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This is not a programming question... ;)

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  • L Liam OHagan

    Why is it so hard to find out technical details of visual basic related material? I ask this because of the following: I've got some software to test here at work, it's written in VB X| :( I needed to find out the maximum capacity of the int and long data types, knowing that they were probably different to the C++ ones I'm used to (and they are I eventually discovered) Using google to search for '+"visual basic" +long +"data type" maximum capacity size' returned nothing of any use Thought about it for a bit and used google to search for the following '+"visual basic" how big can a long be" and bingo! :rolleyes: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? I haven't got a witty signature.... :((

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    Andrew McCarter
    wrote on last edited by
    #4

    It's not hard at all. Maybe you shoukd have done what most VB programmers would actually know to do - use MSDN online if you don't have it locally to check this (funny, given that VB is a Microsoft language - who'd have thought of that, eh?), and as such it would take them half the time it took you to find out. This whole superiority complex displayed here against VB is a bit strange to me. Coming from Java I couldn't really care less, but it seem as though a few people here have an axe to grind against the VBers. I can only imagine that it follows the attitude shown by a colleague of mine who was one of those "it has to be C++ or nothing" types. He used to literally blow smoke over the fact that a large number of VB programmers made more than he did. I guess when the only tool in your bag is a hammer, everything looks like a nail eh?

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    • A Andrew McCarter

      It's not hard at all. Maybe you shoukd have done what most VB programmers would actually know to do - use MSDN online if you don't have it locally to check this (funny, given that VB is a Microsoft language - who'd have thought of that, eh?), and as such it would take them half the time it took you to find out. This whole superiority complex displayed here against VB is a bit strange to me. Coming from Java I couldn't really care less, but it seem as though a few people here have an axe to grind against the VBers. I can only imagine that it follows the attitude shown by a colleague of mine who was one of those "it has to be C++ or nothing" types. He used to literally blow smoke over the fact that a large number of VB programmers made more than he did. I guess when the only tool in your bag is a hammer, everything looks like a nail eh?

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      J Dunlap
      wrote on last edited by
      #5

      Andrew McCarter wrote: one of those "it has to be C++ or nothing" types I sure have met up with alot of those! I use what gets the job done. :) Which at present is mostly C#, although if I just want something real quick I use VB6. Andrew McCarter wrote: I guess when the only tool in your bag is a hammer, everything looks like a nail eh? :laugh::laugh:

      "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus
      "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi

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      • J J Dunlap

        Andrew McCarter wrote: one of those "it has to be C++ or nothing" types I sure have met up with alot of those! I use what gets the job done. :) Which at present is mostly C#, although if I just want something real quick I use VB6. Andrew McCarter wrote: I guess when the only tool in your bag is a hammer, everything looks like a nail eh? :laugh::laugh:

        "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus
        "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi

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        Andrew McCarter
        wrote on last edited by
        #6

        jdunlap wrote: I use what gets the job done. Which at present is mostly C# ... You lucky bugger! I've managed to pick up a few .NET contracts which wanted a C# implementation, but for the most part they are few and far between. Whilst I have nothing against VB programmers, knowing a few who are actually very good and do well at other languages too - I've done VB myself, though I'm probably not very good at it - I can't help but post the comments of one VB guy who really thought he was the apex of all programmers. On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" :omg:

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        • A Andrew McCarter

          jdunlap wrote: I use what gets the job done. Which at present is mostly C# ... You lucky bugger! I've managed to pick up a few .NET contracts which wanted a C# implementation, but for the most part they are few and far between. Whilst I have nothing against VB programmers, knowing a few who are actually very good and do well at other languages too - I've done VB myself, though I'm probably not very good at it - I can't help but post the comments of one VB guy who really thought he was the apex of all programmers. On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" :omg:

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          J Offline
          J Dunlap
          wrote on last edited by
          #7

          So what programming languages do you usually use?

          "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus
          "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi

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          • L Liam OHagan

            Why is it so hard to find out technical details of visual basic related material? I ask this because of the following: I've got some software to test here at work, it's written in VB X| :( I needed to find out the maximum capacity of the int and long data types, knowing that they were probably different to the C++ ones I'm used to (and they are I eventually discovered) Using google to search for '+"visual basic" +long +"data type" maximum capacity size' returned nothing of any use Thought about it for a bit and used google to search for the following '+"visual basic" how big can a long be" and bingo! :rolleyes: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? I haven't got a witty signature.... :((

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            Stuart van Weele
            wrote on last edited by
            #8

            Bringing up Visual Basic help and typing in "long" brought up the following: "Long (long integer) variables are stored as signed 32-bit (4-byte) numbers ranging in value from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. The type-declaration character for Long is the ampersand (&)." Just use the help system.

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            • S Stuart van Weele

              Bringing up Visual Basic help and typing in "long" brought up the following: "Long (long integer) variables are stored as signed 32-bit (4-byte) numbers ranging in value from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. The type-declaration character for Long is the ampersand (&)." Just use the help system.

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              Liam OHagan
              wrote on last edited by
              #9

              That would imply that I actually have visual basic, or MSDN for that matter installed. I don't and our company does not own the licenses for me to install it... :rolleyes: As for using MSDN online, that's where I went first but couldn't locate anything useful My point was that websites devoted to VB programming talk to you like you're a little kid! I don't have anything against VB, or vb developers for that matter, not my language of choice, but each to their own.

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              • A Andrew McCarter

                It's not hard at all. Maybe you shoukd have done what most VB programmers would actually know to do - use MSDN online if you don't have it locally to check this (funny, given that VB is a Microsoft language - who'd have thought of that, eh?), and as such it would take them half the time it took you to find out. This whole superiority complex displayed here against VB is a bit strange to me. Coming from Java I couldn't really care less, but it seem as though a few people here have an axe to grind against the VBers. I can only imagine that it follows the attitude shown by a colleague of mine who was one of those "it has to be C++ or nothing" types. He used to literally blow smoke over the fact that a large number of VB programmers made more than he did. I guess when the only tool in your bag is a hammer, everything looks like a nail eh?

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                L Offline
                Liam OHagan
                wrote on last edited by
                #10

                I did look at MSDN, no need for sarcasm. Your condescending attitude is exactly what I was talking about in regard to VB websites. I used the advances search to look for "long data type capacity maximum value" restricting the search to visual basic 6.0 and .NET. It returned nothing useful. I do not have anything against VB programmers, or the language itself, I was merely commenting on the fact that most VB related websites use language which seems to indicate that VB programmers should be shielded from any technical details relating to the language...

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                • A Andrew McCarter

                  jdunlap wrote: I use what gets the job done. Which at present is mostly C# ... You lucky bugger! I've managed to pick up a few .NET contracts which wanted a C# implementation, but for the most part they are few and far between. Whilst I have nothing against VB programmers, knowing a few who are actually very good and do well at other languages too - I've done VB myself, though I'm probably not very good at it - I can't help but post the comments of one VB guy who really thought he was the apex of all programmers. On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" :omg:

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                  Chris Austin
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #11

                  Andrew McCarter wrote: On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" HA! I can relate. At my new job a *lot* of the work is done in VB. Having not touched VB in almost 3 years I feel like I am constatly ice skating up hill when dealing with the language(that and my machine running fricking nt4). Esp with the shoddy inherantance. But I did have a great laugh when I sat down earlier this week with a co-worker and he asked me why I was wasting my time putting some of the common code into "class modules" and why I just didn't use the On_Click() event method. Oh well, it is a great place to work and the folks are pretty laid back. Hey don't worry, I can handle it. I took something. I can see things no one else can see. Why are you dressed like that? - Jack Burton

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                  • C Chris Austin

                    Andrew McCarter wrote: On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" HA! I can relate. At my new job a *lot* of the work is done in VB. Having not touched VB in almost 3 years I feel like I am constatly ice skating up hill when dealing with the language(that and my machine running fricking nt4). Esp with the shoddy inherantance. But I did have a great laugh when I sat down earlier this week with a co-worker and he asked me why I was wasting my time putting some of the common code into "class modules" and why I just didn't use the On_Click() event method. Oh well, it is a great place to work and the folks are pretty laid back. Hey don't worry, I can handle it. I took something. I can see things no one else can see. Why are you dressed like that? - Jack Burton

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                    J Dunlap
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #12

                    Chris Austin wrote: Esp with the shoddy inherantance The #1 reason I stopped using VB.

                    "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus
                    "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi

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                    • L Liam OHagan

                      Why is it so hard to find out technical details of visual basic related material? I ask this because of the following: I've got some software to test here at work, it's written in VB X| :( I needed to find out the maximum capacity of the int and long data types, knowing that they were probably different to the C++ ones I'm used to (and they are I eventually discovered) Using google to search for '+"visual basic" +long +"data type" maximum capacity size' returned nothing of any use Thought about it for a bit and used google to search for the following '+"visual basic" how big can a long be" and bingo! :rolleyes: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? I haven't got a witty signature.... :((

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                      Vikram A Punathambekar
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #13

                      Liam OHagan wrote: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? No, MS doesn't want them to know the underlying structure of the language. Even if they did allow it, VB programmers wouldn't want to know. :) Ya, nice sig! :) [EDIT]I just saw some of your other posts. You DON'T have a sig. Damn- I thought that "I don't have a witty sig..." stuff was your sig! You had me.[/EDIT] Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                      • M Marc Clifton

                        Liam OHagan wrote: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? No, it's because VB programmers don't themselves know the answers to these basic (no pun intended) questions. And if you tell them, they'll look at you with a blank stare and ask "what's a bit???". Marc Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
                        Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
                        Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
                        Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"

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                        Venkatraman
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #14

                        Marc Clifton wrote: it's because VB programmers don't themselves know the answers to these basic (no pun intended) questions. And if you tell them, they'll look at you with a blank stare and ask "what's a bit???". I would not generalize all VB programmers. You ask most of the VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence in the language. Cheers, Venkatraman Kalyanam Chennai - India "Being Excellent is not a skill, it is an attitude"

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                        • V Venkatraman

                          Marc Clifton wrote: it's because VB programmers don't themselves know the answers to these basic (no pun intended) questions. And if you tell them, they'll look at you with a blank stare and ask "what's a bit???". I would not generalize all VB programmers. You ask most of the VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence in the language. Cheers, Venkatraman Kalyanam Chennai - India "Being Excellent is not a skill, it is an attitude"

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                          Vikram A Punathambekar
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #15

                          Venkatraman wrote: VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence Lemme guess, are you a VB user? Being from India myself, I can confidently :~ make this statement: The VB users (I won't call them programmers) here are useless. But then, you've got more experience than me, I'm only a student... When I design a small game, I sometimes first check out the UI in VB. But that's just about it- I don't even make a good prototype. From that stage on, I use MFC. Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                          • C Chris Austin

                            Andrew McCarter wrote: On firing up VS.NET and starting a VB.NET windows project, he claimed it was broken ... "it's f**cked up - there are no .bas files" HA! I can relate. At my new job a *lot* of the work is done in VB. Having not touched VB in almost 3 years I feel like I am constatly ice skating up hill when dealing with the language(that and my machine running fricking nt4). Esp with the shoddy inherantance. But I did have a great laugh when I sat down earlier this week with a co-worker and he asked me why I was wasting my time putting some of the common code into "class modules" and why I just didn't use the On_Click() event method. Oh well, it is a great place to work and the folks are pretty laid back. Hey don't worry, I can handle it. I took something. I can see things no one else can see. Why are you dressed like that? - Jack Burton

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                            V Offline
                            Vikram A Punathambekar
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #16

                            Chris Austin wrote: ice skating up hill :laugh::laugh::laugh: Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                            • V Vikram A Punathambekar

                              Venkatraman wrote: VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence Lemme guess, are you a VB user? Being from India myself, I can confidently :~ make this statement: The VB users (I won't call them programmers) here are useless. But then, you've got more experience than me, I'm only a student... When I design a small game, I sometimes first check out the UI in VB. But that's just about it- I don't even make a good prototype. From that stage on, I use MFC. Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                              Ravish
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #17

                              Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Lemme guess, are you a VB user? Being from India myself, I can confidently make this statement: The VB users (I won't call them programmers) here are useless. No offense, pls define a programmer for me and how programmers who use VB are not programmers but users.

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                              • L Liam OHagan

                                Why is it so hard to find out technical details of visual basic related material? I ask this because of the following: I've got some software to test here at work, it's written in VB X| :( I needed to find out the maximum capacity of the int and long data types, knowing that they were probably different to the C++ ones I'm used to (and they are I eventually discovered) Using google to search for '+"visual basic" +long +"data type" maximum capacity size' returned nothing of any use Thought about it for a bit and used google to search for the following '+"visual basic" how big can a long be" and bingo! :rolleyes: Is it a reflection of the perception of VB programmers that they must be protected from knowing the underlying structure of the language? I haven't got a witty signature.... :((

                                S Offline
                                S Offline
                                Shog9 0
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #18

                                Ok... i'm not a big fan of VB, but i've gotta say - the details are readily available. Both on MSDN, and on the hundreds of VB q/a sites out there, every aspect of VB i've ever touched is documented in some way. Most certainly, the size of data types is well known, and should be found easily in a search of MSDN (yes, i've done this several times and never felt the need to even bookmark it, it was found fast enough). Now, you may become sickened or confused upon learning the details, as they range from obvious to obviously obfuscated, but they are available.

                                - Shog9 -

                                I'd show a smile but I'm too weak I'd share with you, could I only speak

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                                • R Ravish

                                  Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Lemme guess, are you a VB user? Being from India myself, I can confidently make this statement: The VB users (I won't call them programmers) here are useless. No offense, pls define a programmer for me and how programmers who use VB are not programmers but users.

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                                  Vikram A Punathambekar
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #19

                                  Ravish wrote: pls define a programmer for me Simple...VB users are not programmers. But that's just my 2 cents. Like I said, I'm just a student and my statements are largely based on my personal experiences with my fellow-blokes* , which admittedly isn't much. If I find the truth to be otherwise, I'll change my mind-it's open. * - Those fellows can't even write a program to swap two numbers without using a third varible in C. Neither can they write a function to swap two variables. And they've finished THREE years in BE CSE, at a college that's supposed to be very good. Like I said, my experience isn't much...so I might be wrong. Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                                  • R Ravish

                                    Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Lemme guess, are you a VB user? Being from India myself, I can confidently make this statement: The VB users (I won't call them programmers) here are useless. No offense, pls define a programmer for me and how programmers who use VB are not programmers but users.

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                                    Vikram A Punathambekar
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #20

                                    Just saw your pic...cool.:cool: Where do you live? Madras? Mumbai? Bangalore? Vikram. ----------------------------- 1. Don't ask unnecessary questions. You know what I mean? 2. Avoid redundancy at all costs. 3. Avoid redundancy at all costs. "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.

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                                    • S Shog9 0

                                      Ok... i'm not a big fan of VB, but i've gotta say - the details are readily available. Both on MSDN, and on the hundreds of VB q/a sites out there, every aspect of VB i've ever touched is documented in some way. Most certainly, the size of data types is well known, and should be found easily in a search of MSDN (yes, i've done this several times and never felt the need to even bookmark it, it was found fast enough). Now, you may become sickened or confused upon learning the details, as they range from obvious to obviously obfuscated, but they are available.

                                      - Shog9 -

                                      I'd show a smile but I'm too weak I'd share with you, could I only speak

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                                      J Offline
                                      J Dunlap
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #21

                                      Any serious VB-er should read Hardcore Visual Basic. It's out of print, but it's availabl online. Where's that link? Shows how little I've used VB recently. Anyway, it's available in full online.

                                      "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - Jesus
                                      "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi

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                                      • S Shog9 0

                                        Ok... i'm not a big fan of VB, but i've gotta say - the details are readily available. Both on MSDN, and on the hundreds of VB q/a sites out there, every aspect of VB i've ever touched is documented in some way. Most certainly, the size of data types is well known, and should be found easily in a search of MSDN (yes, i've done this several times and never felt the need to even bookmark it, it was found fast enough). Now, you may become sickened or confused upon learning the details, as they range from obvious to obviously obfuscated, but they are available.

                                        - Shog9 -

                                        I'd show a smile but I'm too weak I'd share with you, could I only speak

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                                        L Offline
                                        Liam OHagan
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #22

                                        Agreed, but the manner in which it is presented leads to the conclusion that "yes there's all this funky stuff that happens, but you don't need to know about it, in the meantime, look at this pretty dialog box!" I've seen a similar phenomenon with the first iMac, one was purchased by the secretary at work, and when attepting to access the net all that was required was the IP of the dns, but you had to sit through a 10 minute audio visual presentation in order to enter the IP... What annoys me most is that these things are made very simple to use, whether you like it or not, it's like it's being pitched at the lowest common denominator.

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                                        • V Venkatraman

                                          Marc Clifton wrote: it's because VB programmers don't themselves know the answers to these basic (no pun intended) questions. And if you tell them, they'll look at you with a blank stare and ask "what's a bit???". I would not generalize all VB programmers. You ask most of the VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence in the language. Cheers, Venkatraman Kalyanam Chennai - India "Being Excellent is not a skill, it is an attitude"

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                                          R Offline
                                          Rohit Sinha
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #23

                                          Venkatraman wrote: You ask most of the VB developers in india, i am sure you will be surprised to see their competence in the language. Er, I have a slightly (only slightly) different experience. I was surprised too. But not in the same way that you were probably talking about. :)
                                          Regards,

                                          Rohit Sinha

                                          Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
                                          - Mother Teresa

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