Actually, I think the message is right on point. Should any site be taken down, users, both legitimate and not, will take whatever means are necessary to circumvent the problem. Laws codify the punishment, but do not prevent the activity itself. A common joke that we make in the summertime when leaving the windows down in the car but locking the doors out of habit and someone mentions it, is to say "It keeps the honest people out."

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

That's bad, but I could give an example of a worse one that is actively used. I won't though, because it's an adult-oriented website (though not of the variety that teenage boys would be seeking). Sidebar: It is not easy to come up with a euphemism that is kid-sister friendly...

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

DonaldDuvall wrote:

Imagine this in a more real example. some of our functions at work have 15 arguments and all the extra unneeded words clutter your code. There is no arguing that VB is structured as well as C#. Simply fact that it is to verbose for large projects.

15 arguments to a function is excessive. Related arguments should be combined into structures to reduce the possibility for errors and to improve code readability. If the arguments are completely unrelated, your function is probably doing too many things and should be split up.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Chris Boss wrote:

Powerbasic provides me with the long time Basic language (has the same syntax as QuickBasic) so I can write procedural style code, but also gives many of the constructs found in C (ie. Data Pointers and Code Pointers), inline assembler, COM based OOP and a lot more. I don't hate VB ! VB is great in its own right. It just isn't powerful enough for me. Is too dependent upon ActiveX controls (can't even use the common controls or dialogs without an OCX).

Don't forget one thing: ActiveX is just another word for COM. You can use the common controls and dialogs without loading the OCX, it's just a lot harder. The OCX is just a COM DLL with additional information about what controls it provides. On the other hand, COM is now antiquated. VB.NET supports COM Interop, but it doesn't use it by default, and the common controls and dialogs are built into the Windows.Forms framework.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Disclaimer: I program in Perl now, so I'm used to using semicolons. A program in VB.NET will have far less underscores to continue a statement on a new line than a C# program has semicolons. If your statements are so long that they regularly need multiple lines, you are either doing something horribly wrong, or you're trying to program on a netbook (which could also be considered doing it horribly wrong). Most of the people who complain about VB(.NET) complain that they can't read the code (even though it is extremely verbose in comparison). Somehow some people just can't seem to follow blocks of code unless they are delimited with generic symbols ({..}) instead of specific words (If..End If). Of course there are also the people who believe that the programs will run better if written in C# (even though they compile down to the same MSIL)

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I'm surprised that no one has pointed to MSDN for this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.application.doevents.aspx[^] I know MSDN isn't always helpful, but it tells you what it does as well as when to use it and when not to use it. Realistically, most circumstances where it is not safe to call DoEvents indicates that you are doing something wrong (such as raising the event in its own handler). Note: the emphasis is on "most" since there are exceptions to almost every rule.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Fire rainbows (or circumhorizontal arcs) are fairly common in the US, and I've seen them on numerous occasions. I've never seen ones as remarkable as those in the pictures, however. I have seen a full double rainbow before, end-to-end, against a backdrop of dark clouds providing excellent contrast. You can deliberately see most of these wonders, but it's far more impressive to see ones where you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

If this was an indication of one of my turns coming on, I would hope someone would raise the blade, make the change, and rearrange me 'til I'm sane (or at the very least lock the door and throw away the key). I hope they send him back to mother in a cardboard box. (I'll add some more Floyd references to that. :laugh:)

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Actually, PostScript works quite well. Just about any decent printer supports it (with the exception of some specialty and low-end printers), Even more amusing, when using printers that talk PS in Linux, the "driver" is literally a text file that defines what the printer is capable of (PPD files)

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Around here, the "root" pronunciation is generally only used when referring to highways. This reminds me of a coworker I had once that told me a story of how he was called into his principal's office when he was in high school for allegedly hacking into the school's systems. The principal told him that he "knows all about your ip [pronounced like dip without the d] addresses and rooters"

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I highly recommend using Jon Skeet's EBCDIC encoding library[^] We have been using this for years. You basically just set up Encoding objects and pass them into Stream objects. Granted, this is VB.NET code, but it should still make sense:

Dim inputEncoding As Encoding = EbcdicEncoding.GetEncoding("EBCDIC-US")
Dim outputEncoding = Encoding.ASCII
Dim inputReader As StreamReader
Dim outputWriter As StreamWriter
inputReader = New StreamReader(inputFile, inputEncoding)
outputWriter = New StreamWriter(outputFile, False, outputEncoding)

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

To quote a famous adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The vBulletin software most likely predates the first official release of MDB2. The software was already built with the MySQL functions. Most people that operate forums don't really care what database it runs on as long as they don't have to maintain a separate support contract for it.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

From what I've seen with PHP, it lacks generic database functions. Sure, you can write your code to target MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, etc., but they do not share a common function base. As a result, to support a variety of databases, you would need to do one of the following: 1) Rewrite all of the database code per supported database and maintain the separate versions or 2) Roll your own database abstraction layer to make a common function base. At least PHP will work with just about any web server on any platform, which is far more than I can say for ASP.NET.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I don't know what is scarier... That they look so similar, or that the one that looks more human is labeled as the alien... :laugh:

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

It could be worse... I frequently type like I'm talking to bad speech recognition software. The words would be pronounced somewhat similarly to what I meant to type, but are usually way off (though spelled correctly for the "misheard" word).

While I am a VB programmer myself, I have to admit that there are dim-witted people who claim to have a firm grasp on the language. I had the pleasure yesterday of watching someone with the title of "Sr. Customer Technology Consultant" for a major US shipping company attempt to modify some VBA code on our shipping terminal. I could have easily done it in about 10-20 minutes, but she had to make at least three phone calls to other programmers at the company, all of whom opened remote sessions to the machine to attempt to change the code. To top it off, they broke another function that is critical to our needs. I don't consider myself to be a great programmer, but perhaps I should apply there... "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Oh, and what would have taken me 10-20 minutes at most, took at least 4 "programmers" 3 hours to do half-assed.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I use TigerDirect for two main reasons. Their main warehouse is in the area so everything I order comes next day even via UPS Ground, and they have 3 outlet stores in the area with the same prices as the online store (One of them is even attached to the warehouse)

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I consider descriptive syntax to be elegant. I know that I am not the only one that has looked at c/c++ code and asked "What kind of code block is this right curly brace ending?"

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

Paul Conrad wrote:

Christian Graus wrote: the retarded syntax Yep, but coming from a C/C++ background, I've managed to avoid the pitfalls of VB's syntax...

Coming from a VB background, I've managed to avoid the pitfalls of C/C++'s syntax... Employers pay for getting the product as quickly as possible more often than getting a product that runs marginally faster. Why should I reinvent the wheel every time and open my code to disastrous bugs such as memory leaks when I can get the job done faster without those pitfalls using VB? All programming languages are dangerous weapons... It is a matter of training the programmer to properly use them.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.

I didn't design the tables, I'm just tasked with working with them. If it has never had a value, it is null. If the value has been cleared, it is an empty string. Of course, using the isnull(field,'') is even more useful when you are looking for specific values when nulls are present. It has been my experience with MS SQL Server 2000 that queries behave oddly with nulls (such as excluding rows from the resultset.) especially when using the LIKE operator. Of course MSSQL 2000 has a number of quirks anyway. I've reworked a number of queries that just wouldn't return the correct data.

I don't claim to be a know it all, for I know that I am not...

I usually have an answer though.