I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET - Discuss.
This thread is a better place for this discussion than all the other threads where this often off-topic argument is currently and continuously rearing its head.
Olaf and Niya - you have a passport to this thread. Please enjoy.
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By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
I was going to place a duplicate in the VB.NET section so the .NETTers wouldn't feel marginalised or left out but that's probably overkill. Please feel free to discuss here to heart's content. I will join in.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
What's the point? Do you really think that, after all this time, anything new is going to come up or that anyone is going to change their mind on anything? Do you think that the presence of this thread will magically stop anyone on either side of the debate posting elsewhere when they feel inclined? If you answered "yes" to either question then I would suggest that your grip on reality is tenuous at best.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Hi yeverluvinuncleber,
you have been distorting Olaf's words. Olaf would never say something stupid like "VB6 is a better tool/language than VB.NET". Olaf means that the ".NET" platform (or framework) is not as good as the outside world said. In some cases (or many cases), VB6(including IDE and some decent third-party libs, such as RC5/RC6) has its own unique advantages over the ".NET" platform (or framework).
Niya is passionate about the topic "One language is better than another", but all he wants to say is already in the following thread:
The thread above has become a joke, but Niya will still repeat his views in other threads.
In addition, Olaf has not participated in this kind of controversy recently (to be precise, he has not participated in this kind of dispute for a long time), why did you pull him in? Participating in the debate is me, a citizen from an authoritarian country, who is enjoying the taste of democracy.
Last edited by SearchingDataOnly; Aug 24th, 2021 at 06:27 AM.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
When had all kinds of great syntax back in 1988 in VAX-11 BASIC on DEC hardware - VAX/VMS machines. I was already almost a decade into the prior box - PDP-11 machines, where the O/S command prompt was basically an entry point into the interpretor. The BASIC on PDP/11's had UNLESS/THEN statements just like we all enjoy IF/THEN statements today. We used them extensively.
When the first release of VAX-11 BASIC came out, they supported UNLESS/THEN. We all happily migrated our business enterprise systems to the VAX. VMS (virtual memory system) removed all those 16KB and 32KB max executable sizes we had in the PDP-11's.
Life was good!
Then they came out with VAX-11 2.0 - new release! Well, the suits at DEC decided that UNLESS/THEN was silly - they removed it!
What did we do? We wrote a program to search through all our source code and change UNLESS X=1 THEN to IF NOT(X=1) THEN.
Life moves on - we got over it.
Fast forward 20 years and DEC gets bought out by HP and VAX hardware all but disappears! Our actual HARDWARE platform went away. Not some VB6-forced-to-use-.Net experience!
What did we do? Moved into MS SQL and VB6 (because .Net was too new in 1999).
Where am I now? Front end RIA web app with JSON/AJAX to VB.Net backend running in an IIS server.
For the life of me I cannot imagine sticking with a dead language that is no longer getting features added and/or getting hooks improved as hardware/software/cloud realms expand.
Here is some VAX-11 code - from 1988, omg!
Even though they removed UNLESS/THEN they still allowed us to use UNLESS as a "modifier". Modifiers "trail" a line of code.
In this code snapshot I found one UNLESS/THEN commented out.
I also found an UNLESS as a modifier. You could put it after the "code to execute".
We had all these at our disposal.
X = 1 UNLESS X > 100
X = 1 IF X < 1
X = X + 1 WHILE X < 100
X = X + 1 UNTIL X > 100
All valid "modifiers" back in the 80's on that machine.
Last edited by szlamany; Aug 24th, 2021 at 06:16 AM.
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Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by jmcilhinney
What's the point?
a. for fun <- this!
b. might stop people arguing on other's threads
c. a good outlet for these sort of discussions
d. no excuse for derailing when you have a dedicated thread for it
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by szlamany
X = 1 UNLESS X > 100
X = 1 IF X < 1
X = X + 1 WHILE X < 100
X = X + 1 UNTIL X > 100
These grammars are very interesting, and I'd like to think about this grammar seriously.
I spent an afternoon learning Scala syntax yesterday. In Scala, the const keyword is replaced by val, and the interface keyword is replaced by trait, and its use of the object keyword is completely different from other languages. However, this is the Scala. If someone doesn't like it, just leave it. No one is asking you to use it..
We just want to hide in a corner of vbForums, use the language we are familiar with, and program happily (write some software that is valuable to society). But some people don't want us to have peace.
Last edited by SearchingDataOnly; Aug 24th, 2021 at 06:31 AM.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber
I am going to request that UNLESS from the devs of TwinBasic and RadBasic.
I love this thread already!
It was a good construct. Never made sense to us back in the day why it was removed.
I believe the urban legend at the time was that the "new team" at DEC simply didn't know the old PDP-11 BASIC that we all had used.
Digital Equipment Corp made nice machines and had great languages. Being #2 to IBM made it impossible to play in the field, they were doomed. There were all kinds of MS and DEC marriages that never got anywhere...
Back in the 1980's the machines cost $400,000 so we could easily charge $100,000 for the enterprise systems we created. But you could only install a handful a year. The dynamics are so different these days.
I'm assisting a client with a multi-year implementation right now. Software costs exceed 1 million dollars. Vendor is an industry leader. Back end code is COBOL - we don't see this due to the "scraper" that they have created in front of it, but to an experienced programmer you know what's going on. When you see a printer named LP01 - and you understand what that means - you know you are old in this field!
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Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber
If you have any more DEC BASIC syntactical suggestions I would love to hear them, in the context of this thread just prove BASIC is best!
I've got one client left with an "emulated" VAX - I've been planning on getting all my old source code off just for kicks. This thread is making me think I should do that now!
If I find anything cool - I'll left you know!
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Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by DataMiser
Both tools have their advantages.
No, that's not good enough. You have to argue your case with pointless code examples and persist continuously until everyone is bored of your arguments. Rolling it up into a logical and succinct one-line statement - and then leaving is unacceptable.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
This clickbait thread is not bad, not good and not terrible simultaneously. . .
Since we already have some people from authoritarian states experiencing democracy on these forums I would go further and connect the dots and can only suppose they must be from their secret services (aka Stasi) state operated group of bad actors, no?
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
OK.
My penn'orth in context of the OP.
I prefer VB6 because I know it really well (I admit I may not be very good at it) but I know it. That is why it is best for me.
I have tried VB.NET and for the tasks I want to achieve it feels unBASIC and nonRAD and just not the BASIC experience I was used to. When I moved from QB45 to VBDOS the jump was surprising but pleasant. The BASIC was more or less the same, things just had properties and you didn't have make controls from scratch. It felt easier. Then the move to VB for Windows was more or less seamless. Once again the BASIC was the same.
Moving to VB.NET, BASIC is not BASIC it is just some syntactic familiarity coupled with stuff that is distinctly not BASIC. Two projects in .NET and I feel that I really don't want to program in it anymore and VB6 is what I turn to if I want to knock up a design.
It is my RAD go-to tool.
That is my first and main reason why VB6 is better then .NET for me.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber
That is my first and main reason why VB6 is better then .NET for me.
Oh nay... that will not do... you must fan the flames of the fire and tell us why it is the better tool for the rest of us and why we must all see the error (resume next) of our ways, repent, and convert to thy holy Vb6.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by szlamany
What did we do? Moved into MS SQL and VB6 (because .Net was too new in 1999).
Too new as in: Didn't come out until 2002. So...yeah, too new.
This thread is likely to turn into a typical flame war and end up being closed, but it was never a question, never on any particular track, and didn't belong in VB6. It's chit-chat, and there is now lives...until it dies, which will probably end up happening later on today, considering how these things tend to go.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Too new as in: Didn't come out until 2002. So...yeah, too new.
I got my year wrong - we rented our office in 2001, had a network installed later that year, and I believe my first MSDN subscription included VB.Net. It was in the subscription in late 2001 I believe. It was the big debate among the earlier group of developers I hired as to how to proceed - VB6 or .Net...
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Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Yeah, that sounds about right. The first version was 2002, which means that it would have been available in 2001. I remember discussion about it around that time, but I didn't try it out until 2003.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
This clickbait thread is not bad, not good and not terrible simultaneously. . .
Since we already have some people from authoritarian states experiencing democracy on these forums I would go further and connect the dots and can only suppose they must be from their secret services (aka Stasi) state operated group of bad actors, no?
Those with dark and distorted psychology always like to talk about things that have nothing to do with technology. Their logical reasoning ability is extremely poor, but they always like to make malicious guesses about others.
Last edited by SearchingDataOnly; Aug 24th, 2021 at 10:56 AM.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
There is a ton of .Net stuff padding out the October 2001 MSDN documentation CDs and labeled "Beta." I just pulled out a box of CDs labeled Visual Basic.Net Standard Version 2003 "Promotional Sample Not for Resale" copyright 2003 which includes 3 newer MSDN Library CDs. That's the oldest I can find on hand here.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
@Dil - October 2001 MSDN - that was my first MSDN subscription. So much media - so many cases! In so many languages! I'm guessing that's how we got Small Business Server and Exchange and all that running as well.
I had just left the VAX world where the "manuals" came in three flavors and took 30 feet of shelf space! Wow - was I newbie to MS and PC's!
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Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Yeah, I remember those days. Each new OS release came in a couple of boxes of 9-track tapes and quite a few boxes of new manuals and manual updates. Later we also got the new docs on optical media, maybe starting somewhere around 2004 but I can't recall right now.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Well, I certainly don't know what purpose it is fulfilling, aside from the fact that snipers going to snipe, and so on.
I never found a use for control arrays, but they appear to be a limitation. If you learn to walk by leaning on a crutch, then the crutch is pretty useful to you...but you never learn to walk all that well.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
I never found a limitation caused by using control arrays, they were just very useful for being able to see your design at design time, incredibly easy control creation using cut/paste, creating control for double clicking and jumping into the correct event when coding, for superceding the 255 control limit on the number of controls on a form VB6-limitation. As a crutch it was a good one, more of a useful broomstick, perhaps not jet-powered but one that flew.
I can't think of a limitation control arrays caused me. I used VB6 to create controls dynamically at run time but control arrays were generally of utility rather than being a pain.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
By the power invested in me, all the threads I start are battle free zones - no arguing about the benefits of VB6 over .NET here please. Happiness must reign.
Re: I think VB6 is much a better tool/language than VB.NET
Originally Posted by yereverluvinuncleber
The second reason that I prefer VB6 over VB.NET is another simple one. The convenience of control arrays at design time.
PS. I really do like how many of my VB6 threads somehow contain references to DEC and old VMS/PDP systems. I don't know how it happens but it does.
PPS. This thread seems to be going well. It would be sad if it were closed as it is fulfilling a purpose (not sure what that is yet).
I once said that those who design VC6 and VB6 are technical masters, and those who design .NET are technical experts. There is a difference between an expert and a master.
Kemeny wrote the first version of BASIC. The acronym BASIC comes from the name of an unpublished paper by Thomas Kurtz....
The project received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, which was used to purchase a GE-225 computer for processing, and a Datanet-30 realtime processor to handle the Teletype Model 33 teleprinters used for input and output. A team of a dozen undergraduates worked on the project for about a year, writing both the DTSS system and the BASIC compiler.[3] The first version BASIC language was released on 1 May 1964.
This happened in NH - at Dartmouth...Digital Equip Corp started in Maynard, Mass.
General Electric, having worked on the Dartmouth project, wrote their own underlying operating system and launched an online time-sharing system known as Mark I. It featured BASIC as one of its primary selling points. Other companies in the emerging field quickly followed suit; Tymshare introduced SUPER BASIC in 1968, CompuServe had a version on the DEC-10 at their launch in 1969, and by the early 1970s BASIC was largely universal on general-purpose mainframe computers. Even IBM eventually joined the club with the introduction of VS-BASIC in 1973.[11]
So when I entered HS in late 1970's we had a PDP-11 with punch card readers and teletype machines. I wrote an attendance application, where we printed punch cards for each student in a homeroom. The homeroom teacher would send the cards to the office each morning for kids that were out. We would simply run them through the punch card reader and attendance was recorded for 2000 student HS. Fun times!
Gates and Allen had neither an interpreter nor even an Altair system on which to develop and test one. However, Allen had written an Intel 8008 emulator for their previous venture, Traf-O-Data, that ran on a PDP-10 time-sharing computer.
On an Altair I wrote a really cool "Air Traffic Controller" program to fly and land 26 planes between two airports.
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