Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
Console applications ? Powershell applications ? Windows services ? Can VB6 author these things easily ?
You can't take a few small use-cases and use them to judge an entire language. That's like me saying, "I write portable software, and .NET can't do it, therefore it unilaterally sucks."

None of us are saying VB6 is better at everything. What we're saying is that there are situations where it's competitive with .NET, and maybe even a few (very limited) situations where it's better.

Obviously, .NET has tons of situations where it's a better choice, too. Some of us even use VB6 AND .Net (GASP!), sometimes even on the same project (GASP!). Sometimes that's a better solution than doggedly sticking to one or the other.

Hell VB.Net can even write games:-

The above game is called Bloodmasters and its written in C#. Given that C# and VB.Net are interchangeable, it means that VB.Net can author it as well.
This is as ridiculous as some of the worst VB6 defenses in this thread.

No, C# and VB.Net are *not* interchangeable. C# has way more third-party libraries, way more source code samples, a much larger development community, and a number of features VB.Net lacks.

I don't know if that singular project makes use of any of those, but you can't hold up C# projects as a defense of VB.Net.

Also, the person that wrote that was a VB6 programmer too and a very very good one(I learned how to use GDI from watching his source code). He wasted no time in jumping ship when .Net had reasonably matured and I'm pretty sure he didn't cry and complain when MS ended support for VB6.

Though this may not seem relevant to this discussion, I remind you, he was also a VB6 programmer, one of the best I've ever seen. His knowledge and skill with VB6 is on par with Tanner_H, Olaf and dilettante and he didn't hesitate to start coding in C# when VB6 was long in the tooth. Take that as an endorsement if you like. Like I said, he was almost half the reason I was able to give .Net a chance. I was still being stubborn about it at the time.
Don't go down this road, please. There's no point cherry-picking individuals in either community, and using them as a benchmark for the community as a whole.

Lots of C++ developers have jumped ship to C# and Java. That doesn't mean C++ has zero use-cases.

Part of the reason I working on a VB6 photo editor in my spare time is to make the point that everything the C# poster child in that arena does, I can do in VB6, too. This isn't because VB6 is magical (I could probably do any ancient language, if I hated myself enough to try), but because a lot of modern developers write slow, sloppy code, and just rely on modern compilers to clean it up for them.

I think the constraints of an older language are awesome for promoting thinking outside the box. Prototyping with VB6 keeps my mind fresh, and forces me to think about writing the absolute best single-threaded code I can. I really identify with guys like John Carmack, who often speaks of the frustration with rapid hardware improvements, because it's resulted in a generation of developers who don't know anything about code optimization outside of clicking a box in their IDE that says "magically make my code faster".

Again, none of this is to say that VB6 is somehow the pinnacle of code creation. But I think a lot of developers would find it worthwhile to play with an older language every now and again - VB6 or otherwise - to not just help them appreciate the niceties of modern development, but also to force themselves to write better code with those tools.