug on Chrome Apps...

-tg