VB6: Best programming language ever
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You may be joking but in it's day it really was. The technology spawned an entire industry.
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I'm pretty sure the language would have fit. As I said, it's having people who don't know what they are doing that is generally the problem. There have been many ERP implementations that used VB6 and they seemed to be able to cope admirably. The problem is, it's easy to knock VB because it's looked down on and derided as a toy language by "serious" developers, and this is just a crass attitude. Unfortunately, this infantile behaviour has carried over from VB6 through to the VB.NET world and I can understand why we don't get many VB developers on CodeProject - because we have a self styled elite pouring scorn on them.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
I can understand why we don't get many VB developers on CodeProject
oh, we're here. we just never say anything. Trust me, we think all you VB bashers only do it because you've never actually TOUCHED a decent VB.NET program, but feel like you have to 'bash' to fit in. probably my one and only post... but wanted to get my 2¢ in :)
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I can't agree more about that 'elite' behavior around - X|! Also about VB6 and VB.NET - they are a different... But believe me! I went to Microsoft every day for over 6 months. Their professionals worked with me all day long to build the base of our new system - it doesn't worked out - and in that case it was because of VB6...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
While VB.NET is a respectable beast, prior versions of VB were not. It was VB, and not the programmer. There is a negative connotation to "VB Programmer" because of the well know VB issues. But I thank MSFT for VB. Because it failed so miserably, I was forced to buy Delphi 1.0 and give it a try. wow, it was everything VB wanted to be. Rolled my own component that weekend (an extension of the TEdit), which had taken me a week to do as my first VBX project. Never looked back. Fell in love with Delphi. So VB is like the quirky friend who throws one of his cheesy parties, and I ended up finding my soul mate... Because we were a Microsoft Partner at the time, I did not tell anyone I was using Delphi. I rewrote the ENTIRE application in Delphi in like 2 weeks, released the "updated" version, and the users were THRILLED. Gone were the memory problems, and the slowness, the instability. The DLL Hell... Within 9 months it made product of the year at a big trade show. (we won't talk about the fallout when one of the other programmers on a DIFFERENT product realized it was not VB, LOL)... Ahhh, good memories! PS: The product shipped on a Single 3.5" disk, and supported internet updates via http requests!!!
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I'm pretty sure the language would have fit. As I said, it's having people who don't know what they are doing that is generally the problem. There have been many ERP implementations that used VB6 and they seemed to be able to cope admirably. The problem is, it's easy to knock VB because it's looked down on and derided as a toy language by "serious" developers, and this is just a crass attitude. Unfortunately, this infantile behaviour has carried over from VB6 through to the VB.NET world and I can understand why we don't get many VB developers on CodeProject - because we have a self styled elite pouring scorn on them.
I found VB6 to be quite useful, and used VB since version 1. (I still have the original 5 1/4" disk but no machine to read it.) I used it extensively where I worked, tying into various databases the company used (Informix, SQL Server, Oracle). I was able to use the VB knowledge in VBA and VBScript as well. It's still a great language for quick-and-dirty stuff. That said, I refused to learn VB.Net, because I already knew C/C++ and C# was easier to learn and using both VB6 and VB.Net was confusing when the syntax changed so much.
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Wasn't it created for those who could not code in real programming language? I would not know as I wrote my first program in year 2000. I used C++ for it. Proud.
d@nish wrote:
Wasn't it created for those who could not code in real programming language? I would not know as I wrote my first program in year 2000. I used C++ for it. Proud.
Hey D@nish, Well, sort-of, but it turned out to be a much richer programming system than I think even Microsoft expected. At the time the VB line was beginning to make itself front-and-center I had been writing in C/C++ and MASM for a long time. I had even gone so far as to have developed my own event-driven, color, mouse supported user-interface system for DOS by that time. (I had already been in the field about 20 years). The main thing keeping me (as a systems-level developer working in DOS) from embracing the Windows technology was the overly detailed manner in which applications had to be developed to run in Windows. I mean ... a "Hello World" application took something like 135 lines of code written in C/C++ once you constructed the main event loop, invalidation of the window rectangle, yadda yadda. I could see why someone with no other way might want to write Win32 level code (I read Petzold's book too) but to develop applications that way just seemed, to me, to be re-inventing the wheel. I was, at that time, getting tired of bare-metal programming. At one point (back in 1998 or so) I was tasked with developing a credit-settlement application to run in the Windows desktop. The idea seemed daunting. However I had just discovered VB3 by that time and thought I'd see how that worked out. To my pleasant surprise I was able to focus on the application instead of the arcane details associated with trying to manage overlaid windows, custom controls and the rest. I had finally found the answer to developing for Windows. In the ensuing years VB3 grew through VB4, VB5 and finally VB6. All during that time I found myself able to develop stuff for the Windows desktop with far more dispatch and design understanding than someone who was struggling with MFC programming. I was interested in getting RESULTS, not trying to prove I was a masochist. Snotty young C++ developers liked to get elitist about all the hotshot things they could do with C++ while those of us writing VB applications were getting business done. (I'm not saying ALL C++ developers are that way, nor am I saying the language doesn't have its place). The firm I work with now still has a large base of code based on VB6 which has worked well for years. Sure, for new things we have moved onto
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Well VB6.0 was the langugage which keen me on programming. I have never use it in my professional programming, because i did the job with other tools, but there a lot of times where i want to be able to use it. I like it because of its simple syntax and nice enviorment.
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d@nish wrote:
Wasn't it created for those who could not code in real programming language? I would not know as I wrote my first program in year 2000. I used C++ for it. Proud.
Hey D@nish, Well, sort-of, but it turned out to be a much richer programming system than I think even Microsoft expected. At the time the VB line was beginning to make itself front-and-center I had been writing in C/C++ and MASM for a long time. I had even gone so far as to have developed my own event-driven, color, mouse supported user-interface system for DOS by that time. (I had already been in the field about 20 years). The main thing keeping me (as a systems-level developer working in DOS) from embracing the Windows technology was the overly detailed manner in which applications had to be developed to run in Windows. I mean ... a "Hello World" application took something like 135 lines of code written in C/C++ once you constructed the main event loop, invalidation of the window rectangle, yadda yadda. I could see why someone with no other way might want to write Win32 level code (I read Petzold's book too) but to develop applications that way just seemed, to me, to be re-inventing the wheel. I was, at that time, getting tired of bare-metal programming. At one point (back in 1998 or so) I was tasked with developing a credit-settlement application to run in the Windows desktop. The idea seemed daunting. However I had just discovered VB3 by that time and thought I'd see how that worked out. To my pleasant surprise I was able to focus on the application instead of the arcane details associated with trying to manage overlaid windows, custom controls and the rest. I had finally found the answer to developing for Windows. In the ensuing years VB3 grew through VB4, VB5 and finally VB6. All during that time I found myself able to develop stuff for the Windows desktop with far more dispatch and design understanding than someone who was struggling with MFC programming. I was interested in getting RESULTS, not trying to prove I was a masochist. Snotty young C++ developers liked to get elitist about all the hotshot things they could do with C++ while those of us writing VB applications were getting business done. (I'm not saying ALL C++ developers are that way, nor am I saying the language doesn't have its place). The firm I work with now still has a large base of code based on VB6 which has worked well for years. Sure, for new things we have moved onto
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Well said. I have had many years of happy VB6 programming - and still use it. It has 'issues' - name me a language that doesn't (on second thoughts don't). VB6 is good at some things - bad at lots of others. If you are in its sweet spot it can be very productive.
It says something if a language, unchanged from the original spec is still in use 14 years after it came out. People just want something simple. Sometimes I look at the C++ or C# or Java or Javascript code and think why have they made everything so complex. It is nice to go back to languages like VB6 or VBA or VBScript.
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I'm pretty sure the language would have fit. As I said, it's having people who don't know what they are doing that is generally the problem. There have been many ERP implementations that used VB6 and they seemed to be able to cope admirably. The problem is, it's easy to knock VB because it's looked down on and derided as a toy language by "serious" developers, and this is just a crass attitude. Unfortunately, this infantile behaviour has carried over from VB6 through to the VB.NET world and I can understand why we don't get many VB developers on CodeProject - because we have a self styled elite pouring scorn on them.
Its the lack of ";". There is serious problems for languages that lack it.
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Well, I don't know about best ever, but in its time, it was the best for developing software on Windows platforms. I was writing software before Windows (COBOEL, FORTRAN, Clipper) and still writing today in more modern languages. I worked in Visual Basic from version 1 through VB6 and into .NET. Most of my programming today is in C#. VB6 worked great for UI apps and middleware. I wrote Windows services, COM+ DLLs, multithreaded apps, and rarely had any problems. VB6 programs, written correctly, were scalable, fast, and reliable. If the very few places where VB6 code was not the best performer, you could identify that, rewrite it in C or C++, and replace the VB6 DLL with that DLL once you could justify it. VB6 (and earlier versions) served two markets - 1) the prototyper and non-programmer small utility programmer. That is what some of the quickie UI elements, like the ADO control, were made for; and 2) the professional programmer. For the latter, the programmer was expected to use good object oriented techniques and not use the amateur tools the VB6 IDE provided for the former. VB6 was not an all-inclusive language, but was open for calling other DLLs, COM or not. For web programming, WebClasses were a great design, but failed to catch on. VB6 programmers who used the language and tool as it was designed to be used, who used good professional programming techniques, found VB6 to be the best tool on the market. In time, we needed a better implementation of object oriented programming, and an expansion to creating 64 bit programs. VB6, as the IDE and language was designed, with its backwards compatibility, simply could not do that. That is where .NET came in. I had no problem migrating my VB6 program to VB.NET, and eventually to C#, since I had followed good OO processes when writing in VB6. A lot of VB programmers I knew, who stubbornly retained their procedural programming mindset from the VB3 days had a much more difficult time and had to rewrite much of their code. In order to help the migration process along for a large VB6 project, I wrote new code in C# such that the DLLs had a COM interop wrapper that allowed them to be called in existing VB6 code the same as if they had been written in VB6, and pure C# "OCXs" that existing VB6 forms and user controls could use straight off the VB6 IDE toolbar. That allows us to replace old VB6 code one piece at a time with C# code and still use the C# components in existing VB6 code. As much as I think of VB6, though, I d
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Visual Basic was a major breakthrough in that it was the first widely adopted "visual" programming tool for Windows. But it had severe weaknesses from the start that were never fixed, even by the time they got to version 6. Borland's Delphi beat the crap out of VB - that is why Microsoft lured Anders Hejlsberg (and others) away from Borland in 1996. Anders "fixed" VB6 - by killing it and creating C#.
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I found VB6 to be quite useful, and used VB since version 1. (I still have the original 5 1/4" disk but no machine to read it.) I used it extensively where I worked, tying into various databases the company used (Informix, SQL Server, Oracle). I was able to use the VB knowledge in VBA and VBScript as well. It's still a great language for quick-and-dirty stuff. That said, I refused to learn VB.Net, because I already knew C/C++ and C# was easier to learn and using both VB6 and VB.Net was confusing when the syntax changed so much.
It was possible to do in VB6 almost anything that could be done in C -- just easier and quicker. VB still lives. VBA is currently VB7.
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I'm pretty sure the language would have fit. As I said, it's having people who don't know what they are doing that is generally the problem. There have been many ERP implementations that used VB6 and they seemed to be able to cope admirably. The problem is, it's easy to knock VB because it's looked down on and derided as a toy language by "serious" developers, and this is just a crass attitude. Unfortunately, this infantile behaviour has carried over from VB6 through to the VB.NET world and I can understand why we don't get many VB developers on CodeProject - because we have a self styled elite pouring scorn on them.
So true, the VB6 articles do not occur often on Code Project (although not the case in 2014) because there is always a small group that has bad words splashing the article without basis of any kind. I am convinced that many VB6 programmers have lived with the same impression. I met some "serious" developers (C++, Java) myself and I was surprised that in their lives they did nothing complex in the languages they prefer. Then suddenly I woke up to reality, I understood that they were only storytellers. A typical VB6 article should look like this: Compilers Demystified: Function Pointers in Visual Basic 6.0[^]
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While VB.NET is a respectable beast, prior versions of VB were not. It was VB, and not the programmer. There is a negative connotation to "VB Programmer" because of the well know VB issues. But I thank MSFT for VB. Because it failed so miserably, I was forced to buy Delphi 1.0 and give it a try. wow, it was everything VB wanted to be. Rolled my own component that weekend (an extension of the TEdit), which had taken me a week to do as my first VBX project. Never looked back. Fell in love with Delphi. So VB is like the quirky friend who throws one of his cheesy parties, and I ended up finding my soul mate... Because we were a Microsoft Partner at the time, I did not tell anyone I was using Delphi. I rewrote the ENTIRE application in Delphi in like 2 weeks, released the "updated" version, and the users were THRILLED. Gone were the memory problems, and the slowness, the instability. The DLL Hell... Within 9 months it made product of the year at a big trade show. (we won't talk about the fallout when one of the other programmers on a DIFFERENT product realized it was not VB, LOL)... Ahhh, good memories! PS: The product shipped on a Single 3.5" disk, and supported internet updates via http requests!!!
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
make developing business applications quick.
That what you say - but in 1999 when we went to Microsoft they sold us VB6 to develop the new version of our ERP. It was catastrophic... It was a group - so-called - specialist in distributed network applications (they called it DNALab), and they almost ruined our reputation with that suggestion... So the fact that even Microsoft didn't know for what VB is good, but they tried it on everyone without mercy... X|
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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Visual Basic was a major breakthrough in that it was the first widely adopted "visual" programming tool for Windows. But it had severe weaknesses from the start that were never fixed, even by the time they got to version 6. Borland's Delphi beat the crap out of VB - that is why Microsoft lured Anders Hejlsberg (and others) away from Borland in 1996. Anders "fixed" VB6 - by killing it and creating C#.
Really ?! VB6 might be the best language in the world (for obvious reasons). I am a VB6 programmer, what are the weaknesses that you talk about, I do not know for VB6 to have any weaknesses ! Delphi better than VB6 ?! NO, in any event... be realistic! VB6 is in many cases faster than C++, and you talk about Delphi ?! again, be realistic!
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Wasn't it created for those who could not code in real programming language? I would not know as I wrote my first program in year 2000. I used C++ for it. Proud.
@dd@nish Any intermediate VB6 programmer can put you in the corner of shame (hell, even I can do that). Do not believe me?! read this: Compilers Demystified: Function Pointers in Visual Basic 6.0[^] I am very proud to be a part of the great VB6 community, where many intelligent programmers reside! Best regards, ISpliter :)
