[RESOLVED] Why are there no cooperative areas here? Or are there?

[VisualBrian]

I also belong to some discords that allow users to solicit collaboration on projects. Is there anything like that here, and if not... why not?

[jmcilhinney]

This is not a VB.NET question so I have moved it from the VB.NET forum. Thought about General Developer but decided that Forum Feedback was the most appropriate.

[jmcilhinney]

There is a Project Requests forum and there is a Project Collaboration Area forum, both in the list of forums on the home page. Is there something you were thinking of that neither of them provides?

[Shaggy Hiker]

I don't know whether any actual collaboration has come out of either one. I have my doubts about the efficacy of such things on a site like this. Most people here are either volunteers, retired, goofing off from their real jobs, or whatnot. In most cases, they likely aren't looking for either work or any significant commitment. Collaboration can be weird at the best of times.

[VisualBrian]

I don't know whether any actual collaboration has come out of either one. I have my doubts about the efficacy of such things on a site like this. Most people here are either volunteers, retired, goofing off from their real jobs, or whatnot. In most cases, they likely aren't looking for either work or any significant commitment. Collaboration can be weird at the best of times.

Agreed. After reading through much of the posts in the Project Requests forum (which I didn't know was there... thank you @jmcilhinney for pointing it out) I was both discouraged and enlightened. It now seems like a poor idea to seek collaboration in a place where most people just want a quick answer to the latest issue screwing with their progress or delaying the completion of their homework assignment. Everyone is doing their own thing. I suspect a place like Discord where people can more easily make friends with common interests would be better, though it may need to be even more personal than that.

I think another issue is VB.Net itself. It's not sexy. It doesn't do graphics and games well and has a poor reputation. It's the old people language. I search the web and YouTube for VB.Net applications, and I can count the results on one hand: Student Management, Library Management, Stock Management, Grocery Management, Shop Management. It's a shame because it's capable of so much more, but those things are better done in other languages. I'm too old to learn another language.

I'm not sure how such a thing as collaboration can be done successfully. For now, at least, asking questions and working alone will have to do.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Years ago, I once naïvely offered all my Konfabulator widget graphics on the VB6 side of the forum hoping someone would pick up what I had offered and then create an equal VB6 masterpiece from each. I wasn't looking for someone to do the work for me, I just realised then that I did not have the skill. So, I held up my hand and asked if anyone was interested and then I did a showcase of my work.

I was reported and cut-down for spamming. I asked for the thread to be deleted altogether. That was when I realised that close-co-operation is not a thing here. Suspicion is.

However, in the end, it was good. The result was that I had to learn to do stuff by myself and I largely did that. I think it also stimulated Olaf to make some improvements to his RC code base to support functionality that otherwise would not have come about (simple PSD parser) - that result, for me was revolutionary. So, some collaboration towards a goal was stimulated but not necessarily, closely-done, if you know what I mean.

I collaborate (in a limited fashion as my skill is not great) with the ReactOS dev team using Mattermost, a chat client where like minded people can collaborate on a project and share ideas, talk &c. I once suggested that we have the same, not readily accepted as a good idea.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I think another issue is VB.Net itself. It's not sexy. It doesn't do graphics ... well

VB6 does graphics well with a little help from Olaf's RichClient framework. You can see my VB6 creations starting to appear here: https://github.com/yereverluvinunclebert

Don't discount VB6 as being a usable product to create graphics rich programs for the future, take in mind TwinBasic/RADBasic as potential future paths and 64bitness, if that rocks your boat.

The games side of things? Ask the theTrick about graphical games using VB6 and obtain his opinion.

[VisualBrian]

Interesting stuff @yereverluvinuncleber

Yes, I noticed the suspicion/mistrust when I first started posting questions here. Though I'm retired and do this for fun, I was immediately portrayed as a kid looking for someone to do his homework. I didn't understand it back then, but I do a little more now. It's just a shame that some people who come here for help probably just leave after being made to feel stupid. I was forced to change my questions to ask only "what I should be looking for" or "where to find information" on things I didn't understand, and I wasted a lot of time on the internet searching for the wrong things. As a prior instructor (Air Traffic Control), I find it difficult to understand how "look it up" helps anyone.

As for game programming, I've done some work for a company you may be familiar with (The Game Creators - they're on your side of the pond) as 'xplosys' and still write some tools for Black Ice Mod, but game programming is not anything I'm interested in. I only mention it as the reason many people steer clear of VB.net. There are better languages for that. I remember VB6 very well but wouldn't consider going back to it.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I'm going forward with it after going back to it.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm going forward with it after going back to it.

Well, that's neither here nor there. Seems like you're just coming and going.

.Net does do graphics. It started as XNA, but MS abandoned that, at which point it was taken up by the MonoGame project, which is still going on. I use it for some 2D graphics stuff. It's all just DirectX, of course.