What if there was a NEW vb6

[Niya]

....who have extremely specific use-cases.

What do you mean by this ? Both VB6, VB.Net/C# can be used to author a wide range of applications.

[MikiSoft]

@Niya:

Microsoft had previously used TradElect as a case study in marketing material to position its Windows operating system as suitable for "highly reliable" systems. It did not respond to requests for comment.

I wonder why they did not respond? Obviously, if they said anything about that then it would made a bigger shame on .Net technology, and they don't want that.

So does this mean VB6 users should also switch to Linux?

If there's some similar story regarding VB6, then yes. In the future they will definitely need to switch on the another OS, and I think that it would be ReactOS. It seems that it will be the next platform for developing VB6 programs.

[Niya]

@Niya: I wonder why they did not respond? Obviously, if they said anything about that then it would made a bigger shame on .Net technology, and they don't want that.

I don't see .Net being mentioned anywhere in that quote....

[Niya]

And they switched to Linux....use common sense. What does that tell you about where the blame was being placed.

[MikiSoft]

My common sense tells me that .Net should be blamed because that was hopefully the last Microsoft's massive project which was based on it. Just look around and you won't see any Microsoft's program that is running on .Net platform.

And I almost forgot to mention: Before TradElect, Windows Vista was the first to be based completely on .Net technology, and guess what? It was also a horrible flop, so the Microsoft had to recode the whole OS from scratch. That's the reason why they have released it with a delay, and because they were in a rush it was the one of the worst Windows editions ever. If they didn't changed the plan, it would be even worse.

[Tanner_H]

What do you mean by this ? Both VB6, VB.Net/C# can be used to author a wide range of applications.

Sorry, I didn't say that very well. The point I was trying to make was: there are very few circumstances where VB6 - or VB.Net - is the *best* tool for the job.

In my personal opinion, aside from existing VB projects, C# is always preferable to VB.Net. There's a much larger development community, more code samples, and the syntax is similar to enough to other C-based languages that porting code from other languages is generally easier. It also gains new features first, and from a job-security standpoint, there are way more positions for C# developers. So unless you're already a VB.Net developer, there's not much point to learning and/or using it.

VB6 is the same way, only 1000x stronger on all points.

IMO, VB6 and VB.Net users should be united against anti-BASIC forces, instead of constantly fighting among themselves. VB6 users don't gain anything from the death of VB.Net (except maybe schadenfreude?) and VB.Net users don't gain anything from the death of VB6.

I do, however, think it would be unfortunate to live in a world where BASIC doesn't exist. Since Microsoft is the primary force behind serious BASIC implementations, and BASIC has a crucial place in Microsoft history, I would like to see their version of BASIC - whatever it is - remain viable.

That may be a pipe dream, however.

[Tanner_H]

If there's some similar story regarding VB6, then yes.

I don't think you understand the TradElect story very well. It was a classic case of a company naively using the wrong tool for the job. (And believe me, VB6 would have been the *worst* possible tool for their needs.)

TradElect's problem is that they were using .NET for an incredibly specific purpose - stock trading where even milliseconds of latency can impact earnings - and .NET was simply not designed for that kind of usage. (Protip: neither is VB6!) Accenture also created a horrifying labyrinth of middleware tying together disparate pieces of old and new tech, and as is common with projects of this scale, the whole thing launched long before it was really ready.

Microsoft, for better or worse, took their money and made the most of the contract (what company wouldn't?), but when the **** hit the fan, they totally bungled the PR response, even though the problem probably wasn't even tied to .NET.

There are valid complaints to be leveled against .NET. This really isn't one of them.

But since we're here, I'm still confused about your point in this thread. How does this mantra of ".NET sucks" in any way lead to a new version of VB6 being released? Do you really believe that mocking Microsoft's existing tools will somehow endear yourself to them, so they decide to take your VB6 requests seriously? (This is a genuine question, because I do not understand the current strategy at all. In my opinion, you're just destroying any good will VB6 has left, and if naive VB6 users keep hassling Microsoft, MS is just going to drop what little VB6 support they still offer.)

[Niya]

Sorry, I didn't say that very well. The point I was trying to make was: there are very few circumstances where VB6 - or VB.Net - is the *best* tool for the job.

In my personal opinion, aside from existing VB projects, C# is always preferable to VB.Net. There's a much larger development community, more code samples, and the syntax is similar to enough to other C-based languages that porting code from other languages is generally easier. It also gains new features first, and from a job-security standpoint, there are way more positions for C# developers. So unless you're already a VB.Net developer, there's not much point to learning and/or using it.

VB6 is the same way, only 1000x stronger on all points.

IMO, VB6 and VB.Net users should be united against anti-BASIC forces, instead of constantly fighting among themselves. VB6 users don't gain anything from the death of VB.Net (except maybe schadenfreude?) and VB.Net users don't gain anything from the death of VB6.

I do, however, think it would be unfortunate to live in a world where BASIC doesn't exist. Since Microsoft is the primary force behind serious BASIC implementations, and BASIC has a crucial place in Microsoft history, I would like to see their version of BASIC - whatever it is - remain viable.

That may be a pipe dream, however.

Ah...I see. Makes sense. Although I'm not too disturbed about C# over taking VB.Net. As I said, the main improvements in my opinion is not the language itself but the IDE and the .Net Framework. I prefer writing VB code over C# code because I'm accustomed to VB code but any argument for or against VB.Net also applies to C#, except for arguments about syntax. C# is a really beautiful language, VB(both 6 and .Net) is very crude and clunky in comparison.

[MikiSoft]

How does this mantra of ".NET sucks" in any way lead to a new version of VB6 being released? Do you really believe that mocking Microsoft's existing tools will somehow endear yourself to them, so they decide to take your VB6 requests seriously? (This is a genuine question, because I do not understand the current strategy at all. In my opinion, you're just destroying any good will VB6 has left, and if naive VB6 users keep hassling Microsoft, MS is just going to drop what little VB6 support they still offer.)

It won't, but there are some people here who repeat that VB6 sucks and think how .Net is the best platform ever. And to be clear, I didn't create any of those requests on UserVoice, I'm just linking to them.
Microsoft deserves to be hassled, not VB6. And if they ever drop it's support, that would be the last in a series of mistakes, but this time with fatal consequences. People already began to dump Windows in favour of Linux so that won't be a smart move, but of course they know that and that's the main reason why VB6 runtime is supported to this day.

[szlamany]

So does this mean VB6 users should also switch to Linux?

Don't try to use logic in thread!!!

[Niya]

And if they ever drop it's support, that would be the last in a series of mistakes, but this time with fatal consequences. People already began to dump Windows in favour of Linux so that won't be a smart move, but of course they know that and that's the main reason why VB6 runtime is supported to this day.

[Tanner_H]

It won't, but there are some people here who repeat that VB6 sucks and think how .Net is the best platform ever. And to be clear, I didn't create any of those requests on UserVoice, I'm just linking to them.
Microsoft deserves to be hassled, not VB6. And if they ever drop it's support, that would be the last in a series of mistakes, but this time with fatal consequences. People already began to dump Windows in favour of Linux so that won't be a smart move, but of course they know that and that's the main reason why VB6 runtime is supported to this day.

It's important to avoid hyperbole in these discussions. VB6 is not relevant to Microsoft. They already abandoned it once, and there were no consequences. If they abandoned it "for real," there would be no mass migration to Linux. (If you think migrating complicated VB6 apps to VB.Net is painful, you have clearly never tried migrating a complicated VB6 app to Linux. )

Microsoft knows this, and loudly yelling that they're stupid won't change anything.

In my opinion, there are better ways to go about this. For example, what is more likely to motivate continued VB support from Microsoft?

1) 100 cool VB apps, used and loved by thousands of people
2) 100,000 threatening posts on UserVoice
3) 100,000,000 VB.Net insults on vbForums

NB: Microsoft won't abandon developer tools that produce good software. I'm not sure VB6 or VB.Net currently meet that criteria, and it's not Microsoft's fault - it's the community's.

If VB users (of all varieties) can build a thriving community, and produce lots of well-written, professional applications - maybe even some open-source ones! - I think both VB6 and VB.Net could have long, productive futures.

(After a few years of participating in these forums, I would say the odds of that happening are... not great.)

[dilettante]

The mobile market has gone through a lot of fits and starts over the years. Through those years 3rd parties have stepped in to provide BASIC in different forms to meet a demand.

Some of those forms were (and are) VB-like, others are closer to traditional pre-Windows BASICs. Many have fallen away as platform churn continued, far faster than desktop Windows changes. New ones have popped up.

So I doubt there is much threat of a "world with no BASIC" any time soon. However there do seem to be a lot of forces weighing in against BASIC out there in the world.

These guys cover all of the significant platforms, with a suite of compilers for several BASIC languages that are close enough to allow a ton of code sharing across the platforms they target. The downside is that a small company is hard for people to "bet the farm" on. What if they disappeared tomorrow?

I use their products, but more often as a "gateway drug" to help companies get legacy code off Windows to the platforms they need to be on today. The people coming from VB or VB.Net get transitioned to these BASICs, and are later guided to Java as the long term tool for future development. The C# guys are taken straight on to Java, skipping some pain.

There isn't a clear path for iOS development though, and most of the planners just hope iOS will die off soon or gain native Java support in the future. More likely the guys using B4i are going to have to bite the bullet and learn Objective-C or Swift.

[MikiSoft]

They didn't kill VB6, they just shot it in the knees. And believe me, if they shot it in the head by dropping support, many people out there won't have choice but to stay on older versions of Windows, and finally to have reason why they should switch to the free platforms like Linux. On Linux you can also run VB6 applications with Wine, so that's not the problem. Another good option is ReactOS.

If VB users (of all varieties) can build a thriving community, and produce lots of well-written, professional applications - maybe even some open-source ones! - I think both VB6 and VB.Net could have long, productive futures.

You already have Planet-Source-Code with millions lines of good VB6 code. And as Windows will now spread on tablets too, all of that code should work, so that would be another productive decade.

[Tanner_H]

The mobile market has gone through a lot of fits and starts over the years. Through those years 3rd parties have stepped in to provide BASIC in different forms to meet a demand.

Some of those forms were (and are) VB-like, others are closer to traditional pre-Windows BASICs. Many have fallen away as platform churn continued, far faster than desktop Windows changes. New ones have popped up.

So I doubt there is much threat of a "world with no BASIC" any time soon. However there do seem to be a lot of forces weighing in against BASIC out there in the world.

These guys cover all of the significant platforms, with a suite of compilers for several BASIC languages that are close enough to allow a ton of code sharing across the platforms they target. The downside is that a small company is hard for people to "bet the farm" on. What if they disappeared tomorrow?

I use their products, but more often as a "gateway drug" to help companies get legacy code off Windows to the platforms they need to be on today. The people coming from VB or VB.Net get transitioned to these BASICs, and are later guided to Java as the long term tool for future development. The C# guys are taken straight on to Java, skipping some pain.

A perfect summation. Having bet on bad technology in the past (Pascal, Delphi), I'm much more inclined to stick with a known quantity like C++ these days. Love it or hate it, at least it's not going anywhere.

These "middleware" approaches to BASIC come and go like the weather, but I very much like your analogy of a "gateway drug": they're a temporary solution for existing codebases, nothing more.

There isn't a clear path for iOS development though, and most of the planners just hope iOS will die off soon or gain native Java support in the future. More likely the guys using B4i are going to have to bite the bullet and learn Objective-C or Swift.

Yeah, betting on iOS dying or gaining Java support is right up there with Microsoft-built VB7 on the list of "things that are never gonna happen". Swift is a fine language, and Objective-C has been stable for 30+ years now. It's about as safe a bet as you can get for a developer tool. (Of course, the downside is that you need to need to own a Mac to develop with it, so there's that.)

I think the original topic of this thread, "What if there was a NEW vb6", is actually a pretty fascinating question. Of all the suggestions I've seen, Olaf's suggestion of a community-driven IDE that spits out LLVM bytecode is arguably the most sound approach I've heard, because it offloads the nastiest part of the compiler chain onto a very good, well-supported project. A solution like that could become a project worth pursuing if enough people felt it worthwhile, but I don't know that we'll ever reach that point as long as people keep wasting energy hoping for a Microsoft-supplied solution.

[Tanner_H]

They didn't kill VB6, they just shot it in the knees. And believe me, if they shot it in the head by dropping support, many people out there won't have choice but to stay on older versions of Windows, and finally to have reason why they should switch to the free platforms like Linux. On Linux you can also run VB6 applications with Wine, so that's not the problem. Another good option is ReactOS.

You already have Planet-Source-Code with millions lines of good VB6 code. And as Windows will now spread on tablets too, all of that code should work, so that would be another productive decade.

It's difficult to count the number of fallacies in this single post. A few obvious ones:

- Have you ever actually used ReactOS? I don't think you have. I've followed their work closely for 15 some-odd years now. It is a very impressive hobby project, but utterly useless for serious work. If you doubt this, find me a developer who uses ReactOS as their primary development platform.

- Take everything I said above, and repeat it for Wine. I use Wine regularly (and in fact, have answered a number of Wine-related posts on these forums, since I'm fairly familiar with its inner workings). Wine is a nice stopgap for "emergency" deployment on Linux. It will not work for any serious VB6 project. Again, try setting it up yourself before recommending it as a permanent solution.

- Planet-Source-Code?? That's your argument? When a layperson can download a project from PSC and use it without compiling their own copy (because you know, EVERYONE has a copy of the VB6 IDE), get back to me.

C'mon MikiSoft: we can make a good case for a future for VB, but so far, none of your comments have been serious. We need to approach this thoughtfully, without hyperbole and making stuff up (like ReactOS being a viable Windows replacement).

[szlamany]

@tanner_h - what types of programs have you written in c++? Any user-window like apps?

General question - I never thought much about Java. I know a bit about the syntax having coded a proof-of-concept app on an Android device in Eclipse. I always thought it was a client-server based tool for doing web-type apps. Apparently it is also for creating desktop apps. Question - what commercial products are written in Java?

[Tanner_H]

@tanner_h - what types of programs have you written in c++? Any user-window like apps?

My C++ experience is almost all backend stuff, mostly standalone imaging libraries. I have never been very comfortable doing front-end work in C++. (I wish I was better at it.)

For publicly available, open-source C++ projects, I prefer to participate in other people's open source projects. For example, I submit a lot of patches to the FreeImage library.

General question - I never thought much about Java. I know a bit about the syntax having coded a proof-of-concept app on an Android device in Eclipse. I always thought it was a client-server based tool for doing web-type apps. Apparently it is also for creating desktop apps. Question - what commercial products are written in Java?

An obvious example is the popular PC game Minecraft, which is entirely written in Java. OpenOffice is a mix of C++ and Java. A lot of embedded systems use Java; for example, Blu-ray disc menus and interactive features are all written in Java. Obviously Google's Android mobile OS is powered by Java.

I don't know if you're familiar with C#, but here's a nice, comprehensive comparison of it and Java. Maybe helpful...?

[Niya]

My C++ experience is almost all backend stuff, mostly standalone imaging libraries. I have never been very comfortable doing front-end work in C++. (I wish I was better at it.)

I swear we are the same person

This is exactly my experience with C++. I only used it to write DLLs for use in VB6, never a full desktop app and like you, I wish I was better at it. Right now, I'm back to that place. I'm currently, in my spare time, tinkering around in my pet project, Demon Arena and I'm having some serious trouble solving some performance issues. I'm at the point where I believe I need to port some of its most CPU intensive parts to C. I was also wondering if I would even have these problems if it was written entirely in C++ in the first place. Seems VB6 and VB.Net/C# cannot produce a fast 2D engine by themselves. These environments have way too many abstractions so we cannot achieve the godly performance necessary for any 2D engine to manage hundreds of objects on the screen. I'm gonna try a couple of other approaches but I think ultimately, I'll have to go with a hybrid approach, using VB.Net in combination with C++ like I did in the past.

An obvious example is the popular PC game Minecraft, which is entirely written in Java. OpenOffice is a mix of C++ and Java. A lot of embedded systems use Java; for example, Blu-ray disc menus and interactive features are all written in Java. Obviously Google's Android mobile OS is powered by Java.

I don't know if you're familiar with C#, but here's a nice, comprehensive comparison of it and Java. Maybe helpful...?

Java is my backup plan when the day comes that I have to seriously consider other platforms beside Windows. Seems to be the best option since it been tried and tested.

[FunkyDexter]

Java's big strength was always its cross platform compatibility. In the desktop world, though, users of different OSs generally had different expectations of a UI. That seriously compromised Java's position in that arena because, although it was perfectly possible to write a single UI that functioned in different OSs it wasn't easy to write one that felt right. I think that's why it mostly gained traction in the web world where there weren't really any OS specific expectations from a user. It was always great for writing cross platform back end components (although not particularly performant when stacked up alongside the likes of C). Mobile computing has changed that further because it broke down user's expectations of a UI so, as with web, Java's found a natural home in that environment.

I think Java has always struggled in the desktop world and will continue to do so but anywhere where the expected look and feel carries less baggage it'll be a strong offering.

[dilettante]

The truth is browser-embedded Java is pretty rare and has been for quite a while. It suffers from the same kinds of security problems that client-side ActiveX and .Net had, which is why the more heavily sandboxed SilverLight was created but even that's deprecated now. Most people have moved on and live with Ajaxy JavaScript for browser interactivity.

Java was weak on GUI widget libraries for a long time (1995-1998?), but much of the world settled on Swing. Native look and feel portable was pretty much solved for most purposes. When you want true native look and feel you use SWT, which is platform-speciifc and wraps native controls. That's similar to VB6/Win32 controls or WinForms.

However as the world got more and more used to web pages and demand rose for more of a "flow based layout" UI we got new widget libraries. In Java's case that's JavaFX, .Net got WPF. In both cases the result is "native nowhere" and in general one big skinfest (as in skinning) of deviant looking UIs. Microsoft tries to reign this in a bit for WinRT by dictating guidelines you must follow to get into their Store.

But Java doesn't have any desktop UI issues, and hasn't since the late 1990s. For some reason we see this straw man raised over and over here.

[Tanner_H]

I'm currently, in my spare time, tinkering around in my pet project, Demon Arena and I'm having some serious trouble solving some performance issues. I'm at the point where I believe I need to port some of its most CPU intensive parts to C. I was also wondering if I would even have these problems if it was written entirely in C++ in the first place. Seems VB6 and VB.Net/C# cannot produce a fast 2D engine by themselves. These environments have way too many abstractions so we cannot achieve the godly performance necessary for any 2D engine to manage hundreds of objects on the screen. I'm gonna try a couple of other approaches but I think ultimately, I'll have to go with a hybrid approach, using VB.Net in combination with C++ like I did in the past.

Ah, now I have context for threads like the one about Cairo performance. Cool project! I'll pop over to its thread to take a closer look.

You can eke surprising performance out of GDI (and sometimes GDI+), but it's not always pretty. The hardest part is that both pipelines have unpredictable places where their performance suffers, so depending on the task, you'll likely have to mix and match both.

But in most cases, I think it can be done. Right now in my PhotoDemon project, I'm reworking the main rendering pipeline to improve performance on photograph-sized images (10+ megapixels) with tons of layers, and varying uses of alpha, overall opacity, and custom blend modes. Custom blend modes in particular have to be implemented manually, since neither GDI or GDI+ supports them. Despite using VB6 and being single-core and CPU-bound, the program already outperforms GIMP and Paint.NET, so I think there's hope for hobbyists. (Most of the credit goes to modern CPUs, which are pretty incredible feats of engineering.)

Granted, my code is pretty frightening, but I think that's true for any project where performance is crucial, regardless of the language used.

[Tanner_H]

The truth is browser-embedded Java is pretty rare and has been for quite a while. It suffers from the same kinds of security problems that client-side ActiveX and .Net had, which is why the more heavily sandboxed SilverLight was created but even that's deprecated now. Most people have moved on and live with Ajaxy JavaScript for browser interactivity.

And like all NPAPI plugins, Java is totally unsupported on mobile platforms, so that's another nail in its "browser-embedded implementation" coffin. (I find this ironic, since Java was also the go-to language for mobile app development for some time, due to its strong support in Nokia's Symbian OS.)

Java was weak on GUI widget libraries for a long time (1995-1998?), but much of the world settled on Swing. Native look and feel portable was pretty much solved for most purposes. When you want true native look and feel you use SWT, which is platform-speciifc and wraps native controls. That's similar to VB6/Win32 controls or WinForms.

However as the world got more and more used to web pages and demand rose for more of a "flow based layout" UI we got new widget libraries. In Java's case that's JavaFX, .Net got WPF. In both cases the result is "native nowhere" and in general one big skinfest (as in skinning) of deviant looking UIs. Microsoft tries to reign this in a bit for WinRT by dictating guidelines you must follow to get into their Store.

But Java doesn't have any desktop UI issues, and hasn't since the late 1990s. For some reason we see this straw man raised over and over here.

I don't see this as a straw man, and in fact I agree with FunkyDexter's explanation.

Swing does not wrap the underlying OS APIs. It's written entirely in Java, and while it's made to look like various underlying platform toolkits, it still stands out like a sore thumb (in my opinion). Not only are the fine details often wrong, but things like fonts and animations do not even try to mimic the underlying OS settings. While this wasn't a problem so much on XP and earlier, it's pretty noticeable on Aero, and downright terrible on OSX. (Hence the need for other OSX-specific UI libraries, like Quaqua.)

For something like a game with a custom UI, no problem. But for standard desktop software, I don't see many people writing serious apps anymore in Swing... or JavaFX, for that matter. Even major projects like LibreOffice (the far superior successor to OpenOffice) have dropped Java UI components completely.

Outside of the web, I don't think multiplatform front-end development will ever be feasible. Even on the web, it's only become practical in the past few years, thanks to browser vendors *finally* taking standards seriously.

[Niya]

But in most cases, I think it can be done. Right now in my PhotoDemon project, I'm reworking the main rendering pipeline to improve performance on photograph-sized images (10+ megapixels) with tons of layers, and varying uses of alpha, overall opacity, and custom blend modes. Custom blend modes in particular have to be implemented manually, since neither GDI or GDI+ supports them. Despite using VB6 and being single-core and CPU-bound, the program already outperforms GIMP and Paint.NET, so I think there's hope for hobbyists. (Most of the credit goes to modern CPUs, which are pretty incredible feats of engineering.)

Granted, my code is pretty frightening, but I think that's true for any project where performance is crucial, regardless of the language used.

I recommend you implement DirectX rendering with your normal renderer as a fall back. Its performance is truly unbeatable especially on a PC with a powerful GPU. Your custom blending in particular will benefit tremendously if you can find VB6 bindings for DirectX 9 and up. From DirectX 9, one can write their own shaders which would execute on the GPU when you make draw calls. If you re-write your custom blending as shaders, this should give you a massive performance boost. It's quite daunting(DirectX on the whole is too) but I'm resolved one day to learn how to write shaders and use them myself as everything I've read about them and samples I've seen here and there have thoroughly impressed me. I'm far from being a DirectX expert but what little I managed to get working and use over the years hasn't disappointed.

[Niya]

BTW do you have the source for PhotoDemon posted anywhere on the internet ?

[Niya]

Ah nevermind I found a link on your page.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Wow this thread has moved on a bit since i last looked!!

MikiSoft your posts are becoming delerious

Just look around and you won't see any Microsoft's program that is running on .Net platform.

What about Visual Studio and Paint.Net ?

... but .Net and VB6 are both used primarily for business software and as such your not going to find many examples of big public software offerings made in either of them.

My common sense tells me that .Net should be blamed because that was hopefully the last Microsoft's massive project which was based on it.

Oh so a bad program is made using a language so therefore that language is crap?? Talk about blaming the tools for a poor job or what!!!

Using your logic considering the multitude of awful VB6 written programs i have seen and worked on over the years VB6 is lucky to still be used by anyone!

Microsoft deserves to be hassled, not VB6. And if they ever drop it's support, that would be the last in a series of mistakes, but this time with fatal consequences.

MS has made many mistakes not least they where left completely flat footed by the move to Web and Mobile but dropping support to VB6 when it does happen will not be the fatal mistake. The rest of the world has moved on even if you haven't.

People already began to dump Windows in favour of Linux so that won't be a smart move, but of course they know that and that's the main reason why VB6 runtime is supported to this day.

Absolute nonsense. People are NOT moving to Linux on the Desktop, even those in the Linux world have pretty much conceded defeat on the standard desktop.

Linux is heavily used on the Server in particular web servers, more and more in manufacturing, and now on Mobile. These are places where Linux has already either a growing or big market share, or are markets they have a shot at. (Dilettante i am sure could probably come up with a few others)

99% of Business Desktop users use Windows !! at least for now and probably for then next 10 years at least. Try getting a Secretary to use Linux and see how far you get with that !!!!

[MikiSoft]

Absolute nonsense. People are NOT moving to Linux on the Desktop, even those in the Linux world have pretty much conceded defeat on the standard desktop.

Linux is heavily used on the Server in particular web servers, more and more in manufacturing, and now on Mobile. These are places where Linux has already either a growing or big market share, or are markets they have a shot at. (Dilettante i am sure could probably come up with a few others)

99% of Business Desktop users use Windows !! at least for now and probably for then next 10 years at least. Try getting a Secretary to use Linux and see how far you get with that !!!!

Obviously, you know nothing about Linux. It can be also easy like Windows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters

[dilettante]

Swing does not wrap the underlying OS APIs.

Indeed, but I never said it did. SWT is the toolkit that wraps native controls. Swing just has skins to help it look a bit more native.

Microsoft ran head on into this with its efforts currently sold under the "Universal Apps" banner. Getting around the need to build multiple user interfaces is probably one of the main reasons they've trashed WinPhone again to make yet another version, this time based on NT. You still have to build multiple UIs for different form-factors, but at least they all use similar APIs for the first time.

[dilettante]

99% of Business Desktop users use Windows !! at least for now and probably for then next 10 years at least. Try getting a Secretary to use Linux and see how far you get with that !!!!

I'm not sure this is quite as true as it was just a few years ago. But business in general moves slowly. I see a lot more secretaries using ChromeOS or Android desktop boxes and all-in-ones these days than Linux though.

Microsoft Office has seen its day and it has passed, which is probably why Microsoft is scrambling to produce versions for more non-Windows OSs. I'm not convinced this will work anymore than its desperate strategies will rescue their vanishing mobile market share.

But no matter how often Microsoft shoots itself in the foot I just don't see Linux (which Linux?) poised to make a difference on the desktop.

[SJWhiteley]

...

I see VB.Net and VB6 in pretty much the same light: not recommended for newcomers, and useful only to people who are maintaining existing codebases or who have extremely specific use-cases. This is what makes disagreements between the two groups ironic, IMO.

I see you are trying to dump these 'groups' together: they are very different people. Those who can adapt, and those that can't. If and when .NET comes to an end, the VB.NET people will migrate to whatever is next; this is the differential. The only commonality is syntax.

[techgnome]

I see you are trying to dump these 'groups' together: they are very different people. Those who can adapt, and those that can't. If and when .NET comes to an end, the VB.NET people will migrate to whatever is next; this is the differential. The only commonality is syntax.

Indeed. My adoption plan for when .NET is no longer viable is to open a food truck. Actually, it might be even sooner than that if things work out.

-tg

[NeedSomeAnswers]

I'm not sure this is quite as true as it was just a few years ago. But business in general moves slowly. I see a lot more secretaries using ChromeOS or Android desktop boxes and all-in-ones these days than Linux though.

Maybe its 97% now then i agree though if the traditional desktop is going to be challenged it wont be through Linux but through one of the other competitors you have mentioned!

Microsoft Office has seen its day and it has passed

I don't think it has yet had its day, as to many big companies are completely wedded to the advanced office integration they have, Also Power Excel users don't have anywhere else to go. However i agree that it is no longer quite as dominant as it once was.

But no matter how often Microsoft shoots itself in the foot I just don't see Linux (which Linux?) poised to make a difference on the desktop.

Obviously, you know nothing about Linux. It can be also easy like Windows.

I know enough about Linux, i have built Linux web servers in the past i have tried various flavours on the desktop a few times as well and its just isn't a great alternative to Windows.

Even the Linux community no longer thinks it will replace Windows on the Desktop!!

[FunkyDexter]

My adoption plan for when .NET is no longer viable is to open a food truck.

Mine is to become your customer. I'd like a Burrito please.

Desktop .Net would probably see me to retirement but towards the end I'd probably be doing dull legacy maintenance work. I've always dabbled in web but have been actively sharpening it up for a year or so and that'll probably allow me to keep doing more interesting stuff. I'm not particularly interested in mobile computing - perhaps I should be but it just doesn't grab my attention. Ultimately programming is just programming and a decent programmer can move between platforms with relative ease if they have to.

All told I'm comfortable that I'm unlikely to starve but I'm hoping you'll offer an OAP discount on that burrito.

[Tanner_H]

I see you are trying to dump these 'groups' together: they are very different people. Those who can adapt, and those that can't. If and when .NET comes to an end, the VB.NET people will migrate to whatever is next; this is the differential. The only commonality is syntax.

If VB.Net users could adapt, they would be using C#. It is better than VB.NET in every way. (Except for maintaining existing VB codebases, as discussed above.)

Some VB6 users can't adapt. As this thread should have made abundantly clear, some of us use it simply because it is the right tool for certain jobs. It doesn't mean that VB6 is the only tool in our toolbox. Just one of many.

VB.Net users need to stop assuming VB6 users only use it because they're too lazy to use something new.

[szlamany]

I've coded BASIC since my PDP/11 and VAX/11 minicomputer days. When I started migrating clients to PC's around 2000 VB6 was my choice - .Net too new - me too new to PC.

In the past 15 years I've slowly landed in JavaScript/jQuery to VB.Net web methods as the best way to serve my clients.

Having done so much JS I am now able to do C# .Net - and I have done so. Did a proof-of-concept WPF app in C#.Net. (Actually have an app in Eclipse on an Andriod as well - JavaScript has helped me a lot)

I see very little difference between VB and C# in the .Net world. VB was forced to get all the same collection and iteration constructs that C# has.

Where do you see C#.Net better in every way over VB.Net??

[Tanner_H]

Where do you see C#.Net better in every way over VB.Net??

Snip from my previous comment on the topic (no worries, I don't think any of us can be bothered to read all the replies on this monster thread, hehe):

In my personal opinion, aside from existing VB projects, C# is always preferable to VB.Net. There's a much larger development community, more code samples, and the syntax is similar to enough to other C-based languages that porting code from other languages is generally easier. It also gains new features first, and from a job-security standpoint, there are way more positions for C# developers. So unless you're already a VB.Net developer, there's not much point to learning and/or using it.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

If VB.Net users could adapt, they would be using C#.

I am primarily a C# user and i do prefer the syntax, but the languages are so close these days i don't see what you mean by C# being better??

As far as i am aware the only real differences nowadays are Pointers ( in C#) and XML Literals ( in VB.Net)

[Tanner_H]

As an additional comment, I would say that at present, the "killer feature" for C# is .NET native. The performance gains alone would convince me to switch any existing Vb.NET projects over (assuming the project were performance-sensitive, of course).

[szlamany]

As an additional comment, I would say that at present, the "killer feature" for C# is .NET native. The performance gains alone would convince me to switch any existing Vb.NET projects over (assuming the project were performance-sensitive, of course).

I guess if I was ever going to write .Net desktop apps again that feature would matter.

As for it being a de facto cause to migrate...

.Net has other factors that slow it down - not just IL. Based on what you are doing, the GC might be evil to you.

I'm not sure the web method I have in VB.Net would benefit from this feature - building huge JSON strings with StringBuilder is probably all taken up doing just that work.

I am all for C as a better syntax for the business and professional reasons you mention. I would never tell a new coder to go the BASIC path over C syntax - that argument has no support.

But that doesn't turn into a mass exodus to C.

[edit] just playing devils advocate - I personally believe you should have a slew of language choices in your tool belt [/edit]