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Thread: LET MS know you are using VB6

  1. #121
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Hi Dex,

    Well, the Office 64 compatibility is a big one. But there's also the idea of running on Windows-64 that may not have WoW installed. Also, the 2gig (or 4gig) address space would be blown out of the water. And, I'm assuming (hoping), they'd raise some of the limits on the IDE if they ever recompiled it for 64 bit, such as the 32,000 intellisense token limit and the limit on the number of modules.

    And, I'm assuming if they ever did take a look, Unicode would be pushed into everything (including the properties window and .FRM saved files). I know I'm now building an enhancement list, but I do feel that this would be easy stuff to do. I really see most of this as "clean up".

    Truth be told, I really am pretty happy with the VB6 IDE the way it is.

    I suppose one last thing is a marketing/respect issue. It'd just be nice if my software was being developed with something that people could see as "a maintained and updated language."

    Best Regards,
    Elroy
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  2. #122
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    That was my point about the business case.

    What I was talking about in #117 was why that survey is worthless as an argument. The fact that there are some people who don't fit as just maintenance is irrelevant because the survey gives us no indication of who they were surveying. I'm well aware that there are people continuing development on VB6 applications. That doesn't mean that all the respondents to that survey fall into that category. Because of the deficiencies of reporting that data, we don't know where they fall, and neither does anybody else. That's the problem with the survey: You can read whatever you want into it, so it won't change anybodies mind on anything. People are putting the survey forwards as suggesting that VB6 is still popular. The survey has nothing to say about that. It's just talking about the distribution, not the popularity of new use. So what good is it?
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  3. #123
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Well Shaggy, maybe it's not worth all that much, but it's probably worth more than you're suggesting.

    For one, if VB6 were updated, maybe some of those "maintenance" projects would come back to life, with new development. Maybe part of the reason that some of them are in a "maintenance" mode is because developers are afraid to put resources into a 20 year old, non-maintained language. If VB6.5 were to ever come out, continuing to develop those projects may start looking much more attractive, especially if VB6.5 were 64-bit, and had a UI face-lift.

    Just Saying,
    Elroy
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  4. #124
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    The fact that there are some people who don't fit as just maintenance is irrelevant because the survey gives us no indication of who they were surveying.
    Distinguishing between 'development' and 'maintenance' is somewhat artificial. Where does development end and maintenance start?
    Taking a strict view of maintenance as 'bug-fixing' would suggest there is relatively little maintenance with VB6 apps. There hasn't been a new version or service pack for years, and the software runs on any version of Windows. Any bugs are likely to have been fixed years ago. And the survey was done in 2018.
    In the Tier 4 languages it is more likely that any bug-fixing maintenance relates to VB.Net or C or VBA than VB6. The corollary is that VB6 is more likely to be used for enhancements and/or new development.

    What is more relevant is what languages the enterprises actually use. Why they use them is less relevant. Obviously they don't use features the languages don't have. That doesn't mean those features wouldn't be used if available. So with a VB6 app an update from 32 bit to 64 bit (whether you call it development or maintenance) could well be used. The survey doesn't and can't tell us if 64 bit would be used.

  5. #125
    The Idiot
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    what i would like is a stripped vb6, that looks almost identical to the original.
    with just the minimal, you can choose what to include, if some old 32bit components or use 64bit or add your own typelib or use cairo. you can choose to make it windows only or have it cross-platform.
    right now im quite happy with vb6, i can use direct2d and its going great with my game.
    i also know that some dude created a ocx that uses directx10-11, but its not "open source", but it means it can be done.
    so even for a 20 year old language it can do almost anything any other language can do in windows.

    if MS, or Olaf or another team or individual releases vb6 v2.0 it will put vb6 in the lead, im sure of it.

  6. #126
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    @Elroy, I absolutely agree with what you've said about selection being a methodology problem and I agree 100% (adjusted for seasonality, it's early in the morning and I'm inclined to be disproportionately disagreeable) that it's not a statistical one. The statistics are what the statistics are given the data sampled and the question is in the methodology around the sampling. My issue is that we don't know the methodology. Realistically it's probably good, but it's unknown and, as you say, all we can really do is leave that as an open question.

    On the sample size issue, what did you use as a population figure? In the last 5 minutes I've come up with a horribly unscientific figure of 600 Million. I took the 20% from here and multiplied it by the 3 billion here (I assumed US billions). This was horribly unscientific and pretty close to total garbage but I wanted to put some suggested figure out there and didn't have time to research anything better.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Oct 17th, 2018 at 02:30 AM.
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  7. #127
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    The money isn't in programming as such anymore.
    That is just not true and smells of you own bad experience rather than what the market is paying. Unless the US is vastly different from everywhere else there are plenty of Software jobs and if anything the trend i see is that salaries are going upwards.
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  8. #128
    PowerPoster Elroy's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    On the sample size issue, what did you use as a population figure? In the last 5 minutes I've come up with a horribly unscientific figure of 600 Million. I took the 20% from here and multiplied it by the 3 billion here (I assumed US billions).
    Hi Funky,

    Well, unless you specify otherwise, most inferential statistics assume an infinite population. However, there've been tons of monte-carlo studies done on this stuff that show that the changes in the numbers you calculate are several decimal points out (i.e., very little difference) once the actual population can be assumed to be in the 1000s and above.

    Most people don't realize it, but, with reasonable sample sizes (which 600 is), you can start gleaning a great deal of information about the population. Basically, it has to do with the differences in variability (typically expressed as a standard deviation) of the population distribution versus the variability of something called the sampling distribution. Once your sample size is over a few hundred, the standard deviation of the sampling distribution (aka, standard error) starts getting quite small, allowing you to make reasonable estimates of the population.

    Now, regarding sampling bias, that truly is another problem. It's often said that a sample (i.e., our 607) is definitely a random sample from some population. However, the question becomes, is the population from which our sample came the one we're interested in, or at least relatively similar to it? And, you're correct, there's no way to even make a judgment call about that unless the sample collection methodology is well described. They talk about a "panel". Panels are well used ways of deriving samples. They're groups of people (described by some criteria, such as full-time or part-time programmer) who have agreed to be periodically contacted and asked questions. However, the open question is, do these panels "look like" all the other people out there (meeting our criteria), or is this panel some how systematically different from all those other people? All good questions.

    Take Care,
    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.

  9. #129
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Well by golly, you're right. I just ran a bunch of tests and it does tail off drastically against an increasing population. I played with a 95% confidence and 5% margin of error as fairly reasonable boundaries. Anywhere in the tens of thousands rapidly levelled off and by the time I got to hundreds of thousands it had pretty much levelled off completely (the difference between a hundred thousand and a million was 1!).

    I was expecting some levelling off but not that much.
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  10. #130
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6


  11. #131
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Were those just the ones that hadn't been declined?
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  12. #132
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
    Were those just the ones that hadn't been declined?
    No, many undeclined suggestions haven't been migrated.

    Such as

    https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/f...amming-languag

    and

    https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/f...o-7-0-should-b


    Perhaps Microsoft are just embarrassed by the number of votes and comments they received.

  13. #133
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    clicking around it says that:
    Microsoft have extended support of VB6 to include Windows Server 2016 as well as Windows 10. VB6 is supported until at least November 2027.
    we got at least 9 more years without fear, and if people still use vb6 by 2025, i believe they will add more years.
    by then hopefully we got a new vb6 IDE.

  14. #134
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by VB6 Programming View Post
    No, many undeclined suggestions haven't been migrated.

    Such as

    https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/f...amming-languag

    and

    https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/f...o-7-0-should-b


    Perhaps Microsoft are just embarrassed by the number of votes and comments they received.
    Interesting. It's not likely that MS (a company) chose some rather than others for emotional (human) reasons. I'd be a bit surprised if there was an actual person sitting there re-typing these things into some interface. More likely, there was some kind of batch process that had some kind of filter on it. That's certainly what I'd do....or else I'd just make a clean break and abandon all of them. After all, it is quite clear that votes didn't matter at all, or very little. The highest voted items, such as XNA were declined, eventually (for fairly good reason), while some with just a handful of votes were acted on promptly.

    So, I'd be looking for some kind of demarcation to select between those moved and those not moved. Subject doesn't seem to be the line. Active vs declined clearly isn't the line. Perhaps date? Perhaps thread starter? Hard to say. Considering how little attention was actively paid to that thread, it sure wasn't some human decision.
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  15. #135
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    My understanding of the linked article is that once .net core 3 comes out developers of existing vb.net winforms applications will get cross platform onto linux and macOS for free without any rewriting.

    I'm not sure I am understanding it correctly. Opinions appreciated.

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dot...-applications/

  16. #136
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    My understanding is that you aren't quite correct. As long as you have no UI, you will be able to target a variety of platforms. However, if you have an existing Windows desktop application, it will remain Windows only, though you will get the other benefits of .NET core, such as no more need for a framework, and somewhat faster performance.
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  17. #137
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Thanks, I've just looked at the article again after reading your post and I think you're right.

  18. #138
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    Re: LET MS know you are using VB6

    Quote Originally Posted by vbrad View Post
    Thanks, I've just looked at the article again after reading your post and I think you're right.
    Cross platform winform support would be nice however projects like https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia might fill that gap for some people. Only dabbled with it as I tend to do more web / cloud stuff these days but it does seem to have some promise.

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