VB 6

[Rob Grainger]

Doesn't improve spelling much though, eh?

[Rob Grainger]

Jacek Gajek wrote:

1. Option Explicit Off

Yes this is horrible, almost as bad as JavaScript doing exactly the same, but with (until ECMAScript5) no equivalent of Option Explicit On.

Jacek Gajek wrote:

2. On Error Goto Label37

Quite horrible, but to blame VB for a fault in BASIC since the year dot is a bit unfair. 3. With/End With - OK, this is truly a mistake. 4. I don't like globals either, but most languages, particularly of that era, support them. 5. someInteger = CInt(int1/int2) (divide operator on two ints gives... a double). Actually - thats pretty correct. Last time I checked 1/2 in mathematics was 0.5, not 0 or 1. Ideally, a language can distinguish integer division and floating-point division, maybe with different operators, but this doesn't seem too horrible to me. 6. Yes, a terrible decision, and Option Base 0 just made things worse, as code in different modules can have different bases. I don't mind base 0 or 1, consistency is really important. 7. Not sure what you're referring to here, but if you mean null-propagation where nulls occur in boolean expressions (where null is an allowable result), that's the only option. Check the literature on Relational DB's (Codd et al.) for the justification. Actually, Codd proposes 4-state logic (Yes,No,Maybe and Inapplicable, Maybe and Applicable). These are not really boolean logic though, but VB, with typed variables (As Boolean) behaves correctly AFAIK. It's not a great language, but most languages have points that are plain bad (JavaScript springs to mind heavily). Programmer's should be able to avoid features that cause problems - that's what they're paid for. I've seen plenty of bad Javascript too - for basically the same reasons as VB. Maybe we should just ban high-level languages ;-)

[xperroni]

I worked on VB6 for some three years, and while I did see a lot of ugly code, I never found the language itself (or its IDE for that matter) to be particularly at fault. Sure it missed a decent array initialization mechanism, and its concept of "object-orientation" was laughable when compared to Java - but between a couple good practices (such as always using Option Explicit to enforce variable declaration) and a bit of boilerplate code to abstract away the worst idiosyncrasies, it wasn't bad at all to program; I for one didn't find it any more hard to program modular, loosely-coupled, highly-cohesive classes in VB than in Pascal. Perhaps VB's ugly code base was more a consequence of the target public it was aimed at? Microsoft marketed it as a tool for novice programmers to write simple applications with, so it's no wonder we find a lot of bad code written in VB.

[Fabio Franco]

I remember my early days in programming. I started with VB5 at the age of 15. Oh my... The fact that I didn't need to declare a variable simply knocks me out today. I remember when I realized that this was really bad, I remembered to always use "Option Explicit". The more I got skilled in programming the farther I got away from VB. It was like a calling to code horrors. Soon enough though, I abandoned VB two to three years later in favor of C++. The fact is that VB draws many people who either are not born to code or suck at coding because they are just starting.

[M i s t e r L i s t e r]

VB should just be put out of it's misery !

[sergiogarcianinja]

Rob, You should consider more two VB features: 8. Automatic type conversions like:

Dim a As Integer = "1"

9. Not assigment or type checking at compile type:

Dim c As Object

Select Case c
Case 1
' do something 1
Case "horror"
' its really bad
Case Color.Green
' its even worst
End Select

This code generates a warning for use of c before its assignment, a incredible error, because it will never run. And it happens in modern VB.Net versions. --- We could assume that you like VB and we could accept it. Every programmer have your "perfect" language and consider it best as no one other. I know VB since version 5.0 and even today I use this language in a lot of legacy projects, but never in a new project. I know a lot of other languages (C, C++, C#, Python, Perl, PHP, Javascript, Bash, Java, Delphi) and each time I will start a new project, I never consider VB, because its problems. Fact is Basic and VB are extremely easy to start programming but they "easiness" are really complicated for the real programmer. A real programmer should be able to run a program and it need to be deterministic. Same input, same output. Some time a go, a friend mine was asking why a simple sum operation became wrong. She was using ASP 3.0, which uses VBScript, and 1 + 1 are equal to 11. As I saw that, I told her, perfect normal, what was you expecting? I told her simple to type her variables Dim a As Integer = 1, problem solved. As me, and probably you, use VB along time both of us know that its evolution is really impressive. In version 5 and 6 its is a really poor in resource for type checking and compile time checking. Today it is more impressive, today 1 + 1 is really 2. The easiness of VB 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and we can consider version 6 to create and deploy windows applications are amazing, because your RAD and "good" (for the time) IDE. Even with creation of Delphi, VB had evangelized his people. But again, today, we can consider VB a good choice in real big and important projects. Project which requires use of good patterns, use o interfaces, a lot of modules, etc. VB can't handle this. But again, it's my opinion. I consider VB a easy language not a good one.

[edmurphy99]

on error goto Shoot_Foot

[bwallan]

Beautiful! Just absolutely beautiful... bwa

[OriginalGriff]

Any language which contains code to deliberately hide errors and pretend they didn't happen should not be released into the wild. Particularly if innocent and impressionable children (read: students) can be contaminated by it. "On Error Resume Next" X|

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

[JasonPSage]

This is a response to all the posts in this topic before mine... you might know what I'm referring to if you read this thread up until this post... I've written miles of VB5,6 code and folks can knock it all they like but I think it was one of the best products Microsoft has made alongside forcefeedback joysticks, access 2003, excel 2003 and DirectX in my opinion. It is one of first totally RAD programming languages in my opinion: True Binary, tons of widget addons, ADO, ODBC, RDO .. tons of ways to communicate with databases and whip up applications quickly with integrated set up and deployment tools - all wrapped into one seamless package if you wen corporate - not to mention it supports various client/server (two tier/three tier systems easily. On error resume next? You can test the error result after that command - SO? what's the problem? How is that different then try catch? You can do the same thing... and frankly - there is a time and place for any code construct - even GOTO. I love when folks get indignant about GOTO and other coding philosophy. I truly believe users just want software that works - less flash and more "DO" ... and * If you write beautiful code that is easy to read and performs great: AWESOME! * If you write ugly code that works.. well.. I wouldn't recommend it but before I chastise ya: How much time did you have to get it done? Boss breathing down your neck? Simply didn't care? All valid reasons to write crap and "Git-R-Dun" in my opinion... Example: Coder: I need two days to do this right! Boss: I need it NOW.. an Hour! Worker: Sure thing boss! VB6 is pretty darn sweet and I say if they had a vb7 by the same development team with better multi-tasking - I would chose it over .Net any day! --Jason

Know way too many languages... master of none!

[leonej_dt]

3. VB has an integer division operator: 9 \ 4 returns 2, not 2.25. 4. Propagating the null value in expressions is correct. Technically, there is a difference between

Dim a As Variant
a = long_expression_possibly_returning_null
If a = True Then
some_code
Else
more_code
End If

and

Dim a As Variant
a = long_expression_possibly_returning_null
If a = True Then
some_code
ElseIf a = False Then
more_code
End If

And the difference consists on how the program handles the case in which a Is Null. Still, I agree that VB is a very horrible language: 1. Default ByRef parameters? What were VB designers smoking? 2. No support for object-oriented programming would have been better than the weak support VB offers. 3. Weak support for value data types, which does not include operator overloading. (Java is guilty of this as well.) 4. Fairly common data structures such as collections and dictionaries are a mess. 5. Even more common Generic data structures such as stacks, queues and trees are simply not supported. And there is no clean, efficient way to implement them. 6. The only way to take full advantage of the power of the Win32 API is use gross hacks à la Bruce McKinney's Hardcore Visual Basic, aka, C (not even C++!) programming in VB.

If you can play The Dance of Eternity (Dream Theater), then we shall make a band.

[Matt McGuire]

true, that does hurt. but you should have seen some c code I had to take over when I first arived at the company I now work for. something along the lines--- void _add{ int a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n; int aa,bb,cc,iiii,iii,ii,i; if {z==0}n=3; /*declared in globals*/ b=1 } all of the code was like this, with vars never even refrenced in the code, except for one var that is assigned a variable, but never actually used. the names of the functions had no correlation to the body of code inside of them! yes, most of it was scrubbed, as no one could follow the majority of the logic.

[jmoralesv]

As in Spanish also ;) I love my language :-D

[Lutoslaw]

Maybe a programmer who wrote this was using a lot an early version of BASIC, where variables had to match a pattern ([A-Z][A-Z]) (identifiers not longer than two characters, not case sensitive, a-z letters can be accesed via an array A, e.g. A[3]=C as well as other "advantages"). BTW in your code i is declared twice.

Greetings - Jacek

[Rob Grainger]

Sergio, Fair points - actually, I have to use VB at work but would much prefer use C#, or even better a true OO language like Smalltalk, but there seems little call for that in this neck of the woods. I've used VB in one form or another intermittently since VB 1.0 - at that stage, even though primitive by todays standards, the IDE was mind-blowing, the first time I was able to draw a GUI, and add event-handling code so easily. I agree re. auto type conversion - in a typed language that's horrible, although many modern languages seem to do this sort of stuff (particularly in the Scripting arena, and I'd guess VB's kind of midway between there and a typical statically-typed language). Like you I have experience with a wide range of languages (slightly different selection, but generally similar). Many languages have these kinds of faults - JavaScript has a whole set of them, but it seems to get nothing like the volume of criticism directed at VB. C has a whole different set, that tend to lead to more catastrophic run-time errors. The basic fact remains that whatever language you use, you need to learn its strengths and, particularly, its weaknesses, so you can exploit one and avoid the other. Regards, Rob

[Lost User]

I concur. We have a time & attendance system that was originally developed in VB6 that serves thousands of clients on a daily basis. (Some of these clients have > 10,000 employees). The current enterprise-level solution is now a mix of the VB6 stuff and .Net. Since 2005 the management kept saying "in 6 months we'll get rid of VB6 code". Now, years later, the ratio of the VB6 code to the .Net section is about the same. Why? The stuff just plain works, that's why. Agreed, .Net is far more refined a product than VB6 is - it had better be, it's 12 years newer (in its latest version that is). However even now the VB6 code continues to ensure that paychecks are accurately produced and the system continues to hum along. VB6 may wind up being the next COBOL. It will eventually fall off the radar but in the background will continue to get results for years to come. One developer said that he'd never take another job where he would have to deal with VB6. That's all right son, just send that work my way. I won't turn my nose up - they pay me big bucks to fix systems that the kids don't want to bother with anymore. :-) I love .Net (absolutely crazy about C#) but, at the same time I find it a breath of fresh air sometimes to go back to VB6. Besides being a competent development environment it is just plain FUN. -Max :-)

[cwp42]

It always depends on the coder !!! You can do this horror in every language.

cwp42

[Thomas Eyde]

Try with an empty catch does just the same. Does this statement apply to all these languages, including C# and Java?

[OriginalGriff]

No, it doesn't! Try with an empty catch would only work the same if you surrounded each and every single line of code with it's own, independent, try...empty catch block. Not even the laziest programmer on the planet would do that... Having said that, it is possible a very thick student might. But he wouldn't get a passing grade for it.

Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.

[Thomas Eyde]

That's true. My point was that a swallowed exception leaves the program in an invalid state. Even if the magnitude is smaller, no language can protect us from bad practice.