No troll. What are the (legitimate) reasons people are still using VB6 ?

[Shaggy Hiker]

But even if people now refer to C# as just ".NET" (I see your point, but I don't fully accept it) that doesn't account for Visual Basic .Net climbing so high (the largest increase this month) to place it higher than JavaScript (which I believe is mentioned occasionally on the web) and higher than PHP, SQL, Objective-C, and many others - and ranking almost as high as Python and C++

Yeah, I can't account for the rise in VB.NET. I feel that the drop in some of the others can be explained easily (though perhaps incorrectly), but a rise, especially one that sharp, is hard to explain. My first thought was that they had changed up their algorithm. The Visual Basic category has a whole lot of VB.NET in it because they split two of the categories 50/50 between VB.NET and Visual Basic. A sample suggests that the real split should be 90/10 VB.NET to VB6 (with a tiny amount of VBA). If they noted that, they might change the algorithm to shift more of those categories from Visual Basic to VB.NET, which would cause VB.NET to jump up and Visual Basic to jump down. That's the pattern we are seeing, but they didn't change their documentation about the breakdown of the categories, so there's nothing to suggest they did that.

Other than that, it would suggest a whole LOT of new pages on VB.NET. Considering the total number of pages out there, that seems very unlikely. To see a significant shift, the number of pages would have to be pretty large, or possibly the number of links would have to be very large, and neither of those seems likely from anything I have heard.

So...while I can make up a reason for drops in Visual Basic and C#, and I can even come up with a reason why VB.NET would rise sharply while Visual Basic fell sharply....I can't support the reason with any evidence.

[Shaggy Hiker]

so, theres x7 more people using .net than vb6,
but in this forum right now theres (556 Viewing) VB6 and (467 Viewing) .NET (no matter if its bots or not, its not about amount of people but activity)
theres no equivalent on the internet that we can compare for .NET users, googling, this forum is the top place for .netters and vb6 users.

for me its strange that we have x7 more people using .net but you dont see them at all. are those people active at all? how do they share, learn, discuss? or .NET is that easy you dont need a community?
on the other hand, a easy language would also mean u need less help, if the language is old and theres tons of help, you don't need to ask for help either.

im sure we can do the index by asking companies, but the majority of programmers are amateurs.

This is something I was asking about earlier. VBF may well be the most significant forum for VB6 questions. It may be the ONLY forum that is active for that language. The same isn't true for VB.NET. In my experience, VBF isn't often the top reply for searches about VB.NET, so it is likely that the other active forums are absorbing a considerable amount of the VB.NET question traffic. SO is a big one, especially for people who want a .NET answer, but don't care whether it is C# or VB, and MS has some pretty active forum (though I find the format annoying, personally) for .NET questions. So, VBF might be the bulk of VB6 questions and a minority of VB.NET questions. If that's the case, then the pattern seen here isn't all that surprising.

[dilettante]

Microsoft kicked VB6 questions off their "forums" a long time ago.

SO really isn't a great format at all. It was intended to act a sort of "wiki" of concise questions with concise answers, albeit more open than conventional wiki sites. It isn't designed for discussions at all, and there isn't much provision for any back and forth.

From what we see here, there are a lot of people who can't formulate a question well or even consume an answer. So many threads turn into long and painful Socratic sessions where people have to pull teeth getting the questioner's requirements and then once understood (?) answers often have to be restated several times filling in a lot of assumed knowledge. Sometimes other factors such as imperfect English or even machine translation enter the picture, just adding to potential misunderstandings.

SO really falls apart for that, but it was never intended to work over such "terrain." VB6 questions also tend to get a lot of .Net fan club snide comments there due to active trolling.


But I think it is also very true that the VB6 community is on it last legs. Much of what we see here today only came along after the UseNet groups for VB6 died. I presume one or maybe two pied pipers moved and that helped them overcome their decade long disparagement of web forums, Windows post-9x, and the wearing of shoes.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

But I think it is also very true that the VB6 community is on it last legs.

I don't see that. If I was using any other such product and it had a such a vibrant forum with almost instant responses to queries, such knowledgeable types willing to comment, propose, contribute and respond, such a codebase and that technical product functioned as well as VB6 does today, I would be generally impressed with that product and confident about its future.

The fact that its future is NOT in the hands of the original developer is the ONLY thing that worries me but at the same time it may well be a better outcome, if at the hands of impassioned developers some progress is made on a VB6.5+ and we actually have a future.

I am still looking for a tool as good as VB6. As flexible, as RAD, as quick, as streamlined, as BASIC.

[TysonLPrice]

I don't see that. If I was using any other such product and it had a such a vibrant forum with almost instant responses to queries, such knowledgeable types willing to comment, propose, contribute and respond, such a codebase and that technical product functioned as well as VB6 does today, I would be generally impressed with that product and confident about its future.

The fact that its future is NOT in the hands of the original developer is the ONLY thing that worries me but at the same time it may well be a better outcome, if at the hands of impassioned developers some progress is made on a VB6.5+ and we actually have a future.

I am still looking for a tool as good as VB6. As flexible, as RAD, as quick, as streamlined, as BASIC.

I disagree also. This site has stats next to the forums showing how many people are viewing which forums. Very often there are more viewing VB 6.0 then VB .Net. It is very cyclic that new VB 6.0 course are beginning somewhere because of all the homework questions being asked. Maybe because parts of the world are using recycled equipment and software but it is still be taught new and VB 6.0 sites are still valuable. Just like COBOL people have been writing VB 6.0 is dead for years but the is so much of it is in the "real" business world it is fairly entrenched and not going anywhere soon.

[techgnome]

Funny thing about statistics, they can mean anything since it's about interpretation. 62% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Sure the VB6 forums here are more active here... they've been around longer. It's the original foundation of this site. It stands to reason that it would have higher numbers. Does it mean that VB6 is more popular? *shrug* beats me. Maybe it means that VB6 is harder to work with that people need more help with it than .NET. Maybe it's because it's one of the few resources left out there dedicated to VB6 on the internet. A library has 4 books on VB, 3 on .NET and 1 on VB6 ... the one on VB6 gets checked out on a regular basis, but the ones on .NET only get checked out every once in a while ... is VB6 still more popular? Or is it simply a supply/demand issue?

I reject your statistics and substitute my own.

As for what is taught out there... often that's because it's easier to teach 20 year old technology than it is to get updated newer technologies certified correctly. Colleges and Universities can't just wake up one morning and say "Hey, it's nearly 2020, we should be teaching full-stack development, with things like react, and java, and docker and cloud and AWS..." ... there's actually a lengthy, involved process they have to go through, boards, certifications, etc. Then they have to find professors knowledgable enough to teach the courses...


-tg

[dilettante]

That one always kills me: "Full-stack development."

Turns out it's a grandiose term for "web secretary" and a badge they often pin onto their own chests that turns out to be utter rubbish when they are questioned on it. Most of them have atrocious database skills, and their server-side development skills are often just as lacking. When pressed you find that even their JavaScript skill level is laughable. In the end most of these "full-stack" Little Emperors are found wearing no clothes.

It's a scam to sell them worthless training and certifications, like when Microsoft began calling box jockeys "IT Professionals."

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Funny thing about statistics...

There are two types of people in this world, those that agree that there are two types of people in this world and those that don't.

[TysonLPrice]

Funny thing about statistics, they can mean anything since it's about interpretation. 62% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Sure the VB6 forums here are more active here... they've been around longer. It's the original foundation of this site. It stands to reason that it would have higher numbers. Does it mean that VB6 is more popular? *shrug* beats me. Maybe it means that VB6 is harder to work with that people need more help with it than .NET. Maybe it's because it's one of the few resources left out there dedicated to VB6 on the internet. A library has 4 books on VB, 3 on .NET and 1 on VB6 ... the one on VB6 gets checked out on a regular basis, but the ones on .NET only get checked out every once in a while ... is VB6 still more popular? Or is it simply a supply/demand issue?

I reject your statistics and substitute my own.

As for what is taught out there... often that's because it's easier to teach 20 year old technology than it is to get updated newer technologies certified correctly. Colleges and Universities can't just wake up one morning and say "Hey, it's nearly 2020, we should be teaching full-stack development, with things like react, and java, and docker and cloud and AWS..." ... there's actually a lengthy, involved process they have to go through, boards, certifications, etc. Then they have to find professors knowledgable enough to teach the courses...


-tg

????

I'm talking about the number of people viewing a particular thread that displays next to each forum. Right now 285 are viewing .Net and 286 are viewing VB 6.0. Which, by the way, proves my point.

I pretty sure that qualifies as a statistic

[TysonLPrice]

Colleges and Universities can't just wake up one morning and say "Hey, it's nearly 2020, we should be teaching full-stack development, with things like react, and java, and docker and cloud and AWS..." ... there's actually a lengthy, involved process they have to go through, boards, certifications, etc. Then they have to find professors knowledgable enough to teach the courses...

That is an interesting point in some other argument somewhere but what does it have to do with my post, which was, it is still being taught as new in many places?

[dilettante]

We're late enough in the day now though that an awful lot of legacy VB6 code has been replaced in businesses. Sure, some still lingers but not anything like even 5 years ago.

I suspect what we're dealing with now are a lot of Office VBA macro plinkers who have somehow acquired a legit (or not) copy of VB6 and want to have a play at it. Some are just curious, others are those clerical types who'd rather muck around "coding" rather than stamping that pile of forms they're supposed to be dealing with. Stealth IT is as big a curse today as 15 years ago.

You can smell this group, most of their questions are about automating MS Office. They insist on using ListView controls in place of the flexgrids they don't have the OCXs for, most likely because they are using a pirated copy of VB6.

Then you have your script kiddies. Most of their questions are about compiling code that clearly originated as admin VBScript or else something intended to subvert system security or scrape data from web sites.

[TysonLPrice]

We're late enough in the day now though that an awful lot of legacy VB6 code has been replaced in businesses. Sure, some still lingers but not anything like even 5 years ago.

I suspect what we're dealing with now are a lot of Office VBA macro plinkers who have somehow acquired a legit (or not) copy of VB6 and want to have a play at it. Some are just curious, others are those clerical types who'd rather muck around "coding" rather than stamping that pile of forms they're supposed to be dealing with. Stealth IT is as big a curse today as 15 years ago.

You can smell this group, most of their questions are about automating MS Office. They insist on using ListView controls in place of the flexgrids they don't have the OCXs for, most likely because they are using a pirated copy of VB6.

Then you have your script kiddies. Most of their questions are about compiling code that clearly originated as admin VBScript or else something intended to subvert system security or scrape data from web sites.

Look at the last 20 or 30 VB 6.0 posts and tell me if you see any of that...I certainly don't.

[techgnome]

That one always kills me: "Full-stack development."

Turns out it's a grandiose term for "web secretary" and a badge they often pin onto their own chests that turns out to be utter rubbish when they are questioned on it. Most of them have atrocious database skills, and their server-side development skills are often just as lacking. When pressed you find that even their JavaScript skill level is laughable. In the end most of these "full-stack" Little Emperors are found wearing no clothes.

It's a scam to sell them worthless training and certifications, like when Microsoft began calling box jockeys "IT Professionals."

So what, oh exalted one, and keeper of badges and nomenclature, what shalt I call myself in thine eyes? Because this is what I do now. I work on the entire frame, top to bottom. I'm responsible for everything from the HTML that the user interacts with, through the middleware that initiates the state changes and makes calls to services. I'm also responsible for those services... all the way down to their databases... security... I've even had to pick up learning about Docker, pods, AWS, and all sorts of things I didn't know about 18 months ago. So yeah, this "Web secratary" as you so %$#%$@ put it yeah... I'll take that as a badge... I am learning to be a jack or all trades with out the benefit of being able to become the master of any. Back in the VB days, I could afford to be a master of some stuff. But these days, yeah, that #$%! doesn't fly any more. So you know what take your high and mighty attitude and shove it.

I'm done.

-tg

[yereverluvinuncleber]

that #$%! doesn't fly any more.

TG, Will you still be able to post when your post total reaches beyond 32,768?

Be nice to Dil - please.

[dilettante]

I should be more civil too of course. I'm going through a personal disaster and my stress level is very high. Not an excuse, I need to try harder to check myself.

[RobDog888]

????

I'm talking about the number of people viewing a particular thread that displays next to each forum. Right now 285 are viewing .Net and 286 are viewing VB 6.0. Which, by the way, proves my point.

I pretty sure that qualifies as a statistic

You have to remember that most of those "viewers" are bots, crawlers and the like. NOT actual people interested in what we have to offer. Over the years ads and crawlers will hit a particular forum harder than a newer forum. I would be more inclined to go by the actual logged in users that are viewing a particular forum.

[Shaggy Hiker]

First Thought: When I hear "full stack developer"....I get hungry for pancakes.

Second Thought: If the number of viewers of a sub-forum on VBF can be used as a surrogate for popularity...then C# is DOOMED!!!

Third Thought: I prefer the title "code monkey".

Fourth Thought: Watch the language. Violating the @#$%#@ censor is a violation of the @#$^% AUP. (note that the first one should be replaced by "blessed", and the second one should be replaced by "generous").

[TysonLPrice]

You have to remember that most of those "viewers" are bots, crawlers and the like. NOT actual people interested in what we have to offer. Over the years ads and crawlers will hit a particular forum harder than a newer forum. I would be more inclined to go by the actual logged in users that are viewing a particular forum.

It looks like you have to open individual threads to get that...any other way to get the number for the whole forum topic?

[RobDog888]

It looks like you have to open individual threads to get that...any other way to get the number for the whole forum topic?

Not so. Every single page has ads which will cause crawlers for analyzing ad metrics. So home page, forum view, thread view etc

[Eduardo-]

Second Thought: If the number of viewers of a sub-forum on VBF can be used as a surrogate for popularity...then C# is DOOMED!!!

Isn't this a VB oriented forum?

[johnywalker]

VB6 is vintage stuff.
Bought it in 1999 and the guy who directed me to a shop was my wife's obstetrician when she gave birth to our son !
Now my son is a soldier, in the mountainous assault units !

But the latter editions are rueful.
What can we do ?
Tried the 2004 edition, some improvements, better looking buttons and textboxes but unthinkable trouble.
Element arrays gone, even the save to disc command was some mysterious roundabout thing you had to do - I don't remember now.
The editions beyond 2004 are just as bad.

[TysonLPrice]

VB6 is vintage stuff.
Bought it in 1999 and the guy who directed me to a shop was my wife's obstetrician when she gave birth to our son !
Now my son is a soldier, in the mountainous assault units !

But the latter editions are rueful.
What can we do ?
Tried the 2004 edition, some improvements, better looking buttons and textboxes but unthinkable trouble.
Element arrays gone, even the save to disc command was some mysterious roundabout thing you had to do - I don't remember now.
The editions beyond 2004 are just as bad.

I'm just an applications programmer, so I can't speak to what is under the hood but, I support a myriad of systems that are now a cross between VB 6.0 and VB .Net. I've come to like VB .net better.

[johnywalker]

From vb6 to vb.net migration forget it rather.
I created a big program using vb.net, it was included in a newspaper cd gift as well, but I never used it again.
Many features of vb6 were gone (for the sake of some nebulous concept of political correctness ?). One day's work was becoming two days work.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Isn't this a VB oriented forum?

That's my point, though I wasn't explicit about it. The number of viewers for any forum should not be used to evaluate the popularity of a language simply because the distribution is likely to be due to factors other than popularity.

[Shaggy Hiker]

From vb6 to vb.net migration forget it rather.
I created a big program using vb.net, it was included in a newspaper cd gift as well, but I never used it again.
Many features of vb6 were gone (for the sake of some nebulous concept of political correctness ?). One day's work was becoming two days work.

That's largely a matter of opinion, and everybody has one. I was fast in VB6, I was fast in VB.NET, and I'm fast in JavaScript....which sucks rocks, though it is also cool in some ways. They aren't all the same, to be sure, and everybody will have a preference...which also won't all be the same.

[dilettante]

I'm not sure much will come of it, but Static TypeScript looks interesting:

Static TypeScript Launched

A user’s STS program is compiled to machine code in the browser and linked against a precompiled C++ runtime, producing an executable that is more efficient than the more usual embedded interpreter approach, extending battery life and making it possible to run on devices with as little as 16 kB of RAM (such as the BBC micro:bit).

I'm not sure why the same language couldn't be expanded to other target platforms including Windows. Of course targeting specific OS-less platforms has its advantages for getting a compiler together quickly.

I'm not sure anyone has the will to do it though. This may be just another dancing bear project doomed to quick obscurity.

[johnywalker]

That's largely a matter of opinion, and everybody has one. I was fast in VB6, I was fast in VB.NET, and I'm fast in JavaScript....which sucks rocks, though it is also cool in some ways. They aren't all the same, to be sure, and everybody will have a preference...which also won't all be the same.

Java is for web browsers, we talk about downloadables and cds.
I had many problems especially with the element arrays that are not allowed (and the explanation given by ms is pathetic).
My computer back then -2013- was XP so that could have been a contributing factor, but I did n't like it.
I just think ms wanted to deliberately downgrade the product.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Java is for web browsers

Javascript! - and no it isn't.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm not sure what an element array is. Do you mean control arrays? They served a purpose in VB6, but a different mechanism served the same purpose in .NET, which meant they were not needed. However, a fair number of people used a feature of them that made them convenient in VB6 that seems like kind of an accident. The purpose was to allow one handler to handle events from multiple controls, which is easy enough to do in either language. People seemed to use them more as a means to make a quick collection of like controls in VB6, because that was easy to do, while having one event handler handle events from multiple controls isn't all that common, in practice. Making a collection of whatever became considerably easier from 2005 on, once generics were introduced, and because a single line once LINQ was added in 2008 (though I'm not a fan of LINQ, in general). A single line is still harder than what I think you can do to make a control array in VB6, but not by a whole lot. I think it was drag and drop in VB6, and now it takes a line of code.

Of course, that might not be what you were talking about.

[vbrad]

I'm not sure what an element array is. Do you mean control arrays? They served a purpose in VB6, but a different mechanism served the same purpose in .NET, which meant they were not needed. However, a fair number of people used a feature of them that made them convenient in VB6 that seems like kind of an accident. The purpose was to allow one handler to handle events from multiple controls, which is easy enough to do in either language. People seemed to use them more as a means to make a quick collection of like controls in VB6, because that was easy to do, while having one event handler handle events from multiple controls isn't all that common, in practice. Making a collection of whatever became considerably easier from 2005 on, once generics were introduced, and because a single line once LINQ was added in 2008 (though I'm not a fan of LINQ, in general). A single line is still harder than what I think you can do to make a control array in VB6, but not by a whole lot. I think it was drag and drop in VB6, and now it takes a line of code.

Of course, that might not be what you were talking about.

The lack of control arrays in vb.net was iirc one of the major complaints at the time vb.net came out first.
It made the migration of programs that used them heavily much more difficult.
I think it was suggested that they could not be accommodated because they didn't fit the OO model somehow.
However RealBasic/Xojo is fully OO and also has control arrays since forever so I think that answer may have been a spurious one.
Just one aspect of a sad story.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

You can add suspicion as to how MS likes to deprecate technologies as it suits them. I am sure they would have fully deprecated .NET if their misguided attempts toward a tablet ecosystem had gone down as planned. It felt as if that plan was actually put in action for a while and not yet fully abandoned...

How else could MS force you to accept their latest strategy?

Deprecation forced me out of the MS camp in the 1990s, once burnt, twice shy. I am now only here for the 'fun' of seeing what I missed and in so doing learning the process of building an application, migrating it through the versions. Suspicion prevents me from fully jumping on the current MS bandwagon be it .NET or UWP.

Whether any of this is true or not is partly irrelevant - suspicion is the key thing, it is suspicion that kept me here.

In addition, I have just been reading the posts regarding the slowness of the latest IDE of 2019 where devs have experienced 20-30 sec delays in reacting to a compile-button press. I prefer to take advantage of the speed of newer computer technology to make IDEs operate faster, to take the speed increase that way. The other way is to make the IDE do a lot more for you (supposedly to assist but in reality slowing down your productive IDE workhorse to a crawl).

I am not in the position to afford a powerful development box, at least not yet and one of the benefits for me of picking up VB6 at this stage was to find how immensely quick the IDE is to operate and compile on this old core2duo laptop with 4gb ram and an SSD. I have a couple of other faster desktops but this machine flies with VB6. Its a dream.

[PlausiblyDamp]

You can add suspicion as to how MS likes to deprecate technologies as it suits them. I am sure they would have fully deprecated .NET if their misguided attempts toward a tablet ecosystem had gone down as planned. It felt as if that plan was actually put in action for a while and not yet fully abandoned...

How else could MS force you to accept their latest strategy?

I personally think that is an unfair argument, the fact VB6 still runs on Windows 10. Considering VB6 was created around 1998 and officially support ended in 2008 the fact it still runs over 10 years later on operating systems that didn't even exist back then shows just how much MS values backwards comparability. Just about every version of .Net is still supported (even 1.0) and the existence of .Net core doesn't mean you can't continue to use .Net Framework.

Most new versions of the framework are almost 100% source compatible with earlier versions, although core can cause some problems due to it being a fairly major rewrite. Saying that though I have managed to take a couple of .Net 2.0 winform apps and convert them to Core 3.0 with no code changes and only about 30 minutes of changes to the .csproj files, most of which was just getting the correct packages installed.

Compare that to the likes of Apple who frequently throw away backwards comparability and force changes onto people....

[yereverluvinuncleber]

But the threat was real and is always there... and backwards compatibility is a great argument if it applied in this case.

[johnywalker]

MS does n't like people to create apps, in much the same way as the Soviet Union was not allowing you to sell your paintings if you were a painter (only state painters making portraits of Stalin - Nikita Krustchev were allowed).
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

[PlausiblyDamp]

MS does n't like people to create apps, in much the same way as the Soviet Union was not allowing you to sell your paintings if you were a painter (only state painters making portraits of Stalin - Nikita Krustchev were allowed).
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

Doesn't like people to create apps? Really not sure where you are coming from on that one. MS have a pretty decent legacy of providing developer tools, they give VS Code away for free, there is a free version of Visual Studio, they provide free access to their devops platform for teams of 5 or less, they have open sourced dotnet core, they have made dotnet core cross platform as well, Xamarin is also free if you are doing mobile development, also open source (under MIT)

To me all of those things sound like a company that is encouraging people to develop software and make applications.

[DllHell]

Most new versions of the framework are almost 100% source compatible with earlier versions

large portions are also being opensourced which means that if they ever "moved on", .net developers would have a ton of resources to extend its life.

[DllHell]

I am not in the position to afford a powerful development box, at least not yet and one of the benefits for me of picking up VB6 at this stage was to find how immensely quick the IDE is to operate and compile on this old core2duo laptop with 4gb ram and an SSD. I have a couple of other faster desktops but this machine flies with VB6. Its a dream.

Old software runs good on old hardware. News at 9.

[johnywalker]

Doesn't like people to create apps? Really not sure where you are coming from on that one. MS have a pretty decent legacy of providing developer tools, they give VS Code away for free, there is a free version of Visual Studio, they provide free access to their devops platform for teams of 5 or less, they have open sourced dotnet core, they have made dotnet core cross platform as well, Xamarin is also free if you are doing mobile development, also open source (under MIT)

To me all of those things sound like a company that is encouraging people to develop software and make applications.

Word requires subscription !

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Old software runs good on old hardware. News at 9.

Actually, it is old software on new hardware, relatively speaking and that is why it is fast.

Nobody complains when you put a V8 in an MG - it just goes faster - and that's the point isn't it?

[yereverluvinuncleber]

MS does n't like people to create apps...
They think of various diabolical aways to create problems to people.

Suspicion and paranoia go hand in hand. They ARE out to get you.