VB Classic (A True VB 7.0)

[yereverluvinuncleber]

This does not help much toward a VB7 but it may provide a new native home for VB6. I mentioned ReactOS in an earlier post but then it was truly in its infancy. 0.4.8 has just been released, it is still very much alpha-grade o/s that should only be run in a VM but it now installs and runs VB5, which you can see in the forum post here:

start=1125#p130485



Hopefully, we can test VB6 next and pray the result will be as positive. ReactOS being based upon Windows server 2003 will be a natural and familiar home for VB5/6 development and not being from Microsoft, forced obsolescence will not be part of the culture. ReactOS and VB6 are made for each other it is just a pity that ReactOS is written C, C++ and that you can't as easily contribute...

Long live VB6!

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Olaf, can I ask you to note this thread: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...PIC-WIN-thread

It might be worthwhile giving it a go on some of your non-graphical projects.

[dreammanor]

Now that JavaScript is omnipotent. I'm thinking, whether it's possible to use JavaScript (Electron or Deno) to develop True VB7 transpiler and IDEs completely similar to VB6?

Note:
The VB7 I'm talking about is a brand new scripting language similar to VB6. It can be used for desktop software development, as well as for the development of Web-Apps and Mobile-Apps.

[dday9]

I'm not as familiar with VB6 as I am with other languages, but something that I leverage (almost on a daily basis) are online compilers. This helps me when I need to test something simple or to brainstorm a feature.

Something to consider would be to write your own VB6 online compiler like dotnetfiddle.net as a first step. This would at least give you the capabilities to execute console applications in any environment.

[IndicSoftware]

Note:
The VB7 I'm talking about is a brand new scripting language similar to VB6. It can be used for desktop software development, as well as for the development of Web-Apps and Mobile-Apps.

Wow that is great news. Currently we are using B4X (B4J and B4A) for developing cross platform application in BASIC.

I personally love VB and if you will come out with VB7 I will gladly switch to it instantly!

Can you give any time frame of releases?

Regards,

[SuperDre]

The VB7 I'm talking about is a brand new scripting language similar to VB6. It can be used for desktop software development, as well as for the development of Web-Apps and Mobile-Apps.

Not interested in yet another new scripting language, there are way too many already. One of the powers of VB6 was native compilation..
If you really want crossplatform etc. You're better of just using the widely used frameworks and languages like C#. Especially if you're a business, it's just plainly stupid to rely on a language that isn't supported by a large majority and having to rely on hoping the language you're using will continue to be developed and maintained.

A VB7 is only interesting if you can take a project of VB6 and load it and have it run with really minimal changes needed, like it was with VB5 to VB6 (not VB6 to VB.NET which was just completely incompatible with each other (and VB.NET is the reason we never saw the release of VB7, even though VB7 was feature ready when they decided to dump it and progress with VB.NET).

[BN586]

I read this thread numerous times during development, mostly to make sure no one else was successfully building a true Visual Basic 7 and to commiserate in the lack of a true Visual Basic 7.

Since I believe that the people who really care deserve to be the first to know ...

I'm giving you guys a few hours advance heads up on this before the rest of the world ...

C-Prime is all platforms "Visual Basic 6" that compiles to machine code. On everything from Windows to Linux, Android to iPhone. And it's easy.

http://c-prime.net

Attachment 183038





And as I have been up all night trying to get the site up, I shall now go to sleep for a few hours ...

[SuperDre]

Sorry to say this, but if it isn't 100% VB6 compatible, like being able to load your original project and without much hassle start/compile, it isn't really interesting and it'll be just another scripting language.
But good luck, it's already impressive if it compiles to all major platforms.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Sorry to say this, but if it isn't 100% VB6 compatible, like being able to load your original project and without much hassle start/compile, it isn't really interesting and it'll be just another scripting language.
But good luck, it's already impressive if it compiles to all major platforms.

I'm not sure about that negativity. Many VB6 programs will never be ported to the iphone/tablet classes of devices. I can see TwinBasic/RADBasic being a future for VB6 on the desktop and thence with a potential future on other desktops... However, if there was a basic-alike language that you could use for the iphone/tablet that also had some use on the desktop - then it could be useful, especially if it is more or less here already.

For new development targetting iphone/tablet a useful and familar desktop IDE is the most important thing for me.

[BN586]

Sorry to say this, but if it isn't 100% VB6 compatible, like being able to load your original project and without much hassle start/compile, it isn't really interesting and it'll be just another scripting language.
But good luck, it's already impressive if it compiles to all major platforms.

Thank you for comment. It isn't a scripting language. It was written in C, it has a virtual machine, it has break/edit/continue.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

What the chap meant to say in a more positive way was that, keep it as close to VB6 in use (IDE) but keep the syntax and methods as close to VB6 as possible and you will potentially have lots of happy customers.

I'd document the differences and make it as as easy to convert as possible.

This place can be quite negative as lots of possibilities have emerged only to disappear, it is a little depressing over time. We also have high expectations, so prepare for criticism.

[BN586]

What the chap meant to say in a more positive way was that, keep it as close to VB6 in use (IDE) but keep the syntax and methods as close to VB6 as possible and you will potentially have lots of happy customers.

It's pretty damn close ... me.caption = "Hello World". Yes.

But exact where integer is -32768 to 32767 --- no! Absolutely not. And your measurements are in twips? Really, in 2021? Visual Basic 6 was great but it always had some bizarre choices.

And previous versions of Visual Basic never converted completed to a new version.

Anyway, us programmers can be brash and the like, I have been occasionally guilty of this myself. I'm not really the kind of guy that gets affected by that.

If you can ask a questions at StackOverFlow, you can take some criticism

As a courtesy and a fan of Visual Basic 6 --- I learned most of my programming with that --- I wanted to post it here first.

My son Alex who is in the video is in high school --- no one his age has ever heard of Visual Basic 6. He's learning Java and Python right now.

C-Prime is going to be around a long time, but it needs to have modern thinking to appeal to newer programmers.

[Niya]

I read this thread numerous times during development, mostly to make sure no one else was successfully building a true Visual Basic 7 and to commiserate in the lack of a true Visual Basic 7.

That has already happened. TwinBASIC is as true a successor to VB6 as I've ever seen. And unlike all the would-be successors we've seen over the years on these boards, this one actually exists outside of people's imaginations.

[SuperDre]

But exact where integer is -32768 to 32767 --- no! Absolutely not.

Integer range you mention is 16-bit integer.. and is defined back in the day when Windows was still 16bit, when VB started.
Personally I think Integer is a stupid definition as it's based on the system your running it on, better are names like Int16, int32, int64.

And your measurements are in twips? Really, in 2021? Visual Basic 6 was great but it always had some bizarre choices.
And previous versions of Visual Basic never converted completed to a new version.

I agree, twips is a system that is really bizarre, still have a lot problems with it.
And it isn't a problem if there are some problems after importing a project, but it shouldn't be that you have to change half the application just to get it running.
Never had any real problems upgrading from VB4 to VB5 and then to VB6..

[Niya]

Integer range you mention is 16-bit integer.. and is defined back in the day when Windows was still 16bit, when VB started.
Personally I think Integer is a stupid definition as it's based on the system your running it on, better are names like Int16, int32, int64.

Generally in today's world an Integer is thought of as a 32 bit integer. This is true of most popular languages including C++, Java, C#, VB.Net, Java, JavaScript, Swift, Kotlin, SQL and many more.

[VB6 Programming]

twinBASIC have updated their roadmap

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....34#post5565434

The new twinBASIC IDE is looking good and the ability to import VB6 forms and controls is expected soon.

The twinBASIC IDE can be downloaded here https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....=1#post5561881

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Just been reviewing this old thread and it is hard to believe it was over 10 years ago when this discussion started. I was still young (-ish) and positive and many here were that were equally positive about the vbforum community's capability to create a new and possibly even better VB7.

Then, a replacement for VB6 did not exist except for language alternatives, VB.NET and FreeBasic. Now we have potential replacements for all the components that make up the VB6 environment namely the IDE, language, compiler, interpreter and runtime.

As it is December and the end of the year approaches, I thought it might be useful to compare what we have now with what the community members wanted back in 2013/14 a sort of retrospective view.



We had RC5 back in 2013 whent his thread started, and VB6 with all its extensions (CodeSmart, MZ-Tools, vbAdvance, vb Watch, CodeHelp, Shagratt's &c), a graphics framework by Olaf in the form of RC5 and other add-ins and that was largely it. 32 bit applications on Windows were still 'king' but 64 bits had been an aspiration for many since 2009-ish when the first home-user 64bit Windows versions arrived and became the norm. VB6 was still only capable of delivering 32bit apps and with a built-in graphics framework that was considered legacy, by many. No easy multi-threading and no possibility of future advances in the language itself and no multi-platform, Wine was in its infancy. There was the option of extending your skills to VBA7 which was 64bit and vbScript. We had a vast amount of extant code to draw upon and many sites providing sample code and knowledge. That was about it for VB6-ers.

-oOo-

Now in 2024, we still have VB6 of course, and surprisingly to some, it is still working. We have some minor issues to overcome with regard to installation on newer versions of the Windows o/s but it largely installs and runs as an IDE and operates as it used to, producing compiled binaries that run very quickly due to modern hardware but lacking 64bitness and the potential benefits that can provide. The old add-ins largely operate as they did in 2013, however, some of the addins are no longer supported or developed by their developers. Microsoft is slowly providing alternatives to VBA7 and has announced the deprecation of vbScript. Microsoft is ending its association with its VB6 derived children. Wine has advanced considerably and can provide a degree of multi-platform operation with 32bit Windows apps running on Linux using Wine as long as you obtain the VB6 runtime files and register those in Wine.

Many websites that provided sample code and knowledge have fallen by the wayside but much of that knowlege persists in one form or another and is often still accessible with some work. There is an overall trend in the o/s industry to deprecate 32bit applications and remove that legacy capability and VB6 in that respect, feels increasingly out-of-date.

In addition, today's users 'expect' applications to be 64 bit and increasingly want a graphics toolkit that matches the current design ethos of 'modern' Windows. These sorts of controls have to be hand-rolled with VB6, though Olaf's RichClient can produce graphically advanced results, is now version 6 and still receiving occasional updates.

VB6 though, is still, despite all its shortcomings, a surprisingly good place to code, a fairly decent IDE with impressive RAD capabilities, almost unparalleled "edit and continue" capability and can still achieve impressive results. So, to the future...

-oOo-

TwinBasic

We now have an alternative and it still surprises me that it is here - but it really is! It is TwinBasic. OK, it is still in beta but it seems to work out-of-the-box in most use-cases.

TwinBasic according to its design, it set to provide 100% language compatibilty. So far, it seems to be achieving this very well indeed. The IDE isn't 100% compatible with the VB6 IDE in that it uses a different underlying technology which precludes VB6 add-ins operating. However, functionally and from the user perspective it operates in an very close manner to the VB6 IDE being graphically drag-and-drop and just as RAD. The look and feel is more akin to a modern IDE and that is because it is built using the same technology as VSCode. A lot of what those older VB6 plugins provided are provided by default and the capability to extend the IDE is freely available in code and current knowledge suffices, no need dig to dig into legacy methods and technologies. Improvements will come and the IDE can potentially be built-upon by the VB community ourselves.

As far as I am aware, TwinBasic uses a custom compiler, does not have an interpreter but has the basics of "edit and continue" capability using their custom compiler to trace the current operation point, much in the way that VB.NET does the same. It has a in-built graphic framework that reads and matches the VB6 equivalent controls producing more-or-less identical forms with modern themeing and scaling. This will all be entirely free with the limitation in the unpaid version, of only 32 bit support. Olaf's RichClient framework appears to operate as before, at least from the Cairo graphics side of things, I can't vouch for the rest of what it delivers but it seems to work well graphically, delivering the future potential for advanced multi-platform graphic capability into TwinBasic as well.

TwinBasic has no need of the VB6 runtime.

TwinBasic has language features that were missing in VB6 with more features promised, so for the first time we VB6ers actually have an evolution path. TwinBasic will have language support for multi-threading in the near future but 64bit capability will only be available in the professional paid edition.

TwinBasic has a monthly subscription or a yearly licence whereas VB6 is still obtainable from Microsoft but only as part of the MSDN subscription at approximately six times the cost.

This sounds like an advert. It isn't, it is just my summary of TwinBasic given that I am now a tester (unofficial) and I am achieving unexpectedly positive results from my testing so far. There are bugs of course but they are being raised and fixed.

With the potential of TwinBasic becoming the de-facto replacement for VB6, VBA and possibly even VBScript, coupled with an engaging and productive development team, the future of our VB-derived code seems bright with TwinBasic.



-oOo-

RADBasic

It's not for me to tell what is going on behind the scenes but from what I have been able to glean, the IDE and the compiler are both developed using C#. The LLVM compiler uses a front end ANTLR parser that translates VB to C, from there it is compiled to a native Windows binary. From the user perspective RADBasic has an IDE that approximates to some of the VB6 IDE's functionality. Some of the controls have been implemented (CheckBox, CommandButton, Frame, Label, Menu, OptionButton, Textbox, Timer). The IDE has a drag and drop designer and it compiles simple programs using the LLVM toolchain. I can't say much more but it is due a promised update about now so there should be more detail to come.

I really want RADBasic to succeed but it has a long way to go before it starts to equal what TwinBasic is currently achieving but as part of this retrospective view it is just here to summarise what we can possibly look forward to in the new and upcoming year.

-oOo-

FreeBasic

I don't really want to mention FreeBasic as I might cause a tirade of verbal outpourings from the direction of China. Let's mention it anyway and see what happens. I haven't really dug into FreeBasic as much as I might. I know that FreeBasic now has an IDE written in China and has mostly been crippled (as far as we in the West are concerned) by a lack of a fully English version. I do not believe that problem is going to be completely addressed in the near future, the language barrier is real. If anyone is ACTUALLY using it in anger then feel free to comment, otherwise please keep stumm. I know that Olaf and some others have used FreeBasic to do things that are more difficult in VB6. As for what it might do for us in the New Year? No clue.

Anyway, that's it. I hope to still be coding in VB derived languages in late 2025 and we'll see if there is any major change in the other competitors. I'm feeling very upbeat about the future of my meagre skills in that I shall still be able to apply them usefully over the next ten years or so.

Merry Advent!

[SuperDre]

Even though I still love VB6 very much, and it's still my daily work language, I would not recommend switching to any VB6 replacement unless you're really a lone developer and really don't have the time to switch over to a newer language/framework. Let's not forget converting a big VB6 application to TwinBasic still takes a lot of time, as a lot of user written components will not work and have to be re-written.
Just take the extra time to learn C# and switch over to the .NET framework and make sure you're new application is future proof. Especially if you're a company with multiple developers it just doesn't make sense to switch over to Twinbasic or any other VB6 clone, as it will be hard to get new developers who know how to develop with those vb6 clones (or even vb6 itself).
I wish Twinbasic was released 20 years ago or something like that, then I would most certainly have switched over, but if you're still on vb6 due to you commercial large application, it would not be wise to switch to twinbasic or any other vb6 clone, just learn the new languages/frameworks.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Well, that's never going to happen here. You sound like the voice of every 'snob' programmer I have met over the years, deriding the choices of any other that chooses a different language to code in. I've heard it re: GWBASIC, DCL, Ada, QB, VB1-6, VB.NET, Delphi, javascript, java, C and C++.

I'm not accusing you of being that snob, just that you may have fallen into that same trap.

TwinBasic is not for everyone but it is designed specifically to fill a niche. If you happen to find yourself in that niche then is suits VERY well indeed. If you need that niche to be defined then ask Wayne. I'm sure he knows his target audience. In addition there are hobbyists and the potential for new learners, it is still a fine language that can take you from beginner to advanced.

What a computing life has taught me is not to hang onto Microsoft's coat-tails because if you do, they will shaft you, one way or another, either today or tomorrow. You do that too often and your market share decreases. The future is not Microsoft's nor is it defined by their corporate direction. It is in the hands of people like Wayne, superb developers who give people what they want. Have you seen the dull as dishwater apps out there being built using C#, variety is also the spice of life and it also injects new life and new blood.

Regardless, this is a BASIC forum and that is what this chat is all about. The future of that.

[SuperDre]

As I said, in my daily job I still use mainly VB6, but as a sensible developer who works in a commercial environment it is just the choice I have to make, and any serious professional developer would say the same.
If it were up to me, I would love to keep working in VB6 and especially I would love to work with TwinBasic as it seems to fix the missing problems from VB6 (real inheritance for one), I still think VB6 has the best looking syntax around.

Even though I dislike the C# language, as a professional commercial developer in a company which needs to be able to move on when I'm gone, I just must switch over to C# (or something awfull like Phyton, ) for new project so other developers can take over and continue.
yes C# and .NET might have started at Microsoft, but the framework and language are fully opensource now and especially fully multiplatform. Yes Microsoft is still the main driver of C# and .NET but they won't easily shaft you on that one.

I'm no snob, I'm just being realistic and sensible.

And any new developer shouldn't waste their time on learning VB/Twin Basic especially if they want to have a job as a professional developer in a company. The only reason why companies would hire somebody who still knows VB6 is because they still have important legacy software, but are in the transition of porting it all over to a new platform for which are way WAY more developers available.

And in regard to dull as dishwasher apps being built in C#, that's no different from apps being built in VB6/TwinBasic, that's all up to the developers.
And I really like TwinBasic and the effort that Wayne is making, but as a professional commercial developer it is not wise to use a language that is maintained by one person (or two), what happens if they guy croaks and there is still a serious bug in the compiler/IDE.
If TwinBasis was fully opensource, IDE, Compiler etc. then it would probably be a different matter as the danger of not being able to continue is much lower as you can try fix the bugs in the IDE/Compiler yourself (or someone else might do it for you).

[Niya]

I still think VB6 has the best looking syntax around.

Strange thing: I'm most comfortable with a BASIC syntax when writing but I hate reading it. I've always regarded BASIC as a very ugly language. On the other hand, I love reading C# code. I think C#'s syntax is one of the most beautiful syntaxes ever invented but it's painful for me to write as I don't use it enough to have muscle memory.

I think the C syntax overall is the most beautiful programming language syntax when used right.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I'm no snob, I'm just being realistic and sensible.

Yes, I wasn't accusing you directly of being a snob but the implication was there, so apologies. I've just heard it so many times from all types of programmers.

Your suggestion on direction is technically correct but its 'horses for courses' and that is who Wayne is appealling to. There is still a gap for beginners, Python or javascript are good scripting languages but they have their limitations, java is not what I'd teach beginners in computing but those are being taught at school now to my boy here in the UK in his first six months. There is an opening here.

Strange thing: I'm most comfortable with a BASIC syntax when writing but I hate reading it. I've always regarded BASIC as a very ugly language. On the other hand, I love reading C# code. I think C#'s syntax is one of the most beautiful syntaxes ever invented but it's painful for me to write as I don't use it enough to have muscle memory.

I think the C syntax overall is the most beautiful programming language syntax when used right.

Well, that's nice to hear. I use some (admittedly basic) javascript which of course has some C syntax, when it starts to become complex I do baulk a little at its seeming over-complexity but I do read it, in general, quite easily. VB just jumps out at me straight from the page.

Working with the Monaco derived TwinBasic IDE is almost overload for me, too many colours within the code causing my brain to be distracted, I can barely see the code. I am desperate for a tone-down or a VB6 almost no-colour theme where I can turn the distinguishing colour coding on and off at will. I know what you mean about reading code 'naturally' because it starts to work with your brain.