Alternative to VB.net ?

[techgnome]

It depends on your perspective... if you're talking about general population things, then yeah, I get that... mobile... web... blah blah blah... but that's not our market where I work. I have always, and probably will always, work in the enterprise environment where the desktop is till king. I work with organizations that may have hundreds of users that already have desktops and because of what they do (we work exclusively with non-profit organizations) they can't just jump on the latest technological wonder bus. That's not to say we don't see the writing on the wall, as we have taken out platform and moved it out of WinForms and into a rich-web environment. Still requires an enterprise level server structure though.

And that's why I take issue with general blanket statements like that... the desktop is going away FOR SOME people ... but there's still a large segment of people (businesses, markets, etc) that for a variety of reasons tied to the desktop for some time to come.


-tg

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm in the same position as TG. For the business that I work in, I struggle to come up with a single viable app that makes sense on mobile....yet. There is one that I have wanted since long before mobile even existed, but it is based on a database that doesn't exist yet, though I am working on it. Eventually, I expect that somebody will build the mobile app I want based off of my database, but the database will be populated using a program that benefits from as much screen size as it can possibly get. People will be happy with it on a laptop screen, happier on a 24" monitor, happier still on a 32" monitor, and so forth. In fact, the best device for this interface would probably be the one from Minority Report.

I actually think that mobile will eventually get to that point. The real problem with mobile is the lack of screen size. NOBODY loves mobile screen sizes, but everybody who uses them tolerates them because that is the price of mobility. However, there isn't a single app where people are saying, "That's nice, but it would work better on a much smaller monitor." With technology like Kinect, the day may come when your mobile has a workable touch screen that is larger than a desktop monitor of today. That would be cool, but it isn't even on the near horizon at this point.

[Michael42]

Sirs\Madams,

I am versed in and professionally use .Net, Java and VB6. I can get a solution from idea stage to production faster in VB6 than any other platform still in 2013. SIGNIFICANTLY faster! In my experience it is as stable as the others mentioned. I also find it much easier to support.

Enough said.

If there was a 64-bit version of VB6 that had the most minimal updating of interface controls to to look like current interface fads, as others have said, it would be an industry killer!

Michael

[Shaggy Hiker]

But there isn't.

Enough said.

[Michael42]

The community and market continue to suggest viability of VB6:

http://www.change.org/petitions/micr...ts-compilation

There is money to be made by both the developers of an updated VB6 AND the company that produces it. This is supported by multiple diverse sources, i.e. it is just a fact.

[si_the_geek]

Welcome to VBForums

This is supported by multiple diverse sources, i.e. it is just a fact.

Those sources might be correct, but it is foolish to claim it is a fact... it is just the opinion of the small amount of people who have chosen to write publicly about it.

Assuming you can find thousands of people who support the view, that is still a tiny percentage of professional VB programmers. There are many others who have opinions but don't write about it, including the thousands/millions who decided over the last 10 years or so who decided that VB6 is no longer a good option for them.


I like VB6 (and even spend more time helping in the VB6 forum than the VB.Net one), but it is clearly unwise for somebody to even consider learning VB6 while it is unsupported. As for the petition (with only 41 supporters after 6 months), it is crazy to think that will do any good - back when it would have been much easier for Microsoft, a huge petition didn't do any good.

As for this thread, the OP is moving away from VB6 (to get 'modern' functionality), so VB6 is not an appropriate suggestion here.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would say that it isn't a fact at all. There are only two scenarios that can be considered:

1) Microsoft writes said new VB6.

2) Somebody else writes said new VB6.

Rather a binary choice, but it should be obvious that the second one is a non-starter. Lots of people (at least a dozen, which is a significant percentage of the human population) have suggested that MS make the source for VB6 open source so that others could advance the language. Of course, if those people, and you, are correct in saying that there is a large amount of support for a new version of VB6, then MS certainly should NOT release the source for VB6, because they'd be offering up a direct competitor for free. That's a form of business suicide. MS may be greedy, it may be uncaring, but is it suicidal? Probably not. So, either nobody would support the language and it would die, or people would support the language and it would directly compete with MS. Either way it is clearly not in Microsoft's best interest to release the source. So option 2 is pure fantasy.

As for option 1, that's NOT pure fantasy. That's just a business decision. Of course, for a new version of a VB6-like language (the name VB7, VB8, and so on have already been used, so some other name would be needed) to be created, somebody would have to figure out a feature set, which would mean figuring out a target audience. That's not nearly as easy as it may seem. The questions that immediately spring to my mind are these:

1) Do you go further into supporting true Object Oriented development that VB6 was nodding at, or do you stay away because .NET is already in that space and OO is to utterly different from VB6 that the resulting language would be as alien to VB6 afficianados as is .NET?

2) Are you going to support web development (a new ASP), even though that aspect is not as lamented over as VB6 itself, of will you leave web out of it?

3) Are you going to dive into true, modern, multithreaded stuff and all the complexity that entails, even though threading was barely, and poorly, possible in VB6, or does that get left out, too?

4) Ultimately, what is the goal? If you leave out OO, web, threading, generics, and the like, which are all fairly recent developments (the internet was in its infancy when VB6 was released) you end up with a simpler language which is easier to learn for some people, more familiar to fans of VB6, but is inherently limitted. Alternatively, if you add them all in you end up with .NET. So, are you going for a quick and easy language for beginners, or are you going for a full-featured language in its own right?


Even those four decisions have direct impacts on the economics of option #1. If you make the wrong choice, you won't sell enough to justify the effort to create the language. If you make the right choice, you still might not sell enough to justify the effort. It's heads you lose, tails you might still lose. That doesn't seem like a very good gamble to me.

MS should only write some new language, or resurrect a VB6 like language, if they can identify a real niche for that language to fill. Such a niche may exist when it comes to learners and casual hobbyists, but frankly, I don't believe it is there at all. It seems to me that there are lots of people clamoring for some simpler language than any of the others on the market today, but when you get down to specifics, they all have slightly different definitions of "simpler".

[Niya]

1) Do you go further into supporting true Object Oriented development that VB6 was nodding at, or do you stay away because .NET is already in that space and OO is to utterly different from VB6 that the resulting language would be as alien to VB6 afficianados as is .NET?
.....
4) Ultimately, what is the goal? If you leave out OO, web, threading, generics, and the like, which are all fairly recent developments (the internet was in its infancy when VB6 was released) you end up with a simpler language which is easier to learn for some people, more familiar to fans of VB6, but is inherently limitted. Alternatively, if you add them all in you end up with .NET. So, are you going for a quick and easy language for beginners, or are you going for a full-featured language in its own right?

This makes me realize that the people that complain about MS switching over to VB.Net instead of developing VB6 further are complaining simply to be a pain in the ass. They have no legitimate claim to reason. If they did, they'd simply stay in VB6 and if they yearned for new features and stuff they'd move to VB.Net.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would say that change sucks for everybody, even those who are used to it. I loved VB6 and didn't more than glance at .NET for a couple years. The only reason I can attribute to this is that I liked being in that comfortable space where I was with VB6. I felt the way that Michael did as far as getting a program out in VB6 faster...though the other set of languages I knew were different. I was finally forced to use .NET because VB6 didn't do mobile (certainly not counting the horrid eVB). At that point, I realized that .NET had a bunch of features that I had wanted VB6 to have, and now I would never willingly go back to VB6. Partly that's because the IDE in .NET has improved so much that you can be more productive in .NET than in VB6, which is a silly distinction, because the same improvements certainly could have been added to the VB6 IDE.

The only valid complaint I have seen about VB6 is one made by Esposito, but he's in a rather unusual situation that simply wouldn't apply to most people. For the rest, everybody wants it to be the same...but maybe with a few improvements. The talk is about taking it forwards or improving it, so everybody seems to be in agreement that there are improvements that could be made. They just don't all agree on which improvements, and they clearly can't be too many, because if you made a whole bunch of improvements all at once....you'd have .NET.

[dilettante]

This makes me realize that the people that complain about MS switching over to VB.Net instead of developing VB6 further are complaining simply to be a pain in the ass. They have no legitimate claim to reason. If they did, they'd simply stay in VB6 and if they yearned for new features and stuff they'd move to VB.Net.

Funny, I'd say comments like that one come from the real troublemakers.

In any case I don't expect Microsoft or anyone else to pick up VB6 and develop it further. Those days are long past.

Of course .Net is now in maintenance mode as well as noted by quite a few people in the know. If your question is what to develop in for Windows you can pick a horse and ride it: VB6, .Net languages, Delphi, Java, whatever. They're all going by the boards since Windows is moving to the closed-ecosystem RT model.

As Microsoft folks have been saying for a while, and more strongly recently, they want "One Windows" and that will likely be something like Windows 8.x but with the desktop locked down as in Windows RT.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm encouraged by Mono on Linux. It handles all the parts of .NET that I care about. That's my backup plan...except that my employer will decide what I use, I suppose.

[dilettante]

Wow, betting on two very long shots there!

Linux has not managed to get any non-server market share at all after decades. There are obvious reasons for this, the main one being the plethora of high-churn incompatible clone OSs built on top of it. The only thing based on the Linux kernel with any market share is Android unless you count Chrome OS. Both of those are doing quite well actually, but could easily migrate to a BSD kernel instead any time.

Mono is a snatched-bald stepchild, probably in even worse shape than the gumpish Linux "distros." Passed from pillar to post, it now appears to be in the hands of some laid off Novell employees with some dicey VC support. Its main purpose seems to be for creating bloated non-native mobile apps for the more viable mobile platforms.

[Michael42]

Again, I write a lot of Java and .Net to lesser degree. I have been programming 20+ years folks. This developer and many I have talked in person and via Internet feel that VB6 can get an idea or requirement into production much faster than .Net or Java. VB6 is not gonna win the award for most OOP-like code but interestingly that does not change the fact I just detailed. ;-)

I don't know if we will ever get an updated VB6. In my experience I expect many would jump on it. M-A-N-Y.

Sorry if I was unclear on the context of my original post.

[Joacim Andersson]

This developer and many I have talked in person and via Internet feel that VB6 can get an idea or requirement into production much faster than .Net or Java.

Well, that depends on the requirements doesn't it? Here are a few for my latest project, can you outline how you would solve them in VB6?

• The data will be hosted on Azure SQL database.
• Information will be sent from our HR system via BizTalk and MSMQ.
• Some information have to be validated against the Governmental Persons Registry, this is done via a WebService (REST or SOAP).
• The user interface must be web based and hosted in the Cloud.

[dilettante]

From what I've read that database can be used through a connection string like:

Provider=SQLNCLI10; Server=tcp:YOUR_SERVER_NAME.database.windows.net;
Database=[YOUR_DB]; Uid=[YOUR_LOGIN_NAME]@[YOUR_SERVER_NAME];
Pwd=[YOUR_PASSWORD]

VB6 has always had excellent MSMQ support, even before .Net existed.

REST web services are fairly easy to use in VB6, using XmlHttpRequest, WinHttpRequest, etc.

It is still quite viable to use VB6 class libraries and classic ASP, though this is admittedly a bit long in the tooth.


I don't advocate this, but it could be done.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It has now been about a decade since I worked in VB6, but I'd have to say that I didn't feel that VB6 or .NET was any faster to develop in. I think things are better organized in .NET, but as far as getting a project out....I didn't notice any difference. Actually, I think that .NET has a slight edge just because the IDE has features that can be used to enhance the speed of typing. I never seem to type out full names of anything. Intellisense existed in VB6, if I remember right, but it was greatly improved in .NET. I never used it in VB6 because I didn't feel it was helpful, but now it is quite helpful and reduces typing time considerably. That's pretty minor, though.

[Michael42]

Well, that depends on the requirements doesn't it?

Joacim good point.

For me I am an Oracle systems DBA that has to write code to duplicate the tasks of an Oracle DBA (via AI) because the industry where I am is still at the point of piling on more work yet the hiring of another resource is completely off the radar. I keep up with the work load via the tools I write. If I need web I write PHP (Zend).

I need tools and solutions up yesterday. Java and .Net don't cut it. I only use it where my employer insists.

For those that have more time and\or a team of developers .Net and Java are the way to go.

BTW, I am a coding nut. Weekly I look at and evaluate new software development environments and possibilities. I am also a published book author (ISBN-13: 978-1878398635 etc.). I write books on Oracle and programming. I still have not found an environment that can get an idea to production faster (given that it is something it can do yes...which it does 90% of what I need).

Summary
So I am not afraid to learn new things. Well versed in both Java and .Net. A professional some 20+ years. I simply claim VB6 can knock out solutions faster than Java and .Net. It cant be used for Linux based Satellite commanding software and the like but for the huge gamut of common client-server software it handles it great.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I simply claim

You sell yourself too short. If you were simply claiming this, nobody would have much to say about it. You came in with the raw meat statements about how a new VB6 would be an "industry killer" and how

There is money to be made by both the developers of an updated VB6 AND the company that produces it. This is supported by multiple diverse sources, i.e. it is just a fact.

Hardly simple claims, nor new ones around here. Did you really expect people would accept what you stated as "it is just fact" when it really isn't fact at all? There certainly are multiple sources that support that statement, because multiple is, by definition, more than one. There are more than one people on this forum who support that statement, so there certainly are multiple sources, technically. They are not diverse, though, unless you are VERY generous with your use of that term.

That's faceatious, of course. The point is that your language was not a statment of opinion, but what is often used to try to set the foundation for a debate. People were certainly willing to take you up on that, they just don't agree with the set of givens that you proposed. Trying to talk about your vast experience isn't going to get you anywhere, either. Technically, I've been programming longer than you have, but it doesn't mean much because for most of my career I was officially a fish biologist, and still am. The fact that I've also been a programmer for work (the amount of data in the biological fields, along with the lack of money, means that anybody with an aptitude for computers ends up as a DBA or programmer by natural selection), and a programmer as a hobbyist (AI, genetic algorithms, robotics), hasn't mattered to my official title until six, or so, years back. Nonetheless, I started programming in the mid-80s. I'm certainly not going to take your word for something just because you've been a programmer for 20+ years. I know somebody who would claim half as much, and who couldn't write a good for loop.

In your experience, VB6 is the fastest language to get something into production. In my experience, which dates back before VB4, VB6 was a terrific language, but I'm at least as quick in .NET. So, now you have two data points. One shows that VB6 is faster, the other shows that .NET is at least as fast. Hardly a ringing endorsement. Furthermore, over in the .NET forum, I could probably find a link posted by Evil G about somebody arguing that LISP gave them a significant edge over competitors when it came to production speed.

It's all just opinions. You only get pushback when you use debate techniques that are designed to suppress dissent.


That's all just preamble, what I really wanted to say was:
I'm just a resource.

[Joacim Andersson]

I don't advocate this, but it could be done.

I never argued that you can't find some solution to the problem using VB6. The question was: Do you think you can solve it better and faster in VB6 + classic ASP (yuck) compared to using .Net and never leave Visual Studio? It should of course also be maintainable, and classic ASP has never been that.

[FunkyDexter]

I simply claim VB6 can knock out solutions faster than Java and .Net.

Then use VB6, there's nothing to stop you.

I'm never convinced by the "it's no longer supported so my programs won't work" argument if you're talking about the kind of dirty rapid mini tool development that you are becasue that sort of development doesn't usually touch anything in Windows that's changing. I've still got a few old VB6 apps running on my Win7 machine. In fact I don't think I've had to crack any one of them open, they just carried on working. I haven't tried to move them to Win 8 yet but I'm willing to bet the experience would be the same.

So then the only argument for not using VB6 that I can see is that there are some featuures that you want which it doesn't support. Well if that's the case then you're implicitely acknowledging that VB6 isn't man enough for you anymore. You need a language that's got all of VB6's features plus more. Well that describes VB.Net.

I suspect what you're really looking for is a language that contains VB6 plus exactly the additional feature set that you need without the deafening noise of a whole bunch of features you don't need... yet. I can understand that. The first time you try to google for some new feature in .Net you get swamped with a whole bunch of stuff you don't understand... and don't want to. Worse, most of that stuff will assume a mass of prior knowledge that you simply don't have and the effect can be that you're left reading an article without really knowing if it's describing the problem you're trying to solve because they're using a bunch of terms that you're not familiar with and which might or might not mean what you think they do. This can be an incredibly frustrating experience.

So that leaves you with a few choices:-
1. Stick with VB6 and lament the lack of that natty new feature that you really want.
2. Implement VB7, but don't be surprised when it fails because, as Shaggy identified, your desired feature is another man's meaningless noise.
3. Switch to .Net and take the pain. Dive right in and start reading MSDN from cover to cover so you can access every new feature straight away.
4. Pretend to swicth to .Net but don't realy. I can't remember what the library is called (I think it's VB isnn't it?) but all the VB6 commands are still available as a library in VB.Net. Limit yourself to that library and only poke your head out of your shell when there's a new feature you really want.
5. Switch to VB.Net, take a modicum of pain and defer the rest. In other words, do what most of us did, use the basic commands of the new language, dealing with the moderate culture shock that goes with that, and then discover new features as you go.

I actually think all of those options are viable depending on who you are, how you work and what you're trying to achieve.

[KGComputers]

1) Do you go further into supporting true Object Oriented development that VB6 was nodding at, or do you stay away because .NET is already in that space and OO is to utterly different from VB6 that the resulting language would be as alien to VB6 afficianados as is .NET?

2) Are you going to support web development (a new ASP), even though that aspect is not as lamented over as VB6 itself, of will you leave web out of it?

3) Are you going to dive into true, modern, multithreaded stuff and all the complexity that entails, even though threading was barely, and poorly, possible in VB6, or does that get left out, too?

4) Ultimately, what is the goal? If you leave out OO, web, threading, generics, and the like, which are all fairly recent developments (the internet was in its infancy when VB6 was released) you end up with a simpler language which is easier to learn for some people, more familiar to fans of VB6, but is inherently limitted. Alternatively, if you add them all in you end up with .NET. So, are you going for a quick and easy language for beginners, or are you going for a full-featured language in its own right?

Great thought!

In addition, does VB 6.0 support for current mobile apps anyway?

[dilettante]

In addition, does VB 6.0 support for current mobile apps anyway?

No, but neither does VB.Net unless you count the vanishingly tiny WinPhone and Windows RT markets.

There are hacks out there like those from Xamarin that support the Mono subset of C# on mainstream mobile platforms. However they tend to be unpopular since they produce bloated applications.

"Monodroid" creates a 5MB "Hello World" application, almost entirely comprised of runtime dependencies. In general every application has to carry that 5MB (and up) of overhead. I doubt it will ever support VB.Net but time will tell. You still need to work with the native UI widgets and application flow so you do not get any portability unless you carefully isolate UI code from other logic.

As far as I know the iOS version carries the same baggage.

But at least it's an alternative. Of course you still need to learn each mobile platform so you aren't gaining all that much except repurposing some C# syntax skills.

[Michael42]

New successive versions of Java all for the most part are backward compatible. Each version not alienating the user base nor expecting to have to rewrite huge chunks of a mission critical application just to use it. Same with PHP, C, C++, PowerBasic, xBase (dBase, Foxpro) etc. etc. etc.

Most that employ developers dont want a huge rewrite ($$$$$$) just to have to use a new version. MS took the track that it would be acceptable that both developers and those who employ them would have to "eat it".

How many just said THANKS and moved to Java (Python, Ruby ...) never to be burned again?

This was not the first time such a huge and arrogant move like this had happened in the industry. Remember IBM OS/2? They thought we dont need our next version to be compatible at all with he last version (its just so much better they wont want\need to). Does anyone use OS/2 any more? How about Novell? CA Clipper Objects for Windows (or whatever it was called)? Same mistake. Same out come.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Happened with Apple, too, after the OS8 debacle. Interestingly, Apple ended up with a greater market share after that change, even though they jettisoned the past user base more thoroughly than MS did by moving from VB6 to VB.NET (conversion, even by hand, isn't terribly difficult unless the program being converted is enormous). So, there are cases of applications and companies disappearing when they abandoned past users, but one shining example of a company who abandoned continuity and came out stronger for it. Furthermore, there are examples of powerhouse programs that did NOT abandon continuity and still ended up in the wastebin (Lotus 1-2-3 and Borland's Quattro Pro are two that come to mind).

So, some companies died if they maintained continuity, some companies died if they abandoned continuity, and some companies thrived while abandoning continuity. Therefore, when is it essential to maintain continuity?

[techgnome]

So, some companies died if they maintained continuity, some companies died if they abandoned continuity, and some companies thrived while abandoning continuity. Therefore, when is it essential to maintain continuity?

Cyanoacrylate... ever since using that, I've become quite attached to it.

-tg

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would think so. It's quite super, if I remember right.

[Joacim Andersson]

Well, sometimes you just have to break backward compatibility to be able to introduce new techniques and technology. If everything would still be backward compatible our cars would be dragged around by horses.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yes, and now it's just our programs that are buggy.

MS did make a fairly seamless transition when they dropped the Win95 kernel (whatever it was called) in favor of standardizing on NT. They did a LOT of testing for backward compatibility with that one. However, when it comes to programming languages, that isn't always possible. I feel that MS has really recognized that the future is threaded and web-based, two things that VB6 didn't do well. I do think that they were trying to create a competitor for Java, rather than a replacement for VB or C++, but that scene shifted on them. We'll see where the world goes next.

[Michael42]

...sometimes you just have to break backward compatibility to be able to introduce new techniques and technology.

Good point Joacim.

It is obvious no demographic or subset would have been 100% happy. Seems many just moved to C# when making the change to .Net. Do you think most did this?

On the other hand, Oracle rewrites its internals approximately ever two major versions (this is not very well publicized BTW). In this way they have a model that keeps multiple API types but does not inherit most of the downsides (internal bloatware etc.). Still there is no perfect model.

Oracle also just buys out technologies then retire them in favor of their own internal\preferred ones in time. Example in point here is GlassFish.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I would guess that a fair number did. After all, on average, C# developers get a higher salary than VB.NET developers, which would push many people over. There also appears to be something of a bias in favor of C# examples in Google, as well as a greater weight of C# examples in several aspects of programming.

[FunkyDexter]

Yes, and now it's just our programs that are buggy

Badum Tshhhh

Seems many just moved to C# when making the change to .Net. Do you think most did this?

I would say no. I think most moved to .Net and then gradually moved to C# over a number of years as they realised how similar they were. That's certainly my story and it's the impression I've got from the market as a whole. That's purely anecdotal though.

I'm never sure I agree with the "MS just left VB6 users to eat it" position. I understand where people are coming from with this but I actually think MS did quite alot to make the transition as painless as possible:-

1. It wasn't .Net that broke your VB Apps, it was Vista. I shouldn't really say broke, it just enforced a bunch of the best practices us devs had been happily ignoring for years. If your VB6 app was written using the best practices MS had been telling us to use then it continues to run in Windows 8 today.
2. They included the pretty much the entire VB6 library in .Net. If you wanted to upgrade your program to .Net all you really had to do was import the library and fix a few syntax errors. Sure it was some donkey work but it wasn't that hard. Of course, that meant you weren't using the new .Net features but you could bring them in as you were ready.
3. They released a bunch of conversion tools. They were rubbish, mind, and none of them worked but.. actually there is no but... the did drop the ball on conversion tools.

Overall, though, most of the shops I've worked in that migrated their apps found it reasonably painless. The ones that didn't were usually trying to combine migrating with adding new functionality which muddied their waters.