Best Alternative to VB6 for teaching and training

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Chaps,

What are your recommendations for the best alternative language to VB6 for teaching and training today?

I don't just mean the language, I mean a direct equivalent to VB6 and its environment (accessible language, integrated and competent IDE, drag and drop GUI usable for RAD design, debugger, interpreter, compiler, decent editor, intellisense &c).

VB6 is not perfection in any of these but the overall package is still hard to beat especially with BASIC at its core.

Can anyone recommend a language that has such a tightly integrated environment that does all the above in a single, easy to install and use package as VB6 (notwithstanding VB6s current installation and other incompatibility issues on Win7+)

What I am looking for is something that truly operates just as VB6 in its prime but is today's equivalent.

It needs to extend from 'basic' teaching to training at more advanced levels and be a truly portable language, in this sense I mean portable to any task not to any platform.

I may be missing the obvious so your recommendations are valuable if you have the experience.

Please only recommend whole dedicated packages that do the lot rather than suggesting javascript and python with a specific code editor and a browser to debug.

(Perhaps I could open another thread on how to cobble together an equivalent build environment from various tools - that might be an idea).

Background: my boy is learning to program and his skills need to be relevant today and I do not consider VB.NET a natural replacement to VB6 as it is not as accessible as BASIC was in 'our' day. It is not as suitable for both starters and mature programmers as is pitched at a different level entirely. Not looking to argue this point. Solely looking for potential alternatives available today.

[wqweto]

My boy is 12 and he is very keen on C/C++ for competitive programming at school which is the right approach -- get system programming right (incl. algorithms, computer architectures and ASM) and then later you can dabble with web development at will.

Otherwise you risk all your life feeling like an imposter like so many (even senior) devs do nowadays. Learn solid basics, solid ASM, solid math and have your self-esteem high for the rest of your life incl. easily geeking on obscure topics if you wish to.

The online place for a modern IDE for all kind of languages (not only C/C++) is https://repl.it

cheers,
</wqw>

[Arnoutdv]

I learned it the way hard doing Pascal and C first.
1. Write code, compile, check the warnings/errors produced, fix and repeat.
Then if it compiled:
2. Run, Unwanted results, modify -> goto 1

Changing to the paradigm of VB4/5/6 with Forms, Events, Classes was a huge stap and the benefits came from having all those ready to use forms and components.

But learning the basics is still needed, I think

[Zvoni]

After close to 20 years of vb6/vba i didn't had much problems to switch to Freepascal with Lazarus as the IDE some 4 years ago.

Yes, Pascal is different with its Syntax-Quirks ("Begin.. End", Codeline has to end with ";" like in C etc.), but i got pretty quick into it.
It's still a "human readable" language, IMO much more so than C/C++.
But its power comes from delving into the "other" possibilities FPC/Lazarus has to offer, like Support for Pointer, Inline-Assembler, Generics etc.

In FPC/Lazarus you can code like you're used to from vb6 (No pointers,Classes, UDT's, maybe some API-Calls --> you can even call cdecl-API's, and whatnot),
but the moment you jump into the deep end it becomes interesting.

Big plus for me:
No dll-hell
standalones that don't need install-routines or runtimes
Write once, compile anywhere (Program on Linux, Compile for Windows or move Source-Code to Windows-Machine and compile there) --> Of course, as long as you don't use OS-specific stuff

EDIT: That said: No idea about TwinBasic if that would serve your purpose of teaching your boy

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I'm toying with the idea of Lazarus/FreePascal but it is difficult to teach the nuances of a language if you don't know it yourself. That is why I made little progress in that direction. That is the same for all new languages I suppose.

I do have jscript/javascript, PHP relatively under my belt in addition to various BASIC dialects so I understand the C-like syntax, it is just a new language that has to be embraced and understood before I can teach my boy.

Lazarus may well be the closest suggestion for an all-encompassing alternative but I await any other suggestion.

[dday9]

If you want web development, HTML and CSS can be learned in like a week (because they technically aren't programming languages) with better practices coming over time. JavaScript would be the next language to learn and I would encourage you to really learn JavaScript. Because Internet Explorer with all it's wacky specifics is finally at end of life, I would highly encourage a modern JavaScript approach (i.e. ES6).

For a backend approach, PHP is a good language but it has such a bad reputation because it allows for such bad code (not unlike VB6) and you see a lot of it on the interwebs. NodeJS was sort of the flavor of the day a couple years back in the whole "JS everywhere" approach, but it's fallen in popularity recently. GoLang is wildly popular outside of the US and is gaining popularity in the US; to me it resembles more of a C++ style language. So to recap: PHP if you want to relive VB6's lack acceptance by the self proclaimed serious programmers, NodeJS if you never want to learn anything but JavaScript, and GoLang if you speak Chinese.

[2kaud]

For learning programming, I would suggest Pascal together with Lazarus. Pascal is an 'easy' language to learn and teaches good programming habits. It has very few 'quirks' compared to some languages like c/C++. I used Pascal (and Delphi - Borland's Pascal + IDE for PCs) a lot in the 1980/90's and loved it. As it's free - go for it. You can both learn together. Obviously it does not have the word-wide usage that c/C++ does, but once you're mastered the concepts with Pascal then you have the foundation to more easily learn others. An issue with firat leaning c/C++ is that the langauge doesn't yet include any in-built support for graphics/gui etc. There's only built-in support for files and console input/output. Anything more fancy needs 3rd party libraries which just adds to the learning curve.
https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Although I don't use it, if you want to stay with a Basic-like language, then I'd have a serious look at Twinbasic. As I understand, it is VB6 compatible (or will be as it's still in Beta - it mainly is now) and has received very good reviews.
https://nolongerset.com/tag/twinbasic/
https://github.com/twinbasic/twinbasic/releases

It is already being used for serious projects. Eg https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....tivity-Monitor

[yereverluvinuncleber]

If you want web development, HTML and CSS can be learned in like a week

It isn't so much the language that I require, in fact .js/html/css/PHP in a browser context is the very opposite of what I am aiming to find. If you read the original post you'll see it is the environment plus language that I'm looking for.

I'd have a serious look at Twinbasic.

Yes 2Kaud, I am here all the time so I know the TwinBasic/RADBasic options very well indeed. What I am looking for is an alternative to the VB6-world that also includes these coming future alternatives.

Is there any other language that competes with VB6 with all that VB6 offers with regard to learning (see list above in OP)

[PlausiblyDamp]

May not be to your taste but have you considered C#? The IDE and language is free, installs just fine on a modern OS.

The language can start from a very simple console "Hello World" in fact the following is an entire C# program...

Console.WriteLine("Hello World");

C# can be used for console, Windows, Web, mobile, and even unity 3D uses it. You get a similar design experience to VB6 for windows apps as well.

As a language it can start very simple, and exposes someone to the C style of programming. As someone progresses then they can learn about things like OO etc, but none of this is required to start.

[2kaud]

my boy is learning to program and his skills need to be relevant today

Well the top programming languages for 2022 are:
Python
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Ruby
R
PHP
Go
C/C++
Swift
C#

So what are your objectives? - apart from 'learning to program', wanting an IDE, needs to be 'accessible' and saying the skills need to be relevant today.

PS. How old is your boy?

[yereverluvinuncleber]

May not be to your taste but have you considered C#? The IDE and language is free, installs just fine on a modern OS.

It is certainly a good suggestion for a fully-fledged environment and language but C# itself doesn't 'feel' suitable as a starter language for the same reasons that VB.NET is not really a good replacement for VB6 in an educational environment. If I was going to adopt .NET to teach, then I would probably have chosen VB.NET as it seems a more appropriate choice than C# for a new coding starter. I feel that the .NET framework of languages as an educational tool might actually block any learning and put a starter off completely.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Python
Java
JavaScript
Kotlin
Ruby
R
PHP
Go
C/C++
Swift
C#

As far as I know none of those languages except for .NET have an integrated development environment that even comes close to what VB6 has to offer. That is what I am looking for, it is EVERYTHING as a package that VB6, .NET and perhaps Lazarus offers. For those languages above and others is there a VB6 equivalent?

What I am after is the potential teaching environment that the latter above offer to a greater or lesser extent.

I think we may be coming to a natural answer soon and I'm starting to guess that we already have all the integrated offerings that exist.

[2kaud]

My 2 suggestions are still Twinbasic and Lazarus

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Yes, I think you may be entirely right. Strange though when it comes to thinking about a potential replacement for VB6, then VB6 (+TB) is one of them in 2022.

Lazarus seems something that I have to explore, one day soon.

I am hoping that someone else may have some experience of some other solution I have not yet come across.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It is certainly a good suggestion for a fully-fledged environment and language but C# itself doesn't 'feel' suitable as a starter language for the same reasons that VB.NET is not really a good replacement for VB6 in an educational environment. If I was going to adopt .NET to teach, then I would probably have chosen VB.NET as it seems a more appropriate choice than C# for a new coding starter. I feel that the .NET framework of languages as an educational tool might actually block any learning and put a starter off completely.

Why? Admittedly, I learned BASIC casually at a young age, then did nothing for several years, and when I came back I went ASM->C->C++, largely because I wanted to understand the fundamentals. That may be an atypical approach, though I don't really know, and have some evidence that it is not.

What was so spectacular about VB6 that VB.NET isn't a suitable place to start? The VB6 IDE was great for it's day, but that day has well and truly passed. Even your web browser has more features as an IDE than VB6 ever had. The language itself was never as simple as BASIC, and the IDE was never free. I was working with a guy who wrote his own language because he felt that VB6 was too complicated to be a learning language. I don't quite agree with that. Getting a Hello World application running in VB.NET, these days, is as easy, or easier, than it ever was in VB6.

However, we all come at the question from the perspective of our current knowledge and our past experience. What might be daunting for a person starting out in VS could be all the different languages you can use. VB6 was JUST VB6, VS has all kinds of stuff, so creating a new project requires a person to make choices. Choices are tough. Also, I've heard plenty of people say that they didn't get classes right away, and VB6 barely had them (you certainly didn't need to understand them to get started). Personally, I understood classes as soon as I saw them, but everybody approaches a new topic from a different direction, so I understand if classes are not so familiar to some. Still, for those who get them, the way I did, that isn't an obstacle. For others....programming will be an obstacle however you approach it.

What was it about VB6 that you want to replicate? Hopefully, it isn't just the fact that it was the most accessible/versatile language in a relatively dark time for programming.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

What was it about VB6 that you want to replicate?

It is everything that the VB6 environment has to offer. Plus all the new things that you might expect. I have the .NET world as an option plus Lazarus, what I am looking for now is anything ELSE that might exist that matches the criteria in the OP.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I don't think you'll find one.

Back when VB6 was a going thing (or actually VB5, and maybe VB4), what were the real alternatives? Java? Barely existed. JS? Barely existed. C? ANSI Standard, but hardly easy to use. C++? Not yet ANSI Standard, so it wasn't easy to use AND it was a quagmire of competing flavors. What else?

VB6 wasn't A thing, it was THE thing, based on the criteria you set out. That's no longer the case. I feel like programming is more fragmented now than it has ever been. C/C++ still exist, and are more stable and easier to use, but they fill just one niche. Java fills another, JS a third, especially when combined with other things. I see biologists learning R, these days, and if not R, then Python...or maybe both. They are not replacements for VB6, though it could be argued that Python could be (I don't have much experience with it, and don't know what tools are available for it). There is also VB.NET, C#, and F#. Then you have other languages that have been mentioned already. Every one of those languages has its fans, its strengths, and no realistic chance to be as widespread as VB6 was in its day.

So, I think you are looking for something that doesn't exist. It isn't that there are languages with good development tools, plenty of resources, and ease of use. It's that there are too MANY of them. Perfectly good languages are relegated to being nothing more than an afterthought because there is no compelling reason to choose them over one of the others. The dev tools are better, the resources are far FAR better, but there are just so many that are 'pretty good', just as VB6 was. All the IDEs are better than what VB6 had, the internet means that learning is vastly easier, but there are now multiple platforms, and the web, so you simply can't pick just one.

[Shaggy Hiker]

And for that reason, you should write in Rockstar.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I don't think you'll find one ... So, I think you are looking for something that doesn't exist.

Well it might exist but that is exactly why I am asking, as I have not found it myself. There are better brains out there with more knowledge and if you don't ask them, you don't get.

I've just downloaded the latest version of Lazarus on my new 'fast' PC, 4.0ghz, multicore, 32gb RAM, 256gb SSD and 2TB data, Nvidia GPU GTX 1080 with 8gb RAM. Is that fast? at least its the fastest PC I have ever owned. We'll see how VB6 compiles there, expecting it to fly, TwinBasic/ RADBasic will complete the picture retaining the VB6 world as a potential future training and development environment. I pass the test and remain Galadriel.

Then I'll try Lazarus and try to avoid .NET some more.

P.S. Until I receive another recommendation.

[wes4dbt]

There's a new post in the .Net forum about visual Small Basic for kids. I don't know anything about it, just though I'd let you know.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

There's a new post in the .Net forum about visual Small Basic for kids. I don't know anything about it, just though I'd let you know.

Yes, thanks for that. I have been aware of it for quite a while, when it first emerged in fact. The thing is that product is ONLY for teaching and learning and cannot really extend from teaching to training at more advanced levels and also be portable to any task in real life. VB6 already has those capabilities so it is hard for me to recommend something lesser.

However, having said that - as a teaching aid for children at school I can see Visual Small Basic being very useful and I applaud his efforts in building a new BASIC learning environment,