How practical is Visual Basic?

[sail3005]

Sorry if this question sounds stupid, but i am brand new to windows programming, and am still trying to get the hang of everything. What I am wondering, is exactly how powerful and common are visual basic programs in windows. For example, are very large and complex programs, such as AOL, MS Office, Norton Utilities, ect. programmed in visual basic, or if they aren't, then could they be? Another question. I have been working on a small, very simple notepad type program, in VB, and the other day i decided to show it to my friend and emailed it to him. When he tried to run the program, he got the error:

'Component mscomctl.ocx, or one of it's dependinces not currently registered; a file is missing or invalid.'

So, i am assuming that windows 98, is lacking the runtime files (or whatever they are) to run visual basic, and so if he wants to run the program, then he will have to get the files.

So, since he does not have the files needed to run the program, does that mean that he has no programs installed that are made in visual basic, or require these files? Also, since microsoft makes VB, and windows, and visual basic programs are obviously made to run on windows, then then why are these files not already included in windows?

[SteveCRM]

Yes that does mean he has no programs that were made in vb. Most commercial programs were made in C++. C++ is more flexible and sometimes easier to use. None of the programs you listed were made in vb, they were all made in C++

No that does not mean he has no programs mae with VB. It simply means that he does not that that specified library. To esure that all libraries or components are included, use the P&D wizard to make a setup program for your Apps.

SteveCRM: You find C++ easier? Most people find it more difficult.

[SteveCRM]

Well...I worded that wrong, what I meant is that it is better at some things, and easier to do than to "emulate" it in vb. Like animation, Bitblt or DirectX are needed to make it as fast as C++. For some reason, I find the math in C++ easier.

Not a huge amount of large well known, commercial software is written in VB (although things like Sausage Software's HotDog HTML editor were originally in VB - now in Delphi). The reason for this is that the install process, and the number of dependencies make it impractical for wide scale commercial distribution (and the mindset among a lot of people that nothing decent can be written in VB).

But on the other hand, a very large percentage of custom business solutins are at least in part VB, simply because of the speed of development and ease of maintenance VB offers over other options like C++. I'm not denying that C++ can't do the same thing - it can, and probably slightly better, but the turn around time is substantially longer, and managers aren't prepared to wait. "Time To Market" is the buzzword for this.

Basically, you can achieve 95+% of things you can do in C++ in VB, and with VB7, that figure gets closer to the magical 100%. For the really complex windows manipulatin routines, or for intensive algorithms, C is probably the better choice.

The one thing to remember is that VB IS NOT a one size fits all. It is ideally suited to rapid development, in an environment where there is going to be at least some control over the computing environment. You still need to choose the language that suits the needs of the job, not make the job fit the contraints of the language. I use VC++ for some things, and Delphi for others, but VB for most things. But I do know when I have to change languages, and that is half the battle won.

- gaffa

[sail3005]

Well thanks for all the input everyone, it helped a lot. I guess i'll still use VB, but will start investigating into VC++ and Delphi.

[flint]

"Just a quick thought"

VB is used as a connecting language for the Microsoft Office Products...there is certainly some wonderful synergy to be achieved here.

Complete independency should be achieved in the next newer versions of VB. There is a huge market (and a vision, I might add) for making a laymen's programming language so that the average person can build professional looking applications.

Flint

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
- Francis Bacon