[RESOLVED] This subforum should be renamed the TwinBASIC forum.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Right, thanks for that. Is that a recent usage in America? I hadn't come across that change in meaning before. We would have traditionally used the pre-existing word 'dodgy' which has the same meter and the same meaning, as in "Don't trust him, he's a bit of a dodgy character." Do you not use the word 'dodgy' at all?

Sorry to go off topic but that word usage hit me right in the chops.

[fafalone]

It's a bit new, maybe last 10 years it's become common? Sketch as a noun would still mean a rough outline, like "I've provided a sketch of my plans." As an adjective, same as dodgy.

Yes we use dodgy too with the same meaning. Also 'shady'.

[GCUser99]

FWIW, I recently joined this forum out of my interest in twinBASIC. The first posts I read were this one and the other in question - made me feel a little like an unwelcome trespasser :-).

I gave up on VB6 when MS dropped support many years ago. I'm not a software developer/engineer, and not that interested nor knowledgeable enough to hack VB6/VBA with the ease and skill that many in this community possess. I was a career scientist for a top 100 international corporation, and I used VBA with the rich MS Office object model to script/automate my way out of situations where needed functionality was not available (shhh! – don’t tell anyone - kind of my best kept productivity secret).

For better or for worse, I think MS's dropping support for VBx helped opened the door for scripting languages like Python. An example - ESRI's ArcGIS dropped VBA scripting in 2010 because of MS's decision and now uses Python for automation.

Anyway, maybe out of nostalgia and gratitude for how it impacted my career, I’d like to dream that it can make a comeback!

[yereverluvinuncleber]

VB6 IS making a comeback! Welcome!

[fafalone]

Part of the magic of VBx has always been how it's simple enough people like you GC can quickly make useful tools without the steep learning curve of other programming languages, which are mostly designed exclusively for professional programmers. Especially rapid development of UIs. When you add in how you also do the crazy low level hacking you see... Well IMO it's *still* unequaled. Nothing else combines such ease and accessibility with powerful low level features.

That's why I think there's a real niche for tB to fill, as VB itself feels more and more limited and dated.

[Episcopal]

https://discord.gg/UaW9GgKKuE

.... Unable to accept the invitation ....

[fafalone]

Hmm is the app installed? Perhaps go into it and use the 'add server' option and paste the link there? There have been fewer people than usual joining lately but at least 1 a day has been trickling in.

[xiaoyao]

Dozens upon dozens of TwinBASIC threads... Wasn't one or two enough? While I don't give a damn about TwinBASIC that is not the reason for this post, it's the fact that this entire sub forum has been flooded with nothing TwinBASIC this and that. What was the original purpose of this sub forum again? Personally I used to talk about really old BASIC dialects and to rant about Gambas I believe. In fact, are there any remotely noteworthy "Other BASICS" besides TwinBASIC? I could rattle off several old dialects which however are dead as a doornail except for a few niche cases. Anyone?

It is estimated that the fear of charging products occupy VB territory. In fact, TWINBASIC is almost 80% compatible with VB6, so it can be considered a VB6 development IDE, essentially should let it display in the VB6 board, but the administrator moved it to the side door. 99.99% of people will not find these articles from the homepage of the website.

[xiaoyao]

FWIW, I recently joined this forum out of my interest in twinBASIC. The first posts I read were this one and the other in question - made me feel a little like an unwelcome trespasser :-).

I gave up on VB6 when MS dropped support many years ago. I'm not a software developer/engineer, and not that interested nor knowledgeable enough to hack VB6/VBA with the ease and skill that many in this community possess. I was a career scientist for a top 100 international corporation, and I used VBA with the rich MS Office object model to script/automate my way out of situations where needed functionality was not available (shhh! – don’t tell anyone - kind of my best kept productivity secret).

For better or for worse, I think MS's dropping support for VBx helped opened the door for scripting languages like Python. An example - ESRI's ArcGIS dropped VBA scripting in 2010 because of MS's decision and now uses Python for automation.

Anyway, maybe out of nostalgia and gratitude for how it impacted my career, I’d like to dream that it can make a comeback!

Just to be clear, I was the one encouraging more TB threads, and I still do. I feel that TB has a good chance of supplanting VB6 for the people who have been sticking with VB6. It won't please everybody, but I think it will please a goodly number. Once there are enough threads, I do believe they will be hived off into their own forum. I also think that we should wait till the 1.0 release. If there are plenty of threads by then, that would be a good time to consider it.

One thing to note, though, is that I'm not a fan of TB, myself. I moved on from VB6 a couple decades back, and don't miss it. I have no antipathy towards it. The language was excellent while I was using it, but .NET suited my style better, so I switched once I realized that. I wouldn't say I love either one, though. They're just tools. One fits my hand better than the other, and that's all that matters to me.

Still, I do encourage sufficient threads, including this one, that a TB forum makes sense. There are some moribund forums on here. If one subject looks like it might have legs, I expect we'd be making room for it.

don't wait for v1.0
now,put twinbasic bbs page ad vb6 chancle,and top it,every vb6 user can use it.

This forum is as old as VB6 and it feels like it hasn't been updated in 30 years.
For example, uploading pictures can not be operated on the mobile phone, can not upload high-definition pictures, every time it is compressed completely can not see clearly.

One of the basic functions of the forum, the post is placed at the top, and an article can always be displayed in the first place in the section. Or bold font display, change the color display, unfortunately, our forum why not progress?
If you can in the website home page, and VB6, vb.net section are placed on the top display, so that every VB6 users can benefit.

However, it is not allowed to display it in the VB6 section, which is no different from: you are not allowed to publish TWINBASIC communication in VBFORMS.

[xiaoyao]

There is no need to give him another board, he will always belong to VB6. He should be allowed to communicate on both VB.NET and VB6.

If TWINBASIC wants to get better, it must add some NODEJS or VB.NET syntax to enhance its functionality and keep up with The Times.
At the same time, keep the mini installation package. A VS2022 installation takes up 30-50GB of hard disk, which is a terrible thing, I still prefer to install only 300MB-1GB of IDE,vs code is also very good.
VB6 removes the excess controls, and the volume of PYTHON is almost the same

vb6 simplified version ZIP package 10MB, decompression takes 30MB,
twinbasic 22MB, unpack 68MB
VisualFreebasic 96MB Decompress 550MB(the compiler takes up 323MB)

[VB6 Programming]

Dozens upon dozens of TwinBASIC threads... Wasn't one or two enough? While I don't give a damn about TwinBASIC that is not the reason for this post, it's the fact that this entire sub forum has been flooded with nothing TwinBASIC this and that. What was the original purpose of this sub forum again?

Hi Peter,

twinBASIC now has its own Forum. https://www.vbforums.com/forumdisplay.php?108-TwinBASIC

So no twinBASIC posts in this forum.

Feel free to return, it would be good to see you posting here again.

[Peter Swinkels]

Why am I even looking here? Cause I am stupid enough to try again even after asking to be banned? Apparently I only write weird niche **** nobody gives a damn about. If anything I wrote here (be it code or a forum post) was worth anyone's attention I'd notice. Yes, I got a few replies, if I was lucky enough. Which can happen with so many people. Apparently the only way to get noticed for me here is to risk being banned by writing angry rants or writing something stupid so someone here gets to snidely joke about it, such as a certain moderator. I believe FunkyDexter wrote I was a good forum member. Thank you, I guess. But on what basis? For generally being so boring as to at least be inoffensive? For posting stuff that is occasionally interesting? When I started posting here decades ago I got some actual positive interest. Apparently I got boring and only my occasional rant stands out. I guess I should be glad my outburst at least led to a new subforum. So now what? Upload some of my stuff only to notice it is considerd boring and outshone by newer/other stuff? Yes I was a bit praise hungry when I first posted here and it took a lot of effort to get me to listen to feedback. I remember that. However to be honest it seems many posters here are just as stubborn which means giving criticism and getting someone to listen takes a huge amount of effort which is exhausting. I may have been rather offensive about it, but I still stand by just everything I said in this thread. Why the rudeness? I was fed up with not being heard and had given up on trying to play nice. And I am not talking about just a new subforum. I could try downloading the latest TwinBASIC but I suspect it may have been improved somewhat but still something that isn't to my liking.

Some of you surprisingly still want to me back here apparently... I really need to think this over. Which might take several more months.

[OptionBase1]

FWIW, in the thread you created where you requested to be banned, pretty much everyone who had contributed to this thread (myself included) posted in that thread hoping you would change your mind. Not sure why Funky deleted all those posts in that thread.

Edit: or maybe it was other posts in this thread. I don't remember for sure now. I do know that the overall sentiment was that no one here wanted you to leave over this.

[Eduardo-]

Yes, please come back.

[fafalone]

Yeah I had posted that regardless of our disagreement about tB, there's plenty of other things we could find common ground on and I certainly didn't want you to leave the site, so I hope you stay.

(And I *strongly* advise that if you wish to check out twinBASIC again, you should wait until the 1.0 stable release later this year when all the major bugs have been sorted out. Currently it's undergoing a major update both IDE and codebase, and the last release was 2 months ago, with next expected Wednesday, but 1.0 not til the summer).

[Peter Swinkels]

Hello Fafalone, I'm taking a break for now, but I might return later. If I decide to explore your new TwinBASIC, what kind of feedback would you prefer? I could provide positive input on what's working well or be critical about areas that need improvement. While positivity may be more pleasant, I believe constructive criticism is more valuable, even if it may not be as agreeable. Are you aiming to create a new development environment similar to Visual Basic 6.0 for a wide audience, or is it more aligned with your team's vision, possibly with limited usability that may make users feel they're working for TwinBASIC rather than it working for them?

Personally, I enjoy programming for my own enjoyment, putting effort into coding and testing. I tend to stick to my own methods and make changes only reluctantly when someone offers constructive criticism. Positive feedback usually motivates me to continue, but disinterest or negative comments can be discouraging. I realize this approach works well only when catering to people with similar interests and tolerance for my program's design quirks. However, I acknowledge this strategy falls short when aiming for a broader audience. While I lack experience in developing for a wide audience and effectively using their feedback, I sensed a struggle to articulate my dissatisfaction with TwinBASIC, possibly indicating a difficulty in handling critical feedback. It felt discouraging, but I might be mistaken.

Thank you. I'll explore TwinBASIC and provide feedback as needed. Your openness to constructive criticism is appreciated. Looking forward to being part of the improvement process.

===
PS:
If this post reads like it wasn't written by me, I asked ChatGPT to rewrite my text for me. The text gets my points across but should be easier to read than my usual longer posts.

[Peter Swinkels]

Exactly. He's made comments in other threads where he seems to think that others here think he's an idiot or something, and I have no idea where that perception comes from. I know he doesn't post all that much, but the programming/technical related posts of his that I've read over the past years have always been on point as far as I can recall.

If he wants to stop posting here of his own volition, so be it, but I don't want him to think that anyone here is wanting him to leave.

That perception comes from failing to recognize critical/joking feedback properly and mistaking it for personal insults (or even rejecting something I wrote/did). This is something I need to work on some more. It used to be much worse in the past, but it still needs a lot of work. :-)

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I don't mind if you don't come back. I'm sure you'll find somewhere else to hang about. You'd be welcome to stay. I don't mind either way.

I think that this place has been a place of negativity for too long, I remember my posts in the deep and distant past, about the future of VB6 and the possibility of a replacement and how they were always taken negatively by the community, (not pointing at you Peter). Recently though, the possibility of new successors to VB6 has taken root and a general feeling of positivity seems to have come along with it. We can now code knowing that our efforts are not obsolete, deprecated and pointless. We use to be on the graveyard shift - and now we are not.

It shouldn't be all about being self-centred and negative, it should be about contributing and being supportive. I talk a lot about what I do with VB6, I do it in a positive spirit to encourage others and to show what can be done using VB6 in the 2020s! Chin up! Walk forward.

Peter, one sentence of encouragement for you, keep calm and carry on!

[Peter Swinkels]

@yereverluvinuncleber - Thank you! Will do. :-)

[fafalone]

Hello Fafalone, I'm taking a break for now, but I might return later. If I decide to explore your new TwinBASIC, what kind of feedback would you prefer? I could provide positive input on what's working well or be critical about areas that need improvement. While positivity may be more pleasant, I believe constructive criticism is more valuable, even if it may not be as agreeable. Are you aiming to create a new development environment similar to Visual Basic 6.0 for a wide audience, or is it more aligned with your team's vision, possibly with limited usability that may make users feel they're working for TwinBASIC rather than it working for them?

Personally, I enjoy programming for my own enjoyment, putting effort into coding and testing. I tend to stick to my own methods and make changes only reluctantly when someone offers constructive criticism. Positive feedback usually motivates me to continue, but disinterest or negative comments can be discouraging. I realize this approach works well only when catering to people with similar interests and tolerance for my program's design quirks. However, I acknowledge this strategy falls short when aiming for a broader audience. While I lack experience in developing for a wide audience and effectively using their feedback, I sensed a struggle to articulate my dissatisfaction with TwinBASIC, possibly indicating a difficulty in handling critical feedback. It felt discouraging, but I might be mistaken.

Thank you. I'll explore TwinBASIC and provide feedback as needed. Your openness to constructive criticism is appreciated. Looking forward to being part of the improvement process.

===
PS:
If this post reads like it wasn't written by me, I asked ChatGPT to rewrite my text for me. The text gets my points across but should be easier to read than my usual longer posts.

Any kind of constructive feedback about something specific that's not working, or not well designed, or has a bug, that's all fine. But non-specific feedback like 'this will never be more than partially compatible, bug filled, and not run anything serious'; does that really meet the 'constructive' part of constructive criticism? I know Wayne *wants* to know where tB can improve, where it's not working, etc, with the kind of specificity and suggestions that it's something that can be acted on. Like recently the IDE/UI has been getting completely overhauled, making it look much, much better and implementing a bunch of things the community had been asking for like more/custom/sets for keyboard shortcuts and getting all the menu items enabled. We all knew that needed a ton of work, and now we're seeing it come together as big improvements.

I'd also hope that, if you choose not to wait for v1.0, you'd be fair to the fact that tB is currently being shared as an under-development beta... it's absolutely not done and not holding itself out as a finished, polished product. A lot of things are known to not be complete and have bugs. But that's how software development goes... nobody writes a large app, clicks build, and everything is perfect and ready for commercial use. It's very much a work-in-progress, and the idea is to help it become a stable, commercially viable product. As to whether it can achieve that, I felt a bit frustrated that it didn't seem to matter all the complicated, decent sized projects that it *is* currently running, and like how it was only a single bug preventing Connect4 from working that was fixed in a day, because of something that was very much an edge case. When tons of stuff runs, and when what doesn't run is usually only one of two bugs away from running, again at a pre-beta stage, I didn't feel it was constructive to just label the whole endeavor as certain to fail. But I could have been more patient and expressed that better, so I do apologize for my part in it. I'd love to help get any of your code working that isn't-- because it all should, and I believe will, if we make the bug reports. And that this is a temporary state of affairs during development-- part of preparing for 1.0 is going to be loading up hundreds of projects to make sure they run unmodified.

[Peter Swinkels]

You're absolutely correct; it was unfair of me to focus on a few shortcomings and label the entire project as a failure. Upon introspection, I realize I may have misunderstood TwinBASIC's true state of completion. I mistakenly emphasized its ability to handle numerous complex components and became disheartened when it couldn't run my specific code. In doing so, I overlooked the fact that what I consider ordinary programs might appear more unconventional to others.

I misunderstood the term "edge cases" as a designation for weirdness rather than unique scenarios not fully considered. I overlooked the possibility that my programs, while routine to me, might be perceived as unusual by others. I appreciate your perspective and acknowledge that I might have misinterpreted my software's worth based on the label of "edge cases."

Moreover, I expected TwinBASIC to effectively be a VB6 clone, but apparently, that is not what it was intended to be. This misunderstanding contributed to my initial disappointment and frustration. I now realize the importance of aligning my expectations with the actual goals and intentions of the project. I appreciate your patience and understanding as I reassess my understanding of TwinBASIC's purpose and capabilities.

===
I had ChatGPT rewrite this for me. Clear communication on my part appears to be the key here.

[Eduardo-]

Moreover, I expected TwinBASIC to effectively be a VB6 clone, but apparently, that is not what it was intended to be.

It can't be. It could be sued by MS for plagiarism if the IDE was too similar.

On other hand, its aim is not just to replace VB6, but to go forward, and be appealing to the new generation of programmers, so it must incorporate things that they are already using in other platforms.

And also because it is under development. I think it is becoming more familiar to VB6 developers with time.

[fafalone]

For sure 'edge cases' has absolutely nothing to do with the software's worth; there was nothing at all wrong with anything you did, but it referenced Form object properties prior to loading the Form; some cases of this were handled, but this particular property was not. I wouldn't even call it 'weird', just uncommon. In fact I think all good programmers know some less common techniques they can call into service where appropriate, so I certainly didn't mean it in any disparaging way.

tB is expected to be fully backwards compatible with the VB6 language (but not the undocumented internals like exe header structure, certain aspects of memory layout, etc). If something runs in VB6, then it's expected that it will run in tB, only excepting exotic internals hacks like Paul Caton/LaVolpe's self-subclassing code and The trick's multithreading module (both of these can be replaced with far simpler solutions thanks to new features in tB). tB is well on it's way to this goal, but again, is at the beta stage of development, working on getting there-- not claiming to be there yet. But I think it's fair to note the kinds of decent sized, complex VB6 projects it *does* run, balanced against what it doesn't, as a measure of progress and potential. I point to my repository to demonstrate this-- with tB running things like that, it's certainly disappointing when others don't run right off, but not a fair assessment, IMHO, to not acknowledge the impressive complexity of what it does, which is a strong indicator it can eventually solve the long tail of bugs that prevent so many programs from running right off.
So when something that runs in VB6 doesn't run in tB-- that's absolutely either a bug or a feature that's not yet implemented but will be in the future.

The IDE isn't meant to be a clone for legal reasons, but shouldn't be entirely unfamiliar, and that's getting major upgrades right now, there's some preview pictures here. The new light theme in particular shouldn't be too alien to VB6 users, even if it's not identical. You still have your project explorer tree, same properties window in the designer, your control toolbox, debug output window on the bottom... the community is definitely involved in providing feedback for what works.

[Peter Swinkels]

I don’t know about that. Attempts at suing and legal battles have occurred over less I believe.

Those preview pictures look a lot more promissing though. Good work! :-)

Perhaps I may someday feel like TwinBASIC is something I might use. For now however, I will stick to development environments I am familiar with. Even good old vb6 can still be made to do a lot of useful stuff on Windows and vb.net has its uses too. Even Q(uick) BASIC in DOSBox is still good for some fun with coding. But I digress, good luck developing TwinBASIC Fafalone!

ps:
No digital aides used for grammar or spellchecking. ;-)

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I don’t know about that. Attempts at suing and legal battles have occurred over less I believe.

That's never going to happen. If they did sue then it might be the best thing to ever happen to TB64, underlying its value and importance as a genuine replacement for VB6. There are loads of BASICs and now there are innumerable IDEs that 'look' and 'feel' just as the old VB6 IDE did. You cannot copyright "look and feel" that has been expressed in various forms in the public domain for decades since. In addition so much of what MS has delivered can find its roots in other products that came before.

See the ReactOS' team approach, they are 'cloning' Windows to achieve an exact match of Windows 2003. They re-create the code and the assets, so the whole look-and-feel is very much the same but if you look closely then every single element (code and graphics) are subtly different but still, the operation should be identical. They are not worried about MS suing them not one bit as long as the code is their own. Whether they will ever finish or not is a moot point that we don't need to discuss here.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

re: TB64 usage. We are using it already without knowing it. The world is starting to perceive that VB6 has a future, that means our old VB6 code is no longer perceived as 'dead'. It just brought your code to life whether you wanted it to or not. You can now code in the brightness of a new light and not as a zombie coding in the darkness brought on by Microsoft's perverted forced obsolescence.

[fafalone]

Sorry but there's no way ReactOS isn't based on leaked source code LOL... they're begging for a lawsuit if they ever get popular. They've fired people just because they mentioned publicly they had ever *seen* the leaked code.

@Peter -- based on your comments, I really think you'll appreciate tB more if you wait until the big 1.0 release. That's the stable, completed version where it will be expected almost all VB6 apps run without change on import.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Sorry but there's no way ReactOS isn't based on leaked source code LOL... they're begging for a lawsuit if they ever get popular.

Yeah... but not really relevant to the point I was making.

[Peter Swinkels]

I don't know anything about the legalities of the things either of you brought up. Just paying if some attention to the news and past events tells me that while it is highly unlikely it is not inconceivable Microsoft will sue the TwinBASIC development team. Fafalone, you seem to think it is possible if you cross the line with the looks and feel TwinBASIC, right? And Yereverluvinuncleber, you believe they might sue over the details of the codebase? And that would be a good thing?

[fafalone]

While a look and feel lawsuit could likely be *won*... one of the problems with being sued by massive multinational conglomerates is defending the lawsuit is ruinously expensive.

So it's best to not invite a lawsuit by trying to look identical to their product.

But if you use the light theme... just how similar would it have to be to not be an issue? Because it's already awfully close in the same way most IDEs kind of are. You can rearrange the location of the panels btw, and the new version next week will let you choose which ones are shown at all. So I'm curious where the friction is coming from, since to me a lot of the differences seem fairly minor and easy to adjust to.


(PS I should note again, I'm definitely tB's number one fan, but my only official involvement is as a moderator on the GitHub and Discord, I'm not involved in the programming or business sides)

[Peter Swinkels]

I am not a legal expert. :-)

Well, TwinBASIC doesn’t have to be absolutely identical to vb6 for me. However when I first tried TB it felt and looked so alien to me it didn’t seem like anything close to vb6 for me. The fact nothing I tried on it seemed to work properly did it for me. To me, a proper BASIC dialect should be easy to use and if two dialects are supposed to be nearly identical very little refactoring should be necessary when porting code. TwinBASIC seemed to try to do more than a little refactoring. At least, my own projects looked unfamiliar to me and did not work. It felt like TB just broke them to me. I was rather disappointed about it.

Now I have better grasp on what TwinBASIC is supposed to be and not I might try it again in the future and be more open to how it differs from vb6.

[fafalone]

With the very limited exceptions for advanced internals stuff (almost always involving assembly thunks and/or calls to undocumented msvbvm60.dll functions), there should be no refactoring required and the only thing I'd consider refactoring that tB does is converting VB Forms/UCs to .tbform/.tbcontrol, just storing the underlying UI info in a different format. The code itself isn't touched, and anything not working untouched is either a bug or not yet implemented feature. tB indeed isn't supposed to be VB6, it's supposed to be 'VB6 had that lineage continued being developed for the next 25 years', but it is supposed to be backwards compatible, meaning no changes needed, with VB6. Again I'm sorry nothing worked right off, but Connect4 now does because your app helped Wayne identify and correct a bug in tB, but tB is in development and not a finished, stable product-- that's why I'm suggesting waiting until 1.0 to look at it again. Once the 1.0 release is out later this year, it *is* expected that all your apps will run if they don't use one of the narrow internals hack exceptions.The percent of programs that work right off has already increased dramatically over the past couple years.

At first glance the IDE does indeed look radically different; I definitely agree with you there. But I think the new version (hopefully tomorrow now) will improve on that quite a bit. It's definitely improving on ability to move/rearrange and menu items being grayed out. Once you start using it through, all the elements are there, and not too dissimilar other than in visual style. I'm no fan of change in IDEs either; the VB6 IDE is a big part of why I've stubbornly stuck with the language all these years. But I adjusted to the tB IDE pretty quickly since you've got your project explorer, the similar dropdown lists in the code editor, the form designer with a similar layout and tools and a properties window that's basically the same... the settings was the steepest learning curve, especially Settings page vs attributes; the community was very helpful with my questions about how to do this or that.

[Peter Swinkels]

I am flattered to hear one of my highly personal humble projects actually made a worthwhile contribution to your project. Thank you! :-)