Getting the ball rolling. Which VB6 projects are you working on?

[VanGoghGaming]

VB6 can live forever through the pervasive COM technology. Even now it's gotten new life through WinRT which is also COM based.

[Niya]

So can all the other tech stacks that "died". The problem isn't really that these old technologies no longer work; it is that they're stagnant. VB6, WPF, VB.Net will all work for years to come but they are all stagnant now. They will never evolve beyond what they are right now.

[VanGoghGaming]

Maybe they don't need to, they're perfect as they are. It's not like C evolved much in the past 50 years or so. C++ did pick up a few new tricks along the way though.

[Niya]

Well C++ is a superset of C and as you say, C++ is continuously evolving.

I'd argue that stagnation is a very bad thing. One of my biggest irks with the stagnation of VB.Net is that it would never be able to take full advantage ref structs, ref locals and Spans. VB.Net will forever be locked out from making full use of the powerful performance enhancements that can be purchased with these new types. Now, of course, you can write your performance-critical code in C# if you wanted to take advantage of them, but why then even bother with VB.Net. It's better to commit fully to C# and save yourself the trouble of mixing languages.

The stagnation of VB6 is also what makes TwinBASIC such an attractive prospect. Once it fully matures, there really won't be any good reason to keep using VB6.

Yea, we only tolerate stagnation when we feel as if we have no choice, but none of us really like it. Something can only ever be perfect for it's time but needs change. New things come along and many times, we want these new things. Many times, we need them.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Sad to say, and a personal detriment to my character but there is some satisfaction to be derived from the placing of VB.NET onto the same list of deprecated languages where VB6 has sat for 20 years.

You know what I mean, clever people saying you should move onto here, to this newer, better technology, you are behind the times... Then they end up sitting on the same neglected bench as you.

About your own personal choice Niya - It was clear that MS was telling you and all of us to move on and the message was that VB.NET was the future. However, for many of us, we saw the real truth behind the hint. With VB.NET, MS were only protecting their investment and giving a partial upgrade path to a portion of those coding in VB6, possibly only the professional VB6ers. The remainder simply weren't wanted. They weren't catered for.

The C-C# family was such a significant change that it really wasn't a path for most of us. I reckon that you would have been able to make that change with ease and you could have been a giant there. You say you can't make that change now but you can. It is never fun being late to the party.

I do prefer older, stable technology, it is part of my make-up. I prefer to incrementally pile new knowledge on top of old, even if it means I am slowly becoming expert in something obsolete.

Occasionally, though it is good to dip into new concepts and a new environment. TwinBasic is ringing my bells as it fulfils the whole brief. You need to find the same for yourself.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Perhaps you should become part of the team that is implementing the newer C# technology into VB.NET by keeping the language alive...

https://www.remobjects.com/elements/mercury/

[Niya]

The C-C# family was such a significant change that it really wasn't a path for most of us. I reckon that you would have been able to make that change with ease and you could have been a giant there. You say you can't make that change now but you can. It is never fun being late to the party.

A switch to C# would be relatively painless after all, it uses the same .Net platform. It would only be a matter of training muscle memory for the language syntax. A move to C/C++ however would be quite painful. I've been into Microsoft and versions of BASIC since I was a child. That is a hefty investment into learning their ecosystem and their way of doing things. C/C++ has a vast ecosystem and a completely different way of approaching things, and I don't have another lifetime to learn that to the level where I'd be as comfortable with it as I am with Microsoft's ecosystem.

It's also possible that I could be wrong, and it would be easier than I imagine, but I just don't have the zest to find out. .Net isn't going anywhere anytime soon and it can meet most needs. It's fast, it's multi-platform and it has a vast ecosystem. It makes more sense for me to stick with it, but it's a risk. MS could kill .Net tomorrow but C/C++ will never die.

Perhaps you should become part of the team that is implementing the newer C# technology into VB.NET by keeping the language alive...

https://www.remobjects.com/elements/mercury/

While that would be interesting to participate in, it would be far more pragmatic for me to just move to C#. It would take about 6 months of consistent usage for me to get as comfortable with the syntax as I am with VB.Net's syntax. I won't have to relearn anything else because C# uses everything VB.Net uses to get things done. Also, in my opinion, C# is a better-designed language than VB.Net. I like VB.Net because I'm comfortable with the syntax. As I said, I've been writing BASIC code since I was a child so I have a high level of comfort there but there is no reason I can't get as comfortable with C#, and I have every intention of making that leap. In fact, I already have one C# project under my belt. I just need to do more projects like that.

All in all, I'm making a huge bet that in spite of Microsoft's glee to kill off promising tech, they won't kill .Net because of its enormous popularity. I'm hoping that .Net is in the "too big to fail" category. VB6, VB.Net, WPF, Silverlight etc weren't too big to fail. Despite their popularity, these were still niche technologies at the end of the day. There wasn't enough of a majority to save them from Microsoft's axe.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

What are you chaps working on that would peak our interest? I'm doing lots but most of it is just fettling, improving and learning, nothing new visually to show.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I have been using imgur to upload images to this thread as the native image hosting on the forum is rather broken.
Unfortunately imgur is no longer allowing access to UK users and the threat is that it might soon be not displaying content to UK users and I believe the EU as well.

This will kill this thread where imgur has been used to provide the imagery.

Please don't use IMGUR. I will not be using it from now on. Apologies for the faulty recommendation.

[Niya]

Hmmm....seems to work fine. I'd still strongly recommend it.

In any case, what would you recommend in place of imgur for UK users?

[wes4dbt]

I don't have any problems uploading images from Advanced. Strange you can't.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I don't have any problems uploading images from Advanced. Strange you can't.

Occasionally it loses images some short time after submitting them so I don't trust it any more.

Hmmm....seems to work fine. I'd still strongly recommend it.

Apologies, I wasn't clear, it affects UK and possibly EU users.

In any case, what would you recommend in place of imgur for UK users?

That was MY question.

[Niya]

Occsionally it loses images some short time after submmitting them so I don't trust it any more.

Now that you mentioned it, I can't seem to find my older images listed anymore. I only see the more recently uploaded images. I hope that is just a bug in their interface. I have a lot of images linked from here.

[Dan_W]

Inspired by jpbro's image cropping tool, I thought I would take a crack and making one in VBA using GDI/GDI+ (I use 64bit, so am not able to use RC6). It is still early days, but it has been pretty straightforward so far.

Attachment 195433



Turns out it is a pretty useful tool for all things image related - I've been looking to combine it with my vbaImageSearch routine for work tasks..

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Looks good! Let us know when it becomes usable and we'll give it a go!