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Thread: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

  1. #401
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    @Olaf - I'm quite familiar with the intricacies of open source licenses (as you've figured out).

    I see you've addressed the 2 required points per LGPL, which I was probing for - and failed to mention as requirements or in the downloads.
    1) you have to indicate that the source you used is available and that you will provide it via email / contact info. (for non-derivative works / static linked). I assume that only means the vb_cairo_sqlite.dll
    2) for LGPL V3 you have to also provide all the specific custom scripts / tools for the build environment. (which you did mention in the prior post) the fact that you're using old versions of a build environment, don't really matter. Most hard core dev's should breeze through getting the project to compile using newer tool chains.

    So it's great that you've cleared that all up here when asked - but for the sake of transparency, appearance, and more importantly compliance - you do need to indicate that in the project download.

    It's adding to perceived (and possibly real) non-compliance.
    You can't then say Oh I'll just remove the LGPL parts as a solution to something you are currently distributing.
    It all just looks bad for someone with as much credibility as you.

    Hopefully you take this as constructive criticism.


    Quote Originally Posted by Elroy View Post
    Olaf,

    As far as I've ever seen, there's absolutely no requirement on any open-source license that you provide information on how to compile things. I suppose it'd be a nicety in the comments if you noted what compilers, assemblers, linkers, etcetera you used, but even that isn't a requirement.
    LGPL V3 - Paragraph 4 Part d)
    Code:
    d) Do one of the following:
    0) Convey the Minimal Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, and the Corresponding Application Code in a form suitable for, and under terms that permit, the user to recombine or relink the Application with a modified version of the Linked Version to produce a modified Combined Work, in the manner specified by section 6 of the GNU GPL for conveying Corresponding Source.
    1) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (a) uses at run time a copy of the Library already present on the user's computer system, and (b) will operate properly with a modified version of the Library that is interface-compatible with the Linked Version.
    LGPL V3 you are required not only to provide source, but the build scripts, and environment details as well.
    You are required to release enough to actually build it yourself.

    That was the point of V3 of LGPL, you can't provide most of the source without all the information required to rebuild them yourself.


    edit: being defensive about requirements only adds to the looking bad.
    Last edited by DEXWERX; Feb 9th, 2018 at 08:32 AM.

  2. #402
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    @Dex: Good to know about the LGPLv3 and the build requirements.
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

  3. #403
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Elroy View Post
    Attachment 156091

    Best Regards,
    Elroy

    p.s. Maybe if I say I'm done with this thread, I'll actually be done. Therefore, see you guys in other threads. I'm DONE with this one.
    Elroy, from the looks of that image, would it be safe to say that your application has a small footprint?

    By the way...way to wait two posts before jumping back in....heh!!
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  4. #404
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    hahaha, well, post #402 was just an acknowledgement. I'm not sure what this one is.

    And Shaggy, my application has a HUGE footprint. At latest compile, it was: Size: 184 MB (193,597,440 bytes)

    That foot rotating and scaling is just one small piece of a much larger application. In fact, the Foot Pressure service is almost a side-service to the much larger motion-capture services it provides.

    However, I must say that, of that 184 MB, that includes a RES file that's 172 MB. So, only 7% of that 184 is true VB6 code. Hmmm, that's not quite true either, because part of that 93% is ActiveX DLLs that are wrapped into the EXE. It'd be hard to nail down the exact size of the compiled VB6 code.

    Sort of surprising, the total of the source code sums to about 83 MB. However, large parts of that are going to be images that are in FRX files. So, I'm not sure what the best metric is to assess "the footprint".

    Best Regards,
    Elroy
    Any software I post in these forums written by me is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, and permission is hereby granted, free of charge and without restriction, to any person obtaining a copy. To all, peace and happiness.

  5. #405
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Elroy View Post
    So, I'm not sure what the best metric is to assess "the footprint".
    I much better metric, but still not perfect (I don't think there is a perfect metric anyway) is how many lines of code MZ-Tools reports.

  6. #406
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Never really been a fan of the LOC as a metric of any kind... What does it really mean anyways? Is having a high LOC count a good thing? Or is it a bad thing? I've seen it cut both ways. High LOC counts means the developer is productive, right? They're producing code and lots of it... but it isn't reflective of the quality or efficiency of the code (neither of which are really measurable). I've also seen where the mantra of "less code is more" reigns... if you're writing code in 10 lines, you're not being efficient enough or good enough to write it in 2. Yeah, neither situation can end well.

    And when we're talking about the footprint, we're likely talking about the size of the compiled code... not the source code... again, if I have two code samples, one written in 3 lines, the other in 24, both produce the same result, both result in the same 10k compiled footprint... LOC becomes even less meaningful.

    If it works form some, great... but I've never been in a shop where using LOC as a metric ever ended well.

    -tg


    EDIT - but you're right, there is no perfect metric...
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  7. #407
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    Never really been a fan of the LOC as a metric of any kind... What does it really mean anyways? Is having a high LOC count a good thing? Or is it a bad thing? I've seen it cut both ways. High LOC counts means the developer is productive, right? They're producing code and lots of it... but it isn't reflective of the quality or efficiency of the code (neither of which are really measurable). I've also seen where the mantra of "less code is more" reigns... if you're writing code in 10 lines, you're not being efficient enough or good enough to write it in 2. Yeah, neither situation can end well.
    Exactly. But since there is not a better metric, it is at least one much more indicative than the exe size, what can contain images or the like.

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    And when we're talking about the footprint, we're likely talking about the size of the compiled code... not the source code...
    I don't think there will be much difference, if you are able to take all images, resources and the such appart.

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    again, if I have two code samples, one written in 3 lines, the other in 24, both produce the same result, both result in the same 10k compiled footprint... LOC becomes even less meaningful.
    Of couse if the program is so small it will likely produce the same footprint compiled, because it grows in chunks.

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    If it works form some, great... but I've never been in a shop where using LOC as a metric ever ended well.

    -tg


    EDIT - but you're right, there is no perfect metric...
    I said it here without entering into deep because I thought that all, or most of the ones here, know that it is not a good metric. That subject I'm sure that has been debated many times already.

    But it still is, I think, a much better metric than to say 91 megabytes. That means nothing to me.

    And it is a good metric for me at a personal level, as long as I don't compare a program that I wrote 15 years ago with one I wrote recently (Now I reuse much more code than then).

    Edit: and about someone else's code, if someone says "my program has 70K lines", it means to me that he has been writing a lot, or at least copying and pasting a lot.
    (Or it could also tell me that he has included all the Krool's control set inside )
    It says nothing about the quality of the code, or how optimized it is.
    But at least I get a raw idea of the size of the program. Since there is not a better metric, what else could bring an idea? Not the file size for sure.

  8. #408
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Elroy View Post

    And Shaggy, my application has a HUGE footprint. At latest compile, it was: Size: 184 MB (193,597,440 bytes)
    Oh come now, those aren't huge footprints. Heck, I couldn't get four of my footprints on the screen at one time.

    I know what you mean about figuring out what is code and what is 'extra'. I have a project that has a pretty large size, but virtually all of it is an almost entirely empty database that goes along with it. Really just a framework for a database, but it makes the project size look pretty inflated.

    Other than that, this is a rather large amount of discussion about what was just a pun on an image of footprints. Makes me wonder if people missed that. Still, if we're going to be all serious...ish, I'd say that the size measure I tend to use for Line of Business apps is number of forms. Naturally, not all forms are created equal, but a LoB is basically a program to capture a data problem, which can be seen as a gem of many facets (I'd say something other than a gem, but i it doesn't have facets). Some facets are large, some are small. Each form covers one facet, so the number of forms is a rough measure of the complexity of the problem.

    This doesn't work for games, though, cause they tend to have one form and only a small handful of other forms, even for really big games. It also has issues with n-tier designs, since two of the tiers would have no forms, so the count may have to be padded in that case to account for the tiers. There are a few ways that could be done, but since it's all just an estimator, high precision is pointless.
    Last edited by Shaggy Hiker; Feb 9th, 2018 at 02:58 PM.
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  9. #409
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    I don't think that the forms count is a good metric, either.
    It depends a lot on the nature of the application. On the other hand, sometimes more forms could mean that the developer doesn't have an idea about how to reuse the existing ones.

  10. #410
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    There is no good metric. It's all relative. A hard project that you know inside and out is going to be easier than an easier project that you know nothing about. I just find that forms count is more accurate than line counts.
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  11. #411
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    There is no good metric. It's all relative. A hard project that you know inside and out is going to be easier than an easier project that you know nothing about. I just find that forms count is more accurate than line counts.
    Sometimes I used to check lines count to see how much I had worked or how the project was growing.
    Forms count depends a lot in what part you are working on (if it has much GUI or not).

    In fact I spend much more time writing code than designing forms. It can be, may be... a proportion of 30/1... or more.

  12. #412
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by DEXWERX View Post
    I see you've addressed the 2 required points per LGPL, which I was probing for - and failed to mention as requirements or in the downloads.
    Since it#s been a few years - I've re-read the LGPL now (both versions of it) -
    and no, I was not "failing" in anything - everything is fine as it is
    (with the _LibraryLicenses.txt ... there's no need to "add things" or to provide any sources).

    Because:
    - clause 6 b) of the LGPL 2.1 covers libQREncode
    - and the BigInt-stuff of libgmp is not used at all (nowhere linked to)

    Quote Originally Posted by DEXWERX View Post
    It all just looks bad for someone with as much credibility as you...
    ...being defensive about requirements only adds to the looking bad.
    Thanks for being so concerned about "how I might look even better, doing this or that"...
    but see, I'm not at all interested in, how I might "appear to you" whilst working.

    For fairness sake, you should allow me to point out my point of view as well:

    Currently, there are a lot of guys like you "who just stand on the sidelines with their arms crossed"
    (watching me toil, whilst preparing the new place you all later intend to move into)...

    Some occasionally pointing out, that I forgot to flatten "this patch over there"
    (to better match with the requirements one has in mind for his new bathroom),
    whilst I swing my new shovel, sweating away...
    The whole thing being accompanied by underhanded remarks, like:
    - "this new shovel of his shines too brightly"
    - "and look at this weird sidewards grip, which seems to allow him to work faster"
    - "yeah, I'm not at all sure if I'd like to hold a new shovel the way he does currently" ... and also ...
    - "I've read somewhere, that his new shovel is made of new material, which might not be entirely conform to regulations"

    Whilst all I'm interested in is, that you simply "get a grip" (on yourselves and the new shovel) -
    and join the efforts, because, you know:
    - your old place is not "a safe place" anymore
    - and your old "classic shovels" are rusting away (the original supplier not giving you any replacements)

    Now I assume it is my part to hope, that you (all) take this as constructive criticism...

    Olaf

  13. #413
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    A little off the current line of discussion but Google popped this;

    https://www.infoworld.com/article/32...ake-a-hit.html

    ... into my news feed yesterday. Fake news? who knows? Interesting?

  14. #414
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Magic Ink View Post
    A little off the current line of discussion but Google popped this...
    Magic, whilst I occasionally read articles like that, I'd like to keep this thread more "straight" as in:
    - related to the work we have to do "in VB6" (which this forum is dedicated to)
    - to finally accomplish the goals of a new IDE and compiler

    Which BTW (as I see it) is the only way to be taken more seriously as a community again (by developers in other camps).
    Most of these "other language"-camps have that already accomplished (relying on compilers and environments,
    which are vendor-independent for the most part, the tools maintained by the community-members of these languages themselves).

    If we derail this thread into something, which (re)iterates just the same old stuff we've already read many times before, talking about:
    - "wouldn't it be nice to have this or that", accompanied by
    - "too bad that MS doesn't do this or that for us"
    Then we lose ourselves in the same old "dreaming on" - until the Mods will close the whole thing finally.

    Instead I'd like to discuss concrete "work-related things" - answering questions about, how to best approach:
    - this concrete part
    - or that concrete part
    At least "roughly" - then accompanied by giving "Sub-Links into dedicated, new Code-Bank-Threads" from here,
    where concrete work on those "Sub-Problems" is happening.

    Olaf

  15. #415
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    That article is old news, MS dropped that bomb some time last year. It comes down to some brief points and hard truths.

    The VB community (this includes many .NET developers) has kicked and screamed and fought against Microsoft every time a new feature is announced for VB since 2005 or so. MS has been spending a lot of money making sure C# and VB had more or less feature parity and could do the same things. For some reason, VB .NET developers and the few VB6 developers who still comment in venues MS watches did not like this, and wanted VB .NET to more or less freeze at some version before 2012. Given that MS's own survey shows there are roughly 10 C# developers for every 1 VB developer in those venues, and the vast majority of those VB developers already prefer to use C#, they decided VB isn't worth their R&D money anymore. The community gets their feature freeze.

    So in 2018, I get to use C# to do operations on large segments of memory as fast as if I had C's pointer arithmetic. VB .NET has no access to the Span(Of T) type, and it's not on the roadmap, so the fastest it gets is the plain old managed code with bounds checking and (sometimes) needless copies. VB .NET, with Option Strict Off and first-order functions, could stand really well against modern languages like Swift, but it's not going to get the pattern matching and value tuple features C# is getting over the next few months. This means as each quarter passes and C# gets better, VB .NET is going to look more and more like a relic of the past to new developers. There's not even any compiler support for .NET Core or the .NET Standard. No one's asked for it. So no one's getting it. So VB .NET can't work cross-platform as well as C#, and within 2-3 years it won't work cross platform.

    It may come as some surprise, but the group of developers I hate most is actually the VB .NET community. I really liked the language, but they're so bent on keeping VB focused on one type of application they run the risk of ending the language's life by completely ruining its business case in Microsoft's eyes.

    Sure, you've pushed back against some of my ideas for "what VB6 needs". The majority of your opinions have been, "Well, we can already do this with a teeny bit of COM interop, and the performance is comparable to C implementations, so we don't think we need a language syntax for it." That's a reason to say "no".

    On the VB .NET side, the argument is, "Sure, image manipulation in C# is 8x to 10x faster, but we can just buy more CPU. I wish they'd stop ruining VB .NET with new features." That makes me roll my eyes and give up. I stick around to help newbies, but I try and nudge them over to C# any chance I can get. And if you guys poach them over to VB6, well, I can say objectively you're at least trying harder to evolve your language.
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  16. #416
    Angel of Code Niya's Avatar
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    For some reason, VB .NET developers and the few VB6 developers who still comment in venues MS watches did not like this, and wanted VB .NET to more or less freeze at some version before 2012.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    This means as each quarter passes and C# gets better, VB .NET is going to look more and more like a relic of the past to new developers. There's not even any compiler support for .NET Core or the .NET Standard. No one's asked for it. So no one's getting it. So VB .NET can't work cross-platform as well as C#, and within 2-3 years it won't work cross platform.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    but I try and nudge them over to C# any chance I can get. And if you guys poach them over to VB6, well, I can say objectively you're at least trying harder to evolve your language.
    As much as I sing praises to MS about VB.Net, much to the chagrin of Olaf and Dilettante, what I don't say enough is that I, like VB6 programmers, am a dinosaur myself. My PC runs on Windows 7 and I'm still doing primarily WinForms development. WinForms by all accounts, is an ancient and, by my own experience, a quite buggy technology. And I still, to this day, mainly target .Net 3.5, another dinosaur.

    It's one of my flaws I suppose. I tend to linger too long in the past, a mistake I made with VB6 and now, I am making the same mistake with VB.Net. Looking at the changing landscape, I came to the same conclusion as you, C# is the future. It has exploded in popularity and even people outside of the MS ecosystem are taking notice. I don't even bother looking for VB code anymore. I just look for C# code and translate it to VB. C# samples are far more numerous than VB.Net samples. Nearly all open-source projects targeting the .Net Framework are written in C#. It's extremely rare to find a medium to large open source .Net application that's written in VB. The truth is, VB.Net is on it's way out. I'd say it has about 10 solid years before it reaches VB6 status of being totally abandoned.

    Funny enough, it doesn't actually bother me at all. For one, the real meat is not the language, but the framework and the .Net Framework still has a very promising future. Upgrading my skills is not really about the language but the underlying technology. I need to get out of WinForms and I need to start using all the new stuff in .Net Framework versions past 3.5 more often. As for using C# instead of VB.Net, I gained an appreciation for how beautiful the C# language actually is over the years. I especially like how succinct it is in comparison to the more wordy VB syntax. The only reason I don't use it now is muscle memory. Having to put effort into remembering to type semicolons is quite annoying. And then there is case sensitive variable names, among other things. However, when I do decide to take it more seriously, I estimate it would take about a month or so to get as comfortable writing C# code as I am writing VB code.

    Leaving the .Net ecosystem aside, the C# language seems poised to take on the future. I can imaging a future where C# is everywhere, not just in the world of MS or .Net. This is why I would also support urging developers to learn it. 15 years from now, you might be using C# to write code for the MAC. It's a stretch, I know, but languages based on the C syntax have always proven to be very very popular. You can't go wrong by learning it.
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  17. #417
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Leaving the .Net ecosystem aside, the C# language seems poised to take on the future.
    Relative to VB.Net you are probably right. VB.Net support has slowed though I doubt Microsoft plans to do it in like they did actual VB.

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    I can imaging a future where C# is everywhere, not just in the world of MS or .Net. This is why I would also support urging developers to learn it.
    Sounds far fetched. That may be the dream but as the illegitimate sibling of Java C# is nowhere in relative terms. You may as well learn Java if you want broader reach. Even JavaScript is catching up as its JITting interpreters become nearly as performant as the .Net interpreter.

    JavaScript for Microcontrollers and IoT talks about using JavaScript on platforms neither C# nor Java are likely to ever reach. The ESP-8266 they target there can be had for around $10 USD each (or less, much less) now on NodeMCU modules. These have lots of programming options from C to Arduino Sketch to Basic, LUA, JavaScript, and by now probably many others.

    But no C#.
    Last edited by dilettante; Feb 11th, 2018 at 09:27 PM.

  18. #418
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    This is one place where dilettante consistently spreads FUD.

    I could write C# for the Mac today using Xamarin.Mac, depending on if my MSDN license includes it. By the end of 2018 I'll be able to use Xamarin.Forms to write a C# app that targets UWP, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.

    You can run Win10 on a Raspberry Pi in a UWP-only form, which means you're plenty able to run C# on microcontrollers. There's been a microcontroller-focused .NET since at least around the Win8 timeframe, but no one cared about it back then because they weren't quite the hot item they are today. A really simple Google search shows me people have been writing C# code on these platforms since at least 2014, and .NET Standard's only increasing its reach.

    C# already is everywhere, and the "15 years from now" Niya predicts actually arrived about a year and a half ago. At least 3 new versions of C# released last year, and we expect as many more this year. I don't think it's going to stagnate.

    Really it comes down to if you want to deal with a managed language and its garbage collector. The newer .NET Core implementations even let you write your own GC, if you think the .NET one is bad.

    VB .NET doesn't get to play in most of these arenas, and may never get there. The community spoke (or, more accurately, actively avoided participating in the conversation) and wanted less, not more. So be careful not to let that happen to whatever VB successor you latch on to.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Raspberry Pi devices do not use microcontrollers, they use a whole SOC containing an ARM core and a GPU. This is a "mini PC" and not really an IoT platform. Its power requirements alone are prohibitive in most applications

    You can buy an ESP-8266 module for as low as $2 in single quantities. In Modem Sleep state it consumes only 15mA and in Deep Sleep only 10μA. That is an IoT device processor.

    So as usual there is FUD spreading going on, but as always it isn't by me.

    C# is nowhere. It is nearly invisible outside the tiny remaining community it has... though admittedly that community is vastly large than what remains of the VB6 community. Probably far more than 100 times as large. Say 20,000 people instead of 100? A drop in the bucket.

    Forget C#, these aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.

  20. #420
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    I'm the owner and the main developer behind B4X. So naturally I'm biased.

    I think that you should check B4X.
    It is not a VB6 clone and it is not open source. However it is a RAD tool and the programming language is also based on basic. There are many VB6 developers in our community.
    B4X is made of 4 products:
    B4A - Native Android apps
    B4i - Native iOS apps
    B4J - Desktop (Windows, Mac and Linux) and server based on Java
    B4R - Arduino and ESP8266 microcontrollers

    B4J and B4R are completely free.
    I know that many desktop developers don't like Java however this is not a real issue. There is a special tool provided by Oracle to create installers with an embedded Java runtime so from the client point of view it just works.

    B4X is being improved all the time and there is a very active community of developers.

  21. #421
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    installed B4J and uninstalled almost immediately. not intuitive at all, no clue what to do, the help redirect me to a forum with threads about stuff i dont understand. clicking just get me to more places but no help how to start.
    sorry, but if im gonna change it need to be better then vb6.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    There are online resources to help you get started.
    Last edited by Shaggy Hiker; Feb 12th, 2018 at 11:15 AM. Reason: Removed what amounted to advertising content.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Hmm... but with the Java-VM working in the backend, wouldn't we be back to
    "working against a bloated Scripting-engine"? (dilettantes words - in case he talks about .NET, not mine).

    Also, using the Java-Runtimes, wouldn't we just switch our vendor-dependencies from MS to Oracle?
    Sure, there's also free Java-VMs - but these would be "Open Sores" then (to say it in dilettantes words again).

    Dilettante is also "totally against advertising" (even when the tools he's arguing against,
    are written in VB6, can natively be embedded into VB6, involve Demo-SourceCode for VB6,
    and are planned to be OpenSourced later)...

    I have personally no problem with your posting in this forum here - but I'm starting to wonder,
    what the relationship between the two of you might be...

    Olaf

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    I have personally no problem with your posting in this forum here - but I'm starting to wonder,
    what the relationship between the two of you might be...
    There is none.

    Note that only B4J is based on Java. The power of B4X comes from the ability to use the same language to target many platforms.

    Also, using the Java-Runtimes, wouldn't we just switch our vendor-dependencies from MS to Oracle?
    B4J indeed depends on Oracle JDK. Oracle JDK is very popular and many projects depend on it. It is not similar to the state of VB6.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    thx Erel. maybe i will take a look later. if its powerful enough for my needs, why not? my needs are mostly graphic related so if its fast and reliable maybe i give it a shot.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Erel View Post
    B4J indeed depends on Oracle JDK. Oracle JDK is very popular and many projects depend on it.
    The same could be stated for the MS-.NET-VM and .NET-ClassLibs - and the remaining VB6-devs here have already
    decided to "not switch to VB.NET" (which I guess is in the "same way incompatible with VB6-source, as B4J is).

    Quote Originally Posted by Erel View Post
    It is not similar to the state of VB6.
    Well, that's what we recently discussed here in this thread (how to change that "state")...

    From my point of view, there's a lot of "good technical reasons" not to use "VM-based approaches" as:
    - avoidance of "intermediate Code" (and later "live-Jitting" on startup)...
    - due to native compiling (with decent built-in memory-management, but still with the optional to use "Pointer-stuff" when needed)
    - avoidance of "delayed Garbage-Collecting" (when Class-instances go out of scope)
    - generelly smaller possible Class- and Runtime-libs (< 3MB zipped, not ~30MB or more as with Java or modern .NET-packages)

    Olaf

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Magic Ink View Post
    A little off the current line of discussion but Google popped this;

    https://www.infoworld.com/article/32...ake-a-hit.html

    ... into my news feed yesterday. Fake news? who knows? Interesting?
    It is quite obvious by now that Microsoft squandered VB's popularity when they made it part of .NET. One can only imagine just how much more popular Visual Basic would have been if it wasn't managed. Thankfully, the remaining VB6 loyalists are taking matters into their own hands. They can't really depend on anyone but themselves from now on.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Millennial View Post
    It is quite obvious by now that Microsoft squandered VB's popularity when they made it part of .NET. One can only imagine just how much more popular Visual Basic would have been if it wasn't managed.
    Perhaps, or maybe not. VB was mocked during the 90s. It was probably mocked a bit less during the 2000s (at least I saw less written mockery), and MS missed the boat on mobile across the board. The problem with imagining a future that might have been is that it is just imagination. Everybody imagines either their utopia or dystopia. Nobody seems to imagine it as, "everything would be the same, except my shirt would be blue." Yet, such a trivial change is also possible.
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Perhaps, or maybe not. VB was mocked during the 90s. It was probably mocked a bit less during the 2000s (at least I saw less written mockery), and MS missed the boat on mobile across the board. The problem with imagining a future that might have been is that it is just imagination. Everybody imagines either their utopia or dystopia. Nobody seems to imagine it as, "everything would be the same, except my shirt would be blue." Yet, such a trivial change is also possible.
    I agree about that they missed the mobile development, but I totally agree with Millennial about the lost of popularity of VB was due to the switch to .NET.

    I would't call it imagination, but a bit of speculation with basis.
    Of course always when we have to suppose something like that, "what would have been if...", unless we where taking about matematics, or may be physics, or other exact science, there is speculation or "imagination". But in this case with basis, in my opinion.

    The key problems that caused that VB lost appealing were already mentioned here in this thread.
    With .NET VB lost the strengths that it had. The ease of learning, simplicity, RADness, etc.
    With .NET VB was left in the middle. It lost its previous strengths but it didn't gain much.

    VB6 is good as it is for beginners, and today after 20 years it would need some tweaks, that mostly they would be in the domain of libraries.
    What would be also good, is to provide some easier ways to do things for the advanced programmers: a better and safer subclassing, for example.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Erel View Post
    I'm the owner and the main developer behind B4X. So naturally I'm biased.

    I think that you should check B4X.
    It is not a VB6 clone and it is not open source. However it is a RAD tool and the programming language is also based on basic. There are many VB6 developers in our community.
    B4X is made of 4 products:
    B4A - Native Android apps
    B4i - Native iOS apps
    B4J - Desktop (Windows, Mac and Linux) and server based on Java
    B4R - Arduino and ESP8266 microcontrollers

    B4J and B4R are completely free.
    I know that many desktop developers don't like Java however this is not a real issue. There is a special tool provided by Oracle to create installers with an embedded Java runtime so from the client point of view it just works.

    B4X is being improved all the time and there is a very active community of developers.
    Congratulations on your products. I would prefer Olaf's new compiler to provide native android apps and native iOS apps, if it does, it must be a great miracle.

    Quote Originally Posted by Millennial View Post
    It is quite obvious by now that Microsoft squandered VB's popularity when they made it part of .NET. One can only imagine just how much more popular Visual Basic would have been if it wasn't managed. Thankfully, the remaining VB6 loyalists are taking matters into their own hands. They can't really depend on anyone but themselves from now on.
    Totally agree with you. This is why a lot of VB6 developers would prefer to learn other new languages than to learn C#.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by dreammanor View Post
    Totally agree with you. This is why a lot of VB6 developers would prefer to learn other new languages than to learn C#.
    I don't really see that on display here, maybe there's another VB6 community I'm not privy to. What I see is a consensus VB6 developers would like to learn a language "exactly like VB6" to the extent that new features should be rejected in favor of maintaining exact compatibility. When other platforms are brought up, it seems the prevailing opinion is "we don't need them" and a belief that Windows Clients will be a stable industry for the foreseeable future.

    In the only other largish VB community I know, the survey numbers say most VB devs are already C# devs or prefer another language. But that community is much more likely to include "VB .NET" within the category of "VB" and I think in the context of this forum that's a contentious view. I think if we talk in just the context of VB .NET, most professionals agree limiting yourself to just VB is a questionable stance.

    But again, the topic's been expertly diverted by dilettante from, "What would you like to see in a VB6 successor?" to "wet dreams of .NET failing, both Apple and Google going out of business, and Microsoft returning COM to the glorious position of sole application model."

    As an opinion, I think it holds about as much water as the anti-vax movement.
    This answer is wrong. You should be using TableAdapter and Dictionaries instead.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Although VB6 is best at Windows desktop development, I think the future of VB6 lies in the following aspects:
    (1) Server-side development
    (2) Web development
    (3) Mobile development

    Quote Originally Posted by DEXWERX View Post
    Olaf and I agree that the future of VB6 depends on a class based Core Runtime, that can be re-done per platform like .NET Core.
    We also agree that it needs to be C translator (and COM) based, with an edit and continue IDE / Debugger.

    (FYI FireFox uses it's own platform independent COM implementation)
    I agree with what you said, but in our country, Web-Apps and Mobile-Apps have already occupied 80% of the application software market, PC-Desktop programs have been less and less. So I hope Olaf's new compiler can support Web-development and Mobile-development more.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    I seriously doubt that the future of VB6 is either in web or mobile. There are already better options out there. I'm not thrilled with JS, but JS/Cordova seems more likely to win out than however VB6 would work in the mobile world, and web isn't really a language. Ultimately, that's HTML, and whatever language that modifies it. That area just seems to be moving faster than anywhere else, and where is VB6 in any of that?
    Maybe my idea is a little unrealistic. But we can think of why Google is developing Golang? Because they think the existing Web development languages are not perfect or have too many flaws, just like Java and JS. Why Golang is called Web-Basic? Because people eagerly hope that the web development world has a simple and fast development tool like VB6.

    I believe Olaf's new compiler and IDE is definitely not a simple clone of VB6, it must have been greatly improved on the basis of VB6. In that case, it has the full potential of being a great Web and Mobile development tool.
    Last edited by dreammanor; Feb 12th, 2018 at 01:35 PM.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    What I see is a consensus VB6 developers would like to learn a language "exactly like VB6" to the extent that new features should be rejected in favor of maintaining exact compatibility.
    Basically, yes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    When other platforms are brought up, it seems the prevailing opinion is "we don't need them"
    I don't think so.

    "we don't need them" may apply today to linux for desktop.

    I guess many developers here were asked by clients (I was) to develop some App for Android as an accessory to work in companion with the desktop program that we sell (made in VB6).
    If we had a familar tool (and languague) to do that, of course "we need it".

    Also, I'm quite sure also that many VB6 developers need to work with web sites, in some way or another.
    If we had a familiar tool to work with that, of course we would use it.
    Not only to make web pages.
    For example, if we were to write a script that need to run in a web server, that's were the ability to compile for Linux could be of importance, since the majority of web servers are Apache.

    But desktop program for Linux, it is not very much needed _today_. Tomorrow may be all changes and many people start using Linux in their home computers.

    So I don't think the answer is "we don't need it".

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    In my opinion all the attemps to make a VB6 replacement have failed so far, and that includes VB.NET, because of the lack of backward compatibility with VB6.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Sitten Spynne View Post
    I don't really see that on display here, maybe there's another VB6 community I'm not privy to. What I see is a consensus VB6 developers would like to learn a language "exactly like VB6" to the extent that new features should be rejected in favor of maintaining exact compatibility. When other platforms are brought up, it seems the prevailing opinion is "we don't need them" and a belief that Windows Clients will be a stable industry for the foreseeable future.

    In the only other largish VB community I know, the survey numbers say most VB devs are already C# devs or prefer another language. But that community is much more likely to include "VB .NET" within the category of "VB" and I think in the context of this forum that's a contentious view. I think if we talk in just the context of VB .NET, most professionals agree limiting yourself to just VB is a questionable stance.

    But again, the topic's been expertly diverted by dilettante from, "What would you like to see in a VB6 successor?" to "wet dreams of .NET failing, both Apple and Google going out of business, and Microsoft returning COM to the glorious position of sole application model."

    As an opinion, I think it holds about as much water as the anti-vax movement.
    In fact, we want Microsoft to add new features to VB6 instead of VB.NET. VB6 and VB.NET are two completely different languages, just like two strangers all named Tom. VB.NET and C# are brothers.

    Microsoft has abandoned VB6, and now he is going to abandon VB.NET (at least for the trend). Although we know he won't abandon C#, Microsoft has lost our trust in him, which is why many people do not want to choose C#. We don't want to be fooled by the same person three times.

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Eduardo- View Post
    With .NET VB lost the strengths that it had. The ease of learning, simplicity, RADness, etc.
    Could you expand on this a bit more? I see three items there:

    1) Ease of learning: This one I understand. Some people find OO easy, some don't. If you don't, then the ease of learning is certainly against .NET of any sort. I believe that TG stated that he struggled with it initially (that statement was MANY years back, so I may have the wrong person, but it was somebody of his stature). I took to it like a fish to water, so .NET took days, or less, to learn. This may be because I came from some background in C++, but not really, since I learned ASM before C++. I think I just really 'got it' when it came to OO. Still, when it comes to learning, I've always known that certain things will come easy to one person, other things come easy for another. Ease of learning is certainly an issue.

    2) Simplicity: I really don't see this, after participating in this forum. People are doing some amazing stuff with VB6, but they are doing it by extending the language and really getting into it. The basic stuff is simple....beyond that...is it really?

    3) RADness: RAD is Rapid Application Development. As far as I can tell, this has more to do with the IDE than the language, and the IDE improved greatly since VS 6...and then moved in a direction that is somewhat up and somewhat down since VS2010. If you know any language thoroughly, you will be quite productive as long as you have reasonable tools. C/C++ wasn't RAD because there weren't reasonable tools. JS in VS was painful not so long ago, and isn't where it could be even by 2017, but the advances from 2015 to 2017 are such that JS could be considered RAD, by now. The only real drawback is that JS works against a web model, and there isn't a great visual designer for web.

    So, ignoring ease of learning, which is certainly a thing, is there really that much difference, or is it a matter of anything you are thoroughly familiar with will be easier than anything you are not familiar with? In other words, is there any evidence that one language is particularly easier than another for a person starting out with no knowledge of ANY of them?
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Could you expand on this a bit more? I see three items there:

    1) Ease of learning: This one I understand. Some people find OO easy, some don't. If you don't, then the ease of learning is certainly against .NET of any sort. I believe that TG stated that he struggled with it initially (that statement was MANY years back, so I may have the wrong person, but it was somebody of his stature). I took to it like a fish to water, so .NET took days, or less, to learn. This may be because I came from some background in C++, but not really, since I learned ASM before C++. I think I just really 'got it' when it came to OO. Still, when it comes to learning, I've always known that certain things will come easy to one person, other things come easy for another. Ease of learning is certainly an issue.
    I wasn't taking about me.
    In my case, the main reason to reject it was the lack of backward compatibility with my existing code base.

    About OO, that programming can be mostly done in VB6 also, and I do it.

    When I say "ease of learning", I mean to be able to drop a couple of controls in a form, to buy a book about VB and read a some pages, write some code, compile, go to the "Package and Deployment wizzard" follow some easy steps and being able to deploy a program.
    These things, in my opinion, were what made VB so popular in the past.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    2) Simplicity: I really don't see this, after participating in this forum. People are doing some amazing stuff with VB6, but they are doing it by extending the language and really getting into it. The basic stuff is simple....beyond that...is it really?
    "Simplicity" is what I just said above.
    These other things are not simple. That's another strenght of VB6: being able to extend its domain to very advanced things.

    Some of these advanced things that can be done, also can be packed into an OCX or DLL and help people that only program with simple things.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    3) RADness: RAD is Rapid Application Development. As far as I can tell, this has more to do with the IDE than the language, and the IDE improved greatly since VS 6...and then moved in a direction that is somewhat up and somewhat down since VS2010. If you know any language thoroughly, you will be quite productive as long as you have reasonable tools. C/C++ wasn't RAD because there weren't reasonable tools. JS in VS was painful not so long ago, and isn't where it could be even by 2017, but the advances from 2015 to 2017 are such that JS could be considered RAD, by now. The only real drawback is that JS works against a web model, and there isn't a great visual designer for web.
    Yes. VB6 is not RAD anymore these days, BTW.
    But it could be revived, I think. Even without a VB6 entire replacement.
    One thing that nobody is doing AFAIK, and it is a need, is a replacement for the old P&D Wizzard.
    It needs to be simple as the old one, but addessing the needs of today.
    I have in mind to do it at some point perhaps, if nobody else comes forward.

    I'm thinking of combining MMM or UMMM with Inno Setup.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    So, ignoring ease of learning, which is certainly a thing, is there really that much difference, or is it a matter of anything you are thoroughly familiar with will be easier than anything you are not familiar with? In other words, is there any evidence that one language is particularly easier than another for a person starting out with no knowledge of ANY of them?
    Yes, BASIC is easier than C or Pascal.
    Evidence? What do you want, a scientific study on the matter?

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    2) Simplicity: I really don't see this, after participating in this forum. People are doing some amazing stuff with VB6, but they are doing it by extending the language and really getting into it. The basic stuff is simple....beyond that...is it really?
    This kind of thing always happens. I remember way back in the day, before Windows was a thing, QUICKBASIC gurus used to resort to PEEK and POKE in order to work around the limitations of QUICKBASIC and do things C and ASM programmers took for granted, like direct hardware access and playing with interrupts. Every time I see a VB6 thread using these advanced tricks, I always remember those days.

    Within any IT environment, there will always be people that will push it beyond it's limits, sometimes for no other reason than the challenge of it, but mostly for necessity. I get that kind of vibe from Olaf sometimes. He reminds me a lot of old school DOS programmers who collectively pushed DOS beyond it's limits. Applications like Stacker and TSRs were the work of such diligent people. Of course Windows and better hardware came along and made all of that unnecessary, which is one of the pitfalls of staying too long in outdated tech. You could wake up one day and all your years of hard work would be completely obsolete.
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    C++ programmers will dismiss you as a cretinous simpleton for your inability to keep track of pointers chained 6 levels deep and Java programmers will pillory you for buying into the evils of Microsoft. Meanwhile C# programmers will get paid just a little bit more than you for writing exactly the same code and VB6 programmers will continue to whitter on about "footprints". - FunkyDexter

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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Eduardo- View Post
    Yes, BASIC is easier than C or Pascal.
    Evidence? What do you want, a scientific study on the matter?

    Yes, actually. I think that would be very valuable. Pretty hard to do, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was never one done. I would think that it could be based off of some simple project not much more difficult than Hello World (though at least a LITTLE more difficult than that). The problem would be that bias would leak into such a project in so many ways. If the design was along the lines of, "How many hours did it take a person new to coding to write the program?" you'd need a massive number of replicates to factor out differences in the quality of the teacher. So, you'd need a large number of teachers (hard) and an even larger number of students (not so hard).

    If it could be done, wouldn't it be interesting?

    @Niya: We always used PEEK and POKE to mess with people in intro classes. At least on the TRS-80, there was a POKE command that would lock the keyboard. This mostly taught students not to take any suggestions from us, cause we didn't have their best interests at heart.

    Some of Steam Punk is just an extension of what you are talking about, too. It's just a matter of, "this is a cool thing....let's see how far we can take it."
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    Re: Vb6 , the Future, and what I have discovered

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    ...people that will push it beyond it's limits, ... mostly for necessity. I get that kind of vibe from Olaf sometimes.
    He reminds me a lot of old school DOS programmers who collectively pushed DOS beyond it's limits.
    Niya, there is no "beyond it's limits" (in the sense of "hacking and patching" old things with ASM-thunks or stuff like that) -
    I hate such approaches myself - and with VB6 there is absolutely no need to resort to stuff like that...

    The VB6-language and compiler is entirely sufficient as it is - functionality-wise...
    (it's only the lack of differing compiler-targets of the underlying VC-Compiler, which makes it "less universally usable" these days).

    And again, we need to separate "language" and "libraries" - because the VB6-language is just fine as it is (also OO-wise)
    - with Classes which can act also as a Plain-Interface-Definition (having "naked" Method-Defs)
    - with Classes that support Implementation of multiple Interfaces from either standard-COM-tlbs or VB6-classDefs
    - with Classes which support one of the most easy to use "Signal/Slot"-mechanisms available today (COM-Events)
    - with Classes that support "immediate cleanup", when they go out of scope (useful in wrapping scenarios of flat-libraries).
    - with easy to use "global modules" which offer an alternative to "Static-Classes" and "Singleton-Concepts"
    - and of course with an easy to use, relative simple structured "Project-Tree", which does not require any "make-tools" or -scripts (to glue dependent things together in the end for the compiler and linker)
    Edit and continue is another thing which is entirely sufficient (and not seen in many of the languages which are currently at the top of the TIOBE-index)...
    and of course there is the native C-Compiler which produces binaries which reached 90% of the speed of VC6 (and still about 60-70% of the speed of modern C-compilers).

    So that's the only thing we need "to fix" (the C-Compiler-backend) - there is nothing wrong with the *VB6 language itself* (besides a bit of "cosmetics" in variable-types and a few operators).

    There always was and always is "only the library-stuff" which is really important (since the vbRuntime-lib is really quite thin,
    offering only a Collection-Object and a few Standard-Widgets and that was it basically).
    The market for COM-libs is not as "brimming with activity" as it once was - but a lot of 3rd-party tools "just work further"
    and the big tool-vendors (as e.g. ComponentOne, CodeJock, etc.) are all still there, offering these COM-libs.

    And what I was doing over the last years was simply writing a larger COM-lib (in straight VB6, without any "hacking" or "pushing beyond limits") -
    I was simply closing functionality-gaps to the large Class-libs which come with the so called "modern languages" these days.

    The "better productivity" you seem to feel when you work in .NET, simply comes from those rich Class-libs (for the most part) -
    and not by being able, to use a few more "shortcut-chars" like <...> or => to write somewhat shorter filter-code...
    (which for the most part is then only used, to impress colleagues with really short examples in your own company or "on blogs").

    That kind of "language-fancyness" was used in the early days of C to some extend - by playing around with the C-PreProcessor,
    (which allows some powerful things when you put your mind to it), in effect making C-Code so "efficient", that it was not really
    readable anymore by anyone (but "the guy who wrote those macros" in the first place, of course).

    In decent C-Projects (like e.g. SQLite) this kind of stuff (overboarding usage of the C-PreProcessor) is avoided like the plague.

    Though in C# the same thing which the C-guys thankfully "already backpaddled from" is now obviously "en vogue",
    because this kind of "macro-trickery" is now "officially sanctioned" somehow (coming from the vendor himself) -
    and if you want to remain "among the guys", you will of course have to learn all that nonsense ...
    (as e.g. "how to filter a list in 28 different ways - the most unreadable snippet wins", by passing it through a stack of at least
    4-subfunction-calls, none of them having any name - but a lot of "special chars and braces" instead, which just looks "so much cooler").

    Yeah - we had this topic already, so: SCNR (but you guys keep mentioning this alleged "productivity increasing stuff" again and again)...

    Olaf

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