Visual Basic Developers Revolt Against Microsoft

daria42 writes "More than 100 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) developers have signed a petition demanding the software company reconsider plans to end support for Visual Basic in its "classic" form. Developers claim the move could kill development on millions of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) applications and "strand" programmers that have not trained in newer languages."

Comments

Oi.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd revolt too, given that their motivation is a sweaty man who seems to have a single word vocabulary.

Re:Oi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who? RMS?

Re:Oi.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he has a two word vocabulary: "GNU/Linux"

Re:Oi.

[MoeDrippins]

That's offensive and stereotypical. He's not sweaty, he's fat.

What's the fuss about?

[KevinKnSC]

Does VB6 not work, all of a sudden?

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's been a gradual thing .. since the begining.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[isorox]

Does VB6 not work

Correct

all of a sudden

Incorrect

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Frans Faase]

I a software engineer with a honor degree in computer science, I have come to the conclusion that VB6 has some unique features that are not found in other language, which allow the creation of professional applications in an industrial setting. Because objects in VB6 have a COM interface, VB6 can be used to implement inter process communication with great ease. Also the event mechanism in VB6 is rather unique in sense that I have not seen an implementation in another program language. It is a very powerfull program technique that seems not to be used by many people. It is indeed a fact that 99.9% of the people writing programs in VB do not touch on these features, but it would be utterly wrong to judge a language solemnly on how the "average" user is using it. I am afraid that VB6 is one of the most undervalued languages being used. I also understand that many of the nice features in VB6 are broken by the transition from VB6 to VB.Net.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[hey!]

Well, I'd say it doesn't work for Microsoft, but it works fine for people who are using it for simple applications that can be build using a two tier architecture. The fact that those applications are out of fashion doesn't concern them in the least. The fact that you can do Y and Z better using a web services architecture is irrelevant to people who are doing X.

There is a tremendous pressure from vendors to overengineer applications. Whereever the the next arena of competition is, they're going to try to leverage their existing mindshare.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[arkanes]

The "event mechanism" in VB is identical to the event mechanism of pretty much every other event-based system out there, except that it's weaker. VB does enable very simple authoring of COM, and I have recommended it in the past for that reason, but since learning about PyWin32 and it's amazing COM support I would no longer do that. And, in fact, it is perfectly reasonable to judge a language based on what the average user does with it.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[ralphdaugherty]

Because objects in VB6 have a COM interface, VB6 can be used to implement inter process communication with great ease.

But the COM objects had to be written in C/C++, right? How is that great ease for the VB6 programmer?

rd

Re:What's the fuss about?

[NutscrapeSucks]

No, COM objects can be written in VB.

Not 5 years ago, Microsoft was pushing an "Enterprise Architecture" called "DNA" which was basically VB or J++ and the MTS/COM+ Application Server. It was their compeitition to J2EE.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[hey!]

Yes. The main thing about Microsoft has done with VB6 (and MFC in VC) is take an rather mediocre system and put an astonishing amount of work into an IDE to make using that system easy -- at least for some things. Which goes to show you can polish a turd.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Dr. Smeegee]

AcviveTurdPolish to you, buddy.

.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[ralphdaugherty]

No, COM objects can be written in VB.

Not 5 years ago, Microsoft was pushing an "Enterprise Architecture" called "DNA" which was basically VB or J++ and the MTS/COM+ Application Server. It was their compeitition to J2EE.

Ok, thanks. I guess that changed in VB6.

rd

Re:What's the fuss about?

[fm6]

No, it's great. VB6 supports all your Windows 98 programming needs!

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Bloater]

you mean:

long *lpActiveTurdPolish;
HRESULT h = GetPolisher(&lpActiveTurdPolish);
if (h == S_OK) {
((void STDMETHODCALLTYPE (*)(PROGLANG*))lpActiveTurdPolish)(visual_basic);
}

They managed to polish win32 and COM too.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you trying to say "all your base are belong to us" in Arabic?

that should be:

Kul Qawa'idkum tantami lana.

preserving the bad grammar.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Anonymous Coward]

I a software engineer with a honor degree in computer science,

An "honors" degree, or an "honorary" degree?

Maybe an honorary degree in ambiguity...

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's amazing COM support

"its".

Re:What's the fuss about?

[KevinKnSC]

See, that's what a semester of Arabic and a few minutes with an automatic translator couldn't do for me. Thanks.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[Frans Faase]

English is not my native language. (I checked the dictionary now.) I got a master degree and passed with distinction.

Re:What's the fuss about?

[oliverthered]

did it work in the first palce?

There's nothing to stop people developing new components for VB6 and most of the new windows COM objects should be accessible (but not all)!

Re:What's the fuss about?

[oliverthered]

Umm.... Java, or if you don't like Java try any Borland Tool, kylix is free for personal use, so is jbuilder. Other tools such as CBuilder and Delphi (object pascal) are free do download as a trial.

stranded

[Apreche]

"strand" programmers that have not trained in newer languages.

Listen, if you're a programmer who is only proficient in VB 5 and 6, its time to think about moving into another occupation. I suggest becoming a cab driver or farmer.

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need greater inteligence to become a farmer.

Re:stranded

[bblazer]

Oh well. I guess that if you only know VB6 then you are SOL. TIme to sign up for some classes at the local community college then. So what if MS is going to stop support for this "classic" form. I have always thought that VB and Office Macros were the cause of more security problems anyway.

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need greater intelligence. Full stop.

Re:stranded

[tclark]

And a better grasp of technology.

Re:stranded

[sl3xd]

Don't forget, most cab drivers speak more than one language (no matter how badly).

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

I have always thought that VB and Office Macros were the cause of more security problems anyway.
You have always been wrong.
READ: Microsoft Internet Explorer

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

> VB and Office Macros were the cause of more security problems anyway

Whereas doing the same thing with Python and OpenOffice has airtight security :P

Re:stranded

[Bishop923]

Don't forget, most cab drivers speak more than one language ...and none of them seem to be English!

Re:stranded

[tacocat]

They do have a valid point despite your vitriolic rantings.

Consider this: How long has VB6 been around? Given the they will no longer be promoting VB6 as a viable language, how would you feel if $SOMEONE were to declare your favorite language (perl, python, java, bash, C, C++) was no longer a viable language and that you would have to learn a completely new one.

In ten years, how many people do you think will still be writing code in Perl 5 instead of Perl 6?

I think they are entirely justified in their revolt. It's not about them and their lack of willingness to learn a new language. I am willing to give them some credit. Rather this is indicative of the common historical practice of turning everything over every 5 years.

When I worked in MS Access I started on Access 2.0. When everthing migrated to Access 95/98 it was a complete rewrite of everything that we had done. With the Access 2000 it's another complete rewrite of the applications involved and we are finding some bugs that simply cannot be circumvented.

The point I'm hoping to make is that even Fortran code can still be run under Unix if you have no need to change it. But to simply drop a programming language and move on is an unnecessary cost to the company and society.

Look at the mousetrap. How long has that thing been around without a design change from Victor? Sure, there are other newer methods and mousetraps that have come along, but the old tried and true model is still around and doing well. Similarly, VB6 applications, if they work well and do the job, should not be forced into obsolescence in this manner.

Re:stranded

[Bastian]

Any programmer who complains of being stranded because his old language has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn the new language needs to get the hell out of my industry.

Geez. Some of us actually want jobs, and now we have a bunch of VB programmers or their managers or whatever suddenly screaming that the sky is falling because their jobs might have to involve actual work in the near future.

I bet these are the same people who were pulling their hair out over the replacement of MS-DOS with Windows.

Re:stranded

[Nykon]

I wish I had mod points, i'd definitely MOD you up! Hit the nail on the head.

Re:stranded

[Geckoman]

In ten years, how many people do you think will still be writing code in Perl 5 instead of Perl 6?

My guess is all the people who aren't using the Perl 6 alpha release. ;-)

Re:stranded

[Nykon]

Do you think the code will just convert itself for free? Many of the people complaining are justified. They are developing and/or running enterprise VB programs for a company. This means many many man hours to re-write,test, implement the new code just to get it back to where it was prior to MS dropping support. To Joe home user, it's easy to say "who cares, learn a new language and get a new job" but with comments like that you lose focus at who has the most to lose. The companies using VB6. It will most likely be costly to them to make the change and viewed by many as an unneeded expenditure since, as the petition shows, phasing out VB6 is not needed or welcomed.

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any programmer who complains of being stranded because his old language has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn the new language needs to get the hell out of my industry."

Your industry? I guess you mean the industry that has graciously allowed you to work in it so far. Don't get too comfortable, though. Your experience can be made obsolete at any time, no matter what languages or OS's you use.

Re:stranded

[scotlewis]

Consider this: How long has VB6 been around?

About 10 years.

Given the they will no longer be promoting VB6 as a viable language, how would you feel if $SOMEONE were to declare your favorite language (perl, python, java, bash, C, C++) was no longer a viable language and that you would have to learn a completely new one.

Given that MS started promoting .NET back in 2000, and telling people that the 'new version of VB' would be based on it, that gives us a 5 year period between announcing the end of VB6 support and actually removing it. So, if someone where to tell me that 5 years from now there will be no more updates to Ruby? Well, I'd be unhappy, but I'd probably start re-reading Programming Python.

And, lets not forget that all the VB6 apps continue to work, and will do so for some time, and the VB6 IDE continues to work and will do so for some time. It's just a matter of needing to use a new system if you want to use new features. Which is unpleasant, but hardly surprising.

Re:stranded

[Bastian]

Your experience can be made obsolete at any time, no matter what languages or OS's you use.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Re:stranded

[Ridgelift]

I think they are entirely justified in their revolt. It's not about them and their lack of willingness to learn a new language. I am willing to give them some credit. Rather this is indicative of the common historical practice of turning everything over every 5 years.

Microsoft is within their rights to do whatever they want. It's THEIR language. Remember the previous rant on Slashdot about sharecroppers?:

"A farmer who works a farm owned by someone else. The owner provides the land, seed, and tools exchange for part of the crops and goods produced on the farm.

Microsoft wants to own it all, and they want you and I to pay for what they own. If these programmers really want to revolt, then join the ranks of the Open Source movement rather than bellyaching about how mean their ruler is.

Re:stranded

[npsimons]

Given the they will no longer be promoting VB6 as a viable language, how would you feel if $SOMEONE were to declare your favorite language (perl, python, java, bash, C, C++) was no longer a viable language and that you would have to learn a completely new one.

I would suck it up and learn a new language. That, or get a job with someone who still thought that $MY_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE was still viable (if the language was *that* good, which I haven't tried one yet that is).

It's part of being a professional. How many carpenters are still around who scoff at electric drills because they like the hand crank ones better? Granted, one of my favorite quotes is "a bad carpenter blames his tools, but even a master carpenter cannot make a house out of rotten wood"; however, I think that the rotting wood in this case *is* VB.

If these people can't even hack being a real software engineer, perhaps it is time for them to consider a new vocation. Those of us who are computer scientists will appreciate the breathing room and the fact that there will be one less brain dead language to have to dissuade the PHB's from using.

The point I'm hoping to make is that even Fortran code can still be run under Unix if you have no need to change it. But to simply drop a programming language and move on is an unnecessary cost to the company and society.

True, but I think that the company and whoever else use that language accepted that cost when they chose a closed, proprietary programming language. If Larry Wall suddenly decides to stop working on Perl, that won't stop it being used.

If this sounds rambling, it's only because your original post was (and maybe because of the benadryl; I hate allergies). You're arguing two points: that the programmers shouldn't have to learn a new language (false, IMHO), and that old but working programs shouldn't be dropped (true, IMHO). Compounding that, both of these are over generalized opinions, which could easily change whether they are right or wrong based on the circumstances.

Re:stranded

[4of12]

In ten years

That's roughly how long I go between learning new languages, although it can speed up some with scripting languages, like VB or Python.

Re:stranded

[Look KG486]

Any writer who complains of being stranded because the English language has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn Chinese needs to get the hell out of my industry.

Any mechanic who complains of being stranded because the internal combustion engine has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn bicycle repair needs to get the hell out of my industry.

Any accountant who complains of being stranded because accounts payable has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn how to short sell equities needs to get the hell out of my industry.

Catch my drift? I'll give you your VB rant for what it's worth, but I challenge you to name another industry that tolerates (read: pushes) the deprecation of its workforce's skill set as readily as IT does.

Yes, things change. People must adapt. However, at some point, we have to produce something, and many who code for a living (or existence as it is) do not want to spend their free time retooling their skill set. They want to have families, go places, meet people.

I don't think they deserve your boot in their ass for that.

Re:stranded

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, my favorite language HAS been declared no longer viable, and I didnt sit and pout about it, I moved on. I moved on because I understood the principles of programming and computer logic. I didnt put all my eggs into one basket case language.

Why doesnt it surpise me that VB programmers are crying bloody foul, maybe its time to step away from your VBA university and into the real world. Its like the boss I had who only saw the world from the view of a Clipper guru. Well Clipper is toast, and so was he. Sure his apps may be running someone, but they are also probably being replaced as I type this.

Lesson: Learn the theory, not the language.
Lesson Part 2: Never stop learning.

Re:stranded

[tacocat]

Consider this: How long has VB6 been around? About 10 years.

No it hasn't. Check your facts.

Re:stranded

[tacocat]

Microsoft wants to own it all, and they want you and I to pay for what they own. If these programmers really want to revolt, then join the ranks of the Open Source movement rather than bellyaching about how mean their ruler is.

But isn't this the first step?

In order to get the MVP status, you must have some dedication to get there and keep it. And they have.

You are missing the point behind this that is so very significant. Even the faithful are getting burned by the practices. Sure you can rant and bitch about bellyaching whiners and evil corporations. But you're still missing the point. Now the practices are affecting their followers in a way that is forcing them to make a change that would have never been considered 5 years ago. To Stay with Microsoft or to GO!!

Re:stranded

[tacocat]

You're arguing two points: that the programmers shouldn't have to learn a new language (false, IMHO), and that old but working programs shouldn't be dropped (true, IMHO). Compounding that, both of these are over generalized opinions, which could easily change whether they are right or wrong based on the circumstances.

They shouldn't have to learn new languages. And your analogy to 100+ year old tools to modern tools is a bit lame. We aren't talking about generations of developers here.

But what is interesting here is that they have no choice in the matter. The troops have been considered as Expendable.

Re:stranded

[mcrbids]

Any programmer who complains of being stranded because his old language has died or fallen out of favor and he's unwilling to learn the new language needs to get the hell out of my industry.

Except that isn't the core issue.

The issue is that many of these organizations have *huge* investments in VB6-based software. Like it, hate it, it's there, working, and solving *REAL* needs.

There are people who are paid full-time to work on these softwares - and they are justifiably upset. Wouldn't YOU be? If you ran a business, and had invested $500,000 into specialized software, to now find that your software will be no longer supported - aren't you going to be just a little teensy bit pissed off?

Re:stranded

[quarkscat]

Stranded? You don't know what stranded is until
you've been abandoned with Fortran-90 and Forth!

And in the day, I used to have to walk to school
5 miles each way, uphill, in the snow. Stranded
VB6 coders -- Sheeesh! Bunch of wimps!

Re:stranded

[npsimons]

They shouldn't have to learn new languages.

Yeah, and I shouldn't have to work for a living. I'm sorry, I didn't make the rules, I just play by them because I don't want to starve to death.

And your analogy to 100+ year old tools to modern tools is a bit lame. We aren't talking about generations of developers here.

Okay, how about this: you claim to be a carpenter. Someone hires you to build a bookshelf. You can't get any screws because the store is out of them, but all you know how to use is a screwdriver. The customer doesn't care, he just wants his bookshelf and tells you to use a hammer and nails. You whine that "I shouldn't *have* to learn how to use a hammer!". You aren't really a carpenter. Replace "carpenter" with "software engineer", "screwdriver" with "VB6" and "hammer" with "another programming language".

But what is interesting here is that they have no choice in the matter. The troops have been considered as Expendable.

Sure they have a choice. Learn a new language or get a job with a company that will continue to use VB6. No, they aren't considered as expendable, they've basically been told "Sorry, your favorite tool will no longer be supported. Try our new shiny tool!" Which if they had just chosen a tool whose destiny wasn't ordained by a third party they have no control over, they wouldn't have this problem.

Re:stranded

[BigLinuxGuy]

I thought Sun and its legion of Java developers had already declared all other languages were not viable and think that everything should be written in Java?

Re:stranded

[BigLinuxGuy]

Interesting though I find your comment, I feel compelled to point out that Visual Basic is owned by a single vendor and that vendor has every right to do what it will with its own products, even if that means discontinuing them. Microsoft has tried since the late 90s to kill VB and get VB developers to move over to C#. I guess they've finally decided to bite the bullet on that point. The other languages you mentioned have no single vendor owner and do not suffer from the same sort of arbitrary decisions.

Oddly enough, Java is a vendor owned language. While Sun keeps control, it seems more willing to use a community model to ensure continuing growth.

For what it's worth, this is sort of a weird post for me to respond to since it requires defending Sun and Microsoft.

Re:stranded

[tacocat]

Yeah, and I shouldn't have to work for a living. I'm sorry, I didn't make the rules, I just play by them because I don't want to starve to death.

OK, you have a point and I didn't express that very well.

But what I found insightful to this post wasn't the issue of the the developers, but the risk that MSFT is putting themselves into here.

They are taking some of their very dedicated developers and forcing them into a position of choosing a new language. Today there might be an increased risk that they will reconsider their developing platform and move away from MSFT entirely. This might be as simple as Java on Windows or worse.

In other news...

[lexarius]

MS-DOS programmers upset that QBASIC will no longer be supported under Longhorn, afraid of being stranded since they never learned any other languages. Rest of programmers glad to see them gone.

Breaking news

[zeath]

Stuff gets old as time goes by and tends to be replaced. This is just a testament to the way those VB developers have been educated - they have been handed a series of recipes for developing applications without any theory or background information, and now their recipes are outdated. They're trying to swim in the wake of a new language (or, in the case of VB.NET, a new interface and toolset for the same syntactical language), and all they can think of doing is scream for help and flail around wildly hoping someone else will fix the situation. Languages evolve. Life goes on. It's the nature of the industry.

Re:Breaking news

[shufler]

Actually, that's not the point at all. The language itself has changed drastically from 6 to .NET. The problem with applications created in VB6 is that they will not compile using the VB.NET compiler. These developers speaking out are talking about how Microsoft is dropping support for these people. Helping port code from legacy VB to VB.NET probably fits under the category of said support.

Re:Breaking news

[shadwwulf]

It's not just knowledge of theory. While the they made their bed and now must lay on it by trusting a Microsoft as the provider of their development platform, it's important to point out that it's not just a knowledge issue.

One of the major issues is not that they don't know how to port their application, but that the compiler won't be around in a supported form. Without an available compiler the apps need to be ported. Now for anybody that has ever been in the hellish position of having to code a VB app, you will know that you are facing a full rewrite if you want to move to VB.NET

MW

Re:Breaking news

[Anonymous Coward]

Whine, whine, whine. Next, you'll tell us fortran-IV mainframe code doesn't run on fortran 95 under a modern system.

Re:Breaking news

[tim256]

I agree that VB 6 is not very good for OOP. It's been years since I've programmed mostly in VB, but I think VB 6 is a bit faster than .NET. It seems like .NET is just as slow as Java (sometimes slower). That's the main reason that I can think of keeping VB 6.

Re:Breaking news

[Anonymous Coward]

"they have been handed a series of recipes for developing applications without any theory or background information, and now their recipes are outdated."

What recipes are you referring to?

Re:Breaking news

[zeath]

It was an analogy to programming courses and instructional material that teach people "to get A, click there and then type X". Much like any given recipe, it doesn't teach you "why" but rather just "how", and without any prior/alternate knowledge is not applicable to any other situation you'd find yourself in. Cooking is a hobby of mine, and because of my programming background I find myself drawn toward immersing myself in the "why" materials instead of just memorizing recipes. I find a similarity in the overall paradigm of skills in programming and cookery, especially in regards to the people who memorize versus those who learn.

Re:Breaking news

[zeath]

The problem with applications created in VB6 is that they will not compile using the VB.NET compiler.

There are lots of other projects in other languages that aren't forward-compatible to .NET also. The termination of support was bound to happen sooner or later. Apparently Microsoft wants it sooner so they can get their grubby hands on more consulting, education, and support fees. To be honest, I think dropping VB6 is a blessing, because that tells me that in future OS versions they are trying to weed out old code. I do feel sorry for all the time and money invested into VB6 projects, but VC++ 6 is the same age and, despite its widespread use, I don't see anyone crying about the prospective loss of MFC or GDI.

Re:Breaking news

[zeath]

Old hardware running old OSes can still run old software. It's just not supported by the manufacturer any more. There are thousands of companies still using old-as-dirt servers to maintain their COBOL database applications and FORTRAN processes that are too time-consuming to modify to run on a newer system.

Re:Breaking news

[shufler]

...I don't see anyone crying about the prospective loss of MFC or GDI.

You're right. Everyone's cheering to see MFC and GDI go far, far away.

Re:Breaking news

[ynohoo]

You don't need to run "old as dirt servers" to maintain COBOL, unless you have it tied into old unsupported teleprocessors or databases. COBOL support exists on most platforms, and for good reason.

Re:Breaking news

[zeath]

You don't need to, but many still do. Usuaully because some product or another is no longer supported that is needed for their software to function, and they don't care to invest the time and money into porting and updating the software for use on a better platform with better tools.

Ah, the joys...

[TuringTest]

... of a proprietary-source based community.

Re:Ah, the joys...

[Anonymous Coward]

This isssue is about official Microsoft support. There is nothing source code access could do that would change it.

Re:Ah, the joys...

[TuringTest]

No, but with Open Source code (a.k.a. free software) there also could be official non-Microsoft support.

Re:Ah, the joys...

[mchawi]

Who says there still can't be non-Microsoft support? ;)

I'm sure many consulting companies will make a fortune supporting this stuff once MS stops supporting it for free (notice they are still supporting it for cost, per the article).

Re:Ah, the joys...

[PB8]

No consultant group can support VB like businesses would want it supported. I'm convinced this is the kiss-off of death for VB. How will any non-MSFT support manage to keep VB working in the slipstreamed world of Windows?

Who will maintain and support the required VB6 runtimes, and IDE toolchain, as Windows XP evolves, security added, and, someday, Longhorn emerges?

Even if the VB language and runtimes were open sourced, all those proprietary controls and ActiveX objects programmers used to do their projects can't easily be replicated. Microsoft would have to ask vendors to open source them as well These controls will likely just end up unsupported as well.

Consider how fast something basic like Data Access has changed since VB4: DAO, RDO, OLE-DB, ADO, ADOX... How long until ADOX won't work in VB? Perhaps starting with version 3.0?

So, who will continue to support the controls used in VB apps? I presume they'll be quickly abandoned by vendors who also need MSFT support in order to continue to maintain them.

It'll take a huge effort to replace VB plus the vast ecosystem of add-ins, controls and Active X objects that grew up around VB and used by businesses. A whole slew of business critical controls existed for VB. These easy to hook-in after-market tools covered common valuable functions like charting, grids, finance, reporting, graphics, maps, media, electronic controls, and various internet protocol controls.

Think of all the business sold on moving off ANSI standard COBOL to VB with the promise of snazzy user-friendly GUI-based client programs written with the help of off-the-shelf add in software component controls. So now VB is just about gone. And COBOL is still around and multiple vendors supply the development tools, some free, some for fees. Who'd have guessed COBOL would outlast VB? That would be the point of leverage to use with Microsoft. Gates sold the business world on a proprietary language to replace an ANSI one and now turns its back on business.

Unbelievable

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so used to Free Software that such problems seem almost unbelievable. It must be really frustrating to be so dependent on one company who can render your skill set irrelevant by one decision. You might say: isn't it possible for FSF to stop supporting GCC? Of course it is. But the point is that they cannot make it illegal for others to support. Just imagine how much more productive the time spent by those revolting developers would be if they were allowed to support that project themselves. But they are not. They have to beg or threaten Microsoft to support it for them. And that is just not a good business strategy in the long run, when eventually all of the products meet the end of line time. Sad.

Re:Unbelievable

[ClosedSource]

On the other hand, if these VB programmers had used the "free" GNU "C" or "C++" compiler instead, it would have taken them much longer to develop their Windows applications and they would have made a lot less money.

Windows desktop development has never been a high priority for free/open source tool developers, so they just aren't competitive compared to the closed source alternatives from MS and others.

Re:Unbelievable

[INetUser]

Well, I did a bit of VB 5 & 6 coding in my day, and then I did one program in VB.Net. I have to say that it was a real step backwards.

In VB6, you ended up doing 1/2 of your development work in the interactive debugger in the middle of a running session. If you needed to change the code of a method on an object, all you had to do was pop the execution stack one level, edit all the code of that method that you wanted, and then step back into it. It was a great was to beat the compile/link/debug cycle.

That aside, if I were one of the revolting programmers, I'd seriously consider just migrating it to Gambas: http://gambas.sourceforge.net/ rather than staying with MS and their dictatorship.

Sure the porting to Gambas would take sometime, but you got to figure that it'd be the last time that you'd have to do it. After that you could freeze on a particular version and support it yourself if you needed to, or continue to evolve along with it (Gambas). At least you'd have a choice.

Now that I'm developing on Linux with C++ and Gtkmm, there is one thing that I do miss: the capability of MS debuggers. I'm using ddd right now, and everything that I turn around, it seg faults, or looses the debuggee program thread or something, and a lot of times, it just plain old does not find the debug symbols so that I can effectively inspect the state of a variables (and yes, this is with g++ creating the most verbose debug symbols possible). I've eneded up using trace debug macros to do most of the debugging, of course this means that it's back to the compile/link/debug cycle again.

Re:Unbelievable

[fishermonger]

I am so used to Free Software that such problems seem almost unbelievable.

Ummm, how does GNOME and HP droping it's plan to use it sound to you? They dropped it because the API changed too much. Sure GNOME 1.X still exists but what level of support does it get?

No surprises

[ross_winn]

Like MS cares. They have spent a huge amount of money developing .net and c#, and now thay want cash to try and staunch the bleeding. Not that they cannot afford to lose money, but they don't want to lose money if they can help it. besides, if visual basic is the only language you know, can you really call yourself a programmer? I don't think so.

Re:No surprises

[fishermonger]

besides, if visual basic is the only language you know, can you really call yourself a programmer? I don't think so.

I understand what you mean, but I would answer that question "yes, sure I can call someone who knows only language X a programmer".

It's like saying to someone who draws only with charcoal: you not an artist.

Re:No surprises

[ross_winn]

I do not think it is like that at all. It may be the same as saying "if all you use are crayons then maybe you aren't an artist" Programmers commonly have 3-5 languages that they are proficient in, and artists have more than one medium, even if they prefer one over the others.

VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nberardi]

This is a problem with some developers they get too comfortable and don't want to learn anything new, and they don't want to loose their job. I have a friend who works with many people like this. They are horrible developers and don't want to learn .NET, because it scares them. From stories that he has told me they shouldn't be programming VB6 code much less programming a VCR. So I am not sure if putting these guys out of work is such a bad thing.

Also why should Microsoft continue to support a language that they are no longer developing, or using, or plan on using. They have moved into a new area of development, over 3 years ago. The developers that use VB6 had plenty of time to learn .Net or move into PHP, Java, Pyton, etc.

Stop whining...

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[jtosburn]

Also why should Microsoft continue to support a language that they are no longer developing, or using, or plan on using. They have moved into a new area of development, over 3 years ago. The developers that use VB6 had plenty of time to learn .Net or move into PHP, Java, Pyton, etc.

They should continue to sell and support VB6 because there's a market for it. They should also develop new things that they think are better, and if there's a market for them, then they will sell. Maybe both can sell well enough to justify their existence, or maybe one would be a clear winner.

What this really does is clearly illustrate the folly of relying on closed source development tools. They have you by the balls, and can force you to redevelop essentially at will. You are not the mster of your own destiny. A single provider of basic infrastructure undermines the free market; I only hope that the lesson can be learned rather than eternally repeating the failure.

Stop whining...
--
Free Mac Mini: http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14654890 I recommend the efax free trial offer, easy to join and cancel

This is choice: you chastise people for "whining" and then beg for a free Mac Mini. I guess you're exempt from your own criticism.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nightski]

Let me put it this way. Just because there is a "Market" for something, doesn't mean that you should sell and support a product in that market. The market might be really small.

You know what? .NET has been around since 2000. That's 5 years. Get with the times.

Too many lazy ass developers if you ask me. .NET is significantly better than VB6 in ALL aspects. That is development, testing, deployment, etc... It even has the drag & drop coding style!

I wrote a large application in VB.NET this past summer that is being used by NASA today to calculate various risks associated with shuttle launches. I hate VB and hope to never touch it again, but VB.NET is very powerful due to the .NET Framework behind it.

Enough ranting. This whole thing is getting old. I mean, they are Microsoft MVPs! You think they would be able to learn a new technology.

This is like all the assembler programmers out there - not wanting to learn a language like C++ because assembler is soooo much more powerful :-)

(BTW - Assembler does have its place, I was just trying to make a point).

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[jtosburn]

Well, yes, the market might be very small. But it might be large. People speaking up merely demonstrates that there is market; the point of a petition is to quantify the dissent. My point was twofold: speaking up is not whining, nor is it either whining or lazy to wish to be able to reuse existing code rather than rewrite/redevelop just because your vendor thinks it's the best way to go. Which was my bigger point: that one should have some measure of control over one's own destiny.

Whether or not these people can learn a new language is irrelevant. I might think that they're totally nuts to actually want to stay with VB6, (and I do), but I think that they ought to have the choice. And if they do migrate to something else, I hope they learn something from this experience nad migrate to a development platform that doesn't lead them around by the ear.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[ClosedSource]

"This is a problem with some developers they get too comfortable and don't want to learn anything new"

Given that many Unix types won't use any other type of OS, insist on using only their favorite editor (such as VI or emacs) or favorite language (usually "C") and still love the command line, this inclination is not limited to VB programmers.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[fishermonger]

I think they are winning because it would take enourmous effort to migrate large applications to .NET.

Has microsoft moved all of it's sites to ASP.NET?

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nightski]

I agree with you. Except they still do have a choice. Microsoft isn't saying that you "can't" develop with VB6. I have the cds still if you want em :-) They are just not supporting it. Even on the big projects, how many times do you call support on your dev platform? Especially one as mature as VB6? Plus there is still a community behind it as far as I can see. I don't know. I guess if you want to stick with VB6 the option is still there. Microsoft is just trying to say "move on."

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nxtw]

Some people are stubborn. They refuse to change. Just like some refuse to drive anything but a Ford, without a reason, or others still refuse to use cellular phones. Some people (e.g. my grandma) refuse to drive on expressways. Others only stick with their favorite OS/editor/language/etc.

Some people are just stubborn.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nxtw]

I might think that they're totally nuts to actually want to stay with VB6, (and I do), but I think that they ought to have the choice. Microsoft is not forcing them to move on. They have a choice; they may continue to use VB6 for as long as they want to.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[jpop32]

This is a problem with some developers they get too comfortable and don't want to learn anything new, and they don't want to loose their job.

No, this is people who would rather be doing their job, instead of being forced to spend _valuable_time_ on something else, for no other justifiable reason than because Microsoft feels they should do it.

VB for them is just a tool. A tool they learned how to use efficiently and successfully. A tool which is now arbitrarily deemed obsolete. I say, more power to them. They can't be expected to tear down a building a start anew each time Microsoft discovers a better brick.

Yes, yes, I know, they asked for it, proprietary systems yada yada yada... >/dev/null please.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nberardi]

VBScript doesn't equal VB6

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nberardi]

Nobody is telling them they have to stop using VB6, Microsoft says there won't be anymore releases for it. No more security upgrades, and the API's of the future will no longer be VB6 friendly. Why Microsoft keep an decade old API around?

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[ralphdaugherty]

VBScript doesn't equal VB6

He wasn't comparing it to VB6, he was comparing it to QuickBasic, and even then he didn't say it equaled it.

rd

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[Anonymous Coward]

The developers that use VB6 had plenty of time to learn .Net or move into PHP, Java, Pyton, etc.

But those don't have very good GUI building tools. VB may be lacking some as a language, but for making GUI's without GUI issues getting in the way, no tool comes close (well, maybe Delphi). Web apps are about 2 to 5 times as much code to do the same thing. VB was designed from day one for biz forms, the web was not and it still shows. And, TK is not visual. You may argue that its screens scale better, but that is usually not a big requirement.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nberardi]

I think they are winning because it would take enourmous effort to migrate large applications to .NET.

Has microsoft moved all of it's sites to ASP.NET?

What does that sound like to you? ASP == VBScript and all Microsoft's old sites were in ASP. So the statement leads me to beleive that he didn't know the difference.

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[ralphdaugherty]

What does that sound like to you? ASP == VBScript and all Microsoft's old sites were in ASP. So the statement leads me to beleive that he didn't know the difference.

Oh, sorry, there was a different thread I was in with VBscript explicitly named and compared to QuickBasic.

rd

Re:VB6 People Whine Too Much

[nberardi]

Yeah I sort of figured. I saw the thread talking about QBasic.

I'm sure there are people who want support for NT6

[datastalker]

...but to be realistic, Microsoft can't continue to support everyone forever. They've added an EOL for VB 6, and they have an upgrade path (yes, it will be difficult) to the better languages they're using now.

I believe "programmers" should have been quoted

[marat]

Unlike most people here I have been actually writing on VB professionally (and I even admit it - +2 points in HT! :)), I can say you really don't have to put a number before each line, and variables can be longer than one character, but still it's good old basic (project had to be rewritten on Pascal after all). So I doubt there's anything useful for human kind among mentioned millions of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) applications and "strand" programmers. However I doubt anything usefil will be written on VB .Net or any other kind of VB either.

In MMO terms...

[keiferb]

Can I have your stuff?

I give away a slogan for your FOSS business model

[TuringTest]

With Open Source, this wouldn't have happened.

All of you entrepreneurs can use it under public domain terms.

Reconsider?

[BandwidthHog]

More than 100 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) developers have signed a petition demanding the software company reconsider plans to end support for Visual Basic in its "classic" form.

Sounds to me like Microsoft refuses to kill off VB, and those who know its horrors best are demanding that it be extinguished so that another generation of programmers will not have to endure what they have gone through.

I can respect that.

Re:Reconsider?

[Anonymous Coward]

You live in bizarro world, don't you? You know, where things seem to you to be exactly opposite of how you read them.

Re:Reconsider?

[BandwidthHog]

Hey man, everybody's gotta have a hobby.

Re:I give away a slogan for your FOSS business mod

[nberardi]

Yeah and Open Source languages have really taken off. Granted there is Pyton and PHP, but lets not forget programming languages like D, and C+++.

This just in

[Fr05t]

Slashdot readers have even less sympathy for whiny VB programmer than Microsoft!

Cry babies

[LordNimon]

Any decent programmer should be able to pick up a new language quickly. Not only that, but change is part of the industry. If you can't deal with changing technologies, then you shouldn't be a programmer.

Besides, we're talking about Visual Basic! VB programmers who complain about having to do more work and learn more stuff deserve to have their jobs outsourced.

Re:Cry babies

[daviddennis]

I think the main complaint, which I think is reasonable, is that millions of lines of code have already been written in VB 6.0.

These millions of lines constitute already running applications, many of which have taken years of work. True, they will continue to run as long as people still have copies of VB 6.0 to use. But when Microsoft adds new technologies for, say, interacting between VB programs and Word, the old software won't be able to take advantage of this.

Products are indeed eventually end of lifed, but generally they are replaced by new, comparable products. I've owned Mercedes-Benz cars for all my life, and the same basic driving techniques I've used on the ancient 1972 280SEL 4.5 work now on my 1991 420SEL. If I walk into the showroom tomorrow and buy a 2005 S500, I can drive out without an extensive retraining course. I might want to learn the new features, but the core driving techniques don't change. All my old skills and habits will still work fine.

In many respects, VB is actually a very nicely designed environment. The concept was brilliant, despite what all you code snobs say today. I loved VB and then I grew to loathe it, because bugs and bloat made the product I wrote in it much less than it should have been. As a direct result of my VB experience, I grew to loathe Microsoft with a passion, and became an all-Macintosh kind of guy.

I remember in particular how awful the change from VB 3 to VB 4 was. Every SQL statement in my program - and there were hundreds - had to be found, tracked down and recoded. It was a real nightmare. I can only imagine what today's VB programmers are doing trying to imperfectly convert 6.0 to .net. Even though I no longer use VB, I shed a tear of pity for them and their present fate.

So I would not be so harsh on VB developers, because converting thousands of lines of code into an all-new environment with completely different designs and challenges is a tough, thankless job.

No wonder a lot of them switched out of the Microsoft domain. Clearly, you can't trust Microsoft. And doesn't that make most of us, well, actually agree with them for a change?

D

Re:Cry babies

[wyldeone]

I don't think your argument would apply in this case. Notice that it is VB developers (if you can call them that) that are complaining. Not businesses. The developers can always learn VB.NET (or, god forbid, a language that is actually halfway decent.) It's the companies that will have these problems.

Re:Cry babies

[daviddennis]

The developers start complaining first.

Then the businesses.

Call it an early-warning system.

D

Re:Cry babies

[ralphdaugherty]

I don't think your argument would apply in this case. Notice that it is VB developers (if you can call them that) that are complaining. Not businesses. The developers can always learn VB.NET (or, god forbid, a language that is actually halfway decent.) It's the companies that will have these problems.

The petition was signed by over 100 Microsoft MVP's, some sort of Developers, Developers, Developers, etc. recognition program.

They represent very large code bases, whether for businesses or commercial software. It's their careers, their livlihoods, and their need to explain why it all has to be rewritten.

It's not something they can walk away from, because it's an investment by both them and the customers.

One of the biggest drawbacks to Java for business back in the late '90s was that it wasn't ready. It hadn't stabilized as far as they were concerned. VB was stable.

Companies lose faith when their stable code base has to be rewritten to keep working.

Business losing faith in Microsoft is long overdue.

rd

I'm really sorry but...

[Yuioup]

VB6 is crap. Not a truly OO language. Your hands are tied to a bunch of high level commands and if you want more features you need to download - sorry BUY - a lot of nonsensical components.

... or you can write your own components. But unfortunatly the average VB6 programmer doesn't know how to do that.

... and if they did know how to do that, then they'd use C to write those components.

... which would kill any reason why you should use VB6.

So VB6 is crap.

VB.NET rules. Why? Because it's a wrapper around C#. And C# rules.

Y

Re:I'm really sorry but...

[lisaparratt]

C is crap. Not a truly OO language. Your hands are tied to a bunch of low level commands, and if you want more features you need to download a lot of nonsensical libraries. ... or you can write your own libraries. But unfortunately the average C programm doesn't know how to do that and make them reusable. ... and if they did know how to do that, then they'd use LISP to write those components. ... whih would kill any reason why you should use C. So C is crap. Scheme rules. Why? Because it's the essence of LISP. And LISP rules. L

Re:I'm really sorry but...

[duguk]

What bollocks! C is nothing like VB6, VB is a Rapid Application Developement platform and makes it easy for writing BUSINESS APPS.

I know how to make components in VB6 - its really not difficult. Any VB6 programmer who doesn't know how isn't a expert vb6 programmer - maybe at your company they're like that but not where I used to work!

Ok, its crap for games, but its not designed for that!

And it works great with ASP; how else can you integrate MS Word or Excel with a webpage? I know it sounds evil but it is useful for an intranet and stuff...

Can we please have some tolerance for programming languages? Not operating systems tho, Windows is shite.

Oh, and .NET is shite too. C'mon, how many bugs has it got in it? At least VB6 works when written by a competent programmer.

Re:I'm really sorry but...

[Tablizer]

VB6 is crap. Not a truly OO language.

VB has a lot of flaws, but almost none of them have to do with OO. OO has been overhyped, at least in the domain of biz apps.

I would like to see a real-world problem caused by lack of full OO.

Re:I'm really sorry but...

[jbplou]

Its not a wrapper around C#. Its C# pier. They both compile to IL, not VB.NET to C# to IL.

Did you mean?

[marat]

Slashdot readers have even less respect for whiny VB programmers than for Microsoft!

Re:Did you mean?

[Fr05t]

All of the above.

Artificial Jobs?

[GeckoX]

I'm sorry, but if you're a programmer and you're worried about your ability to program outside of VB6, you deserve to lose your job.

Sheesh, pleading with MS to prop up your job via the only thing you've ever bothered to learn.

There is no thing as a programmer who can only work in one language. People who can only use VB6 exclusively, I hate to break the news to you but, you're not programmers.

Besides, there are way better options now for new development, and any legacy support can still be done with existing tools. MS is not coming to your door to remove all VB6 tools from your machines for christ sakes.

Damned, if any of my programmers came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[GigsVT]

Yeah, it's like all those people that whine about offshoring.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[duffbeer703]

Its not the issue of programming in a language other than VB6, its the issue of porting existing internal VB6 and VBA (especially within Excel) applications to VB.NET. This problem is compounded by the fact that many of the 3rd party libraries in use aren't being ported to VB.NET either.

Microsoft will probably start ripping VB6 runtimes from future versions of MS Office & Windows -- so it is a big issue.

Similar issues happened during the Perl4 -> Perl5 transition on a smaller scale. It was painful process, enough so that the Perl6 developers are actually implementing a Perl5 runtime in Perl6.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[Winterblink]

Just taking a guess here, but it could be less about programmers propping up their job, and more about the companies they work for having to deal with a whole lot of clients who are now faced with no support for the applications they've been given. I'm not saying VB is at all superior to more modern languages out there, but I've been involved in a lot of contracts where this kind of thing has happened and it's not pretty, especially when clients are told they might need their applications redeveloped.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[ralphdaugherty]

Damned, if any of my programmers came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately.

The people complaining are owners of a lot of code that won't work under .NET. I am quite sure they don't give a damn whether you think you can fire them or not, they probably employ a lot more people than you do.

The knee jerks here go on and on about coding skills, but it's the code base that quits working natively unless rewritten that is what is being fought to protect, in other words, a lot of investment. Money.

I don't code VB, but back in the day I wrote some big systems in DOS Compiled Basic, it's predecessor, which did the job well.

Nevertheless I convinced a Fortune 200 when I was there to use Delphi instead of VB, which raised all kinds of havoc. The Microsoft Certifieds walked. But Delphi was the right choice.

I guess Microsoft hired away the Delphi team, wrote C#, and now the Microsofties say C# rules.

Go figure.

rd

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[arkanes]

I still say tough shit. These are the same companies who ignored everyone warning about single-vendor dominance, and who decided that the speed-to-market of VB was worth it, because Microsoft isn't going to go away, right? You tied yourself inextricably to a single major vendor who wants you to be a recurring revenue stream and not a one-timer. Now you're seeing the downside of it. Maybe next time people will think a little bit more about future-proofing.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[GeckoX]

Man I am sick of hearing this freaking argument.

You've got a codebase writtin in VB6 (or whatever older platform).

That codebase is in production on whatever system it was originally designed to work on, and thus subsequently deployed on.

Future support for VB6 is dropped from the current development platform. Longhorn is released and doesn't contain the older VB6 runtimes. (Aside from the fact that _this_ will NOT happen for a VERY VERY long time as MS has ensured release after release that even that ancient history old crappy 16bit vb app still works, but anyways...)

So longhorn comes out. Do you upgrade your deployed platforms to this and break the support for your app? Or do you leave shit alone because it ISN'T EVEN BROKE!

This is what is really really pissing me off. NOBODY is forcing ANYBODY to upgrade ANYTHING. If it works today, and you upgrade to something newer that you KNOW won't support your current code base, that would be YOUR problem. There are VERY VERY few cases where the acceptable solution would be to force reimplementation of a codebase in a new tech just so it'll work on longhorn or whatever.

If you choose (Note that, 'you choose', very important here) to port your legacy VB code base to VB.NET, you'd better have a damned good reason. Did everyone have to go out and upgrade their c++ apps to c#/.NET apps just because it came out? Fuck no. Why is VB so freaking special then?

(It isn't, I already explained this fallacy above)

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[GigsVT]

That is a viable strategy.. sometimes.

When your platform goes EOL, any new security flaws are something you are going to have to address yourself, which might not even be possible with closed source apps.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[ClosedSource]

"Damned, if any of my programmers came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."

That should be "Damned IF I had any programmers working for me and one of them came to me bitching about this I'd likely fire them immediately."

Seriously, if you really do have programmers working for you and you're not the president of your company, you'd probably face firing yourself for getting rid of your staff without any real justification.

In most companies that have made it beyond the startup phase, managers don't have the power to fire people without following a process. Your attitude is exactly why companies have such a policy.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[chochos]

The knee jerks here go on and on about coding skills, but it's the code base that quits working natively unless rewritten that is what is being fought to protect, in other words, a lot of investment. Money.

And yet, the news here isn't about a bunch of companies complaining about Microsoft's decision. It's about VB programmers complaining about it.

And I bet they're complaining because they won't be able to keep writing new apps in the only language they know. And the companies will decide to rewrite their VB apps in some other language, maybe 5 or 10 years from now, but they will. Their days are counted, and they still don't want to learn a new language.

Sorry, but I can't feel any sympathy or respect or anything for these guys. Learn something new! it happens to everyone! There are many lessons to be learned from this, and from what I've been reading, most of them have already been mentioned.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[ralphdaugherty]

Sorry, but I can't feel any sympathy or respect or anything for these guys. Learn something new! it happens to everyone! There are many lessons to be learned from this, and from what I've been reading, most of them have already been mentioned.

The best response I saw as far as business commenting was consider it an early warning system.

The petitioners included over 200 Microsoft MVP's representing millions upon millions of lines of code. A similar reaction would be heard if C would not compile in C++, something I have seen mentioned many times as a major drawback to C++.

But if backwards compatability had been broken, I would hear the same thing from C programmers.

rd

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[chochos]

With the slight difference that C programmers do not depend on a single company to have a reliable compiler. Neither do C++ programmers. Actually, if C++ programmers do whine a lot about C compatibility, they can just fork the C++ compiler, and have two different compilers: one with C compatibility and one without it.

The VB guys are screwed if MS decided to dump VB6.

Re:Artificial Jobs?

[ralphdaugherty]

The VB guys are screwed if MS decided to dump VB6.

Yeah, you're right, that's the deal they made with the devil. Maybe some companies will think twice about staying locked into that.

rd

Hmmm ??

[Pig Hogger]

I don't get it. How can something as trite as Visual Basic can be called "programming"????

Re:Hmmm ??

[Anonymous Coward]

The /. snobbery is a truly astonishing thing.

Why would such otherwise intelligent people voluntarily blind themselves to the existence of a whole 'nother world?

I've heard that at times, VB outsells VC... 5 to 1!

VB may not be your cup-a-tea, but it's PRODUCTIVE, and smart managers USE IT WHENEVER THEY CAN. Indeed, "power tools" almost universally have longer learning curves, development times, and maintenance costs.

If one of my employees picked a less-productive tool set, it would certainly affect their review. If they persisted at it, it may affect their continued employment.

Just because someone isn't as intellectual as you are doesn't mean that they can't get the job done.

Remember, programmers shouldn't sell languages, they should sell applications!

So what's your quote to complete the project? Hmmmm?

TTV

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mr Ballmer, Mr Ballmer! The VB developers are revolting!"

Here goes...

[tclark]

wait for it...

wait...

Nope, sorry, I just don't care. I tried my best, but I can't do it.

Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[MobyDisk]

Microsoft could open-source VB6. This is a perfect opportunity for them to show that they are truly open. The community could maintain VB6 for as long as they want, and Microsoft could be hands-free. You wanna code in our old dead language? Go for it. Just maintain it yourself.

I suppose they won't do that because it would bring competition to Microsoft that they don't want. It would be interesting to see what someone would do with it. Maybe make a new language?

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[palad1]

New language, as in 'a new one based on the old one'. I thik you meant 'Maybe eventually make a language out of it'.

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Jerf]

Interesting thought, and I had to think about it for a bit, but it'll never happen. Think about it: What's one of the first and strongest projects that would build on it?

That's right, VB6 for Linux.

Suddenly, a lot of VB programmers have a migration path to Linux, the last people Microsoft currently has to worry about.

It's not going to happen, and it's not going to happen precisely because Microsoft has its own best interests at heart, and not its customers.

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[hotpotato]

Microsoft could open-source VB6. ... The community could maintain VB6 for as long as they want

Do you really think the VB community has got what it takes to maintain VB?

I mean, they are whining about not even knowing any other languages.. What do you think VB is programmed in? VB?

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[sahala]

Microsoft could open-source VB6. This is a perfect opportunity for them to show that they are truly open.

This is probably one of the more constructive posts on this topic.

I don't think VB6 programmers are upset about not being able to build new applications in VB. Since they're on the Microsoft train they'd probably love to take on .net projects since it's the sexy new thing for them. I think the main issue is the fact that they probably have a gigantic codebase built on VB6 to fit some gargantuan business needs.

Someone mentioned that giving VB6 to the community would be a bad move for MS from a competitive advantage standpoint. This is only true from one standpoint: if VB6 is free, why use .net. Yes .net is probably orders of magnitude better of a platform, but free is free, and some customers would probably love to have at the VB6 platform, even sans MS support.

So the question is whether the potential loss of revenue for releasing VB6 OS is greater than the value of goodwill and lowered support costs. Then again MS has every right to simply cut support.

Honestly if I were a VB6 developer I'd consider this a good thing. I'd point my finger at MS discontinuing support then start writing up nice expensive proposals to my customers for migrating the existing VB6 codebase to .net. That's probably a good few years of consulting revenue. Money in the bank.

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Blakey Rat]

You mean a migration path like RealBasic provides?

Seriously, that solution is already out there, and it does MacOS X as well as Windows and Linux. RealBasic just has a really crappy marketting effort behind it so nobody knows about it...

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes .net is probably orders of magnitude better of a platform,

Orders of magnitude better? *snort* hahahaha

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Jerf]

RealBasic is neither Open Source, nor the current VB from Microsoft that has been Open Sourced.

While interesting, it doesn't really affect my point either way; Microsoft is hardly going to open source their own VB.

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Pfhreakaz0id]

.net is free as in beer, by the way. You can download the sdk which can compile from the command line and edit the source files in your favorite text editor. Although, to be fair, you need a non-free platform (windows) to run the stuff on.

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[ralphdaugherty]

.net is free as in beer, by the way. You can download the sdk which can compile from the command line and edit the source files in your favorite text editor. Although, to be fair, you need a non-free platform (windows) to run the stuff on.

They did the same thing with IE. Then it was Netscape, now it's Java.

rd

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Pfhreakaz0id]

umm, i'm not getting this comment....?

Ie turned into netscape, then java?

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[ralphdaugherty]

.net is free as in beer, by the way. You can download the sdk which can compile from the command line and edit the source files in your favorite text editor. Although, to be fair, you need a non-free platform (windows) to run the stuff on.

They did the same thing with IE. Then it was Netscape, now it's Java.

rd

umm, i'm not getting this comment....?

Ie turned into netscape, then java?

The post was that .net from Microsoft was free as in beer, just download and it's yours. Microsoft did that to with IE to eliminate Netscape, now doing it with .net to eliminate Java.

They use their monopoly position to give away with Windows whatever is needed to eliminate competition. When someone says something is free from Microsoft, it's to eliminate competition.

IE then, now .net.

rd

Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft

[Blakey Rat]

You said "migration path to Linux" not "migration path to open source." Nor did you say "open source migration path to Linux."

So, yeah, I replied to what you *typed*, but you have to consider that I can't actually read your mind.

My first programming job

[BenjyD]

My first paid programming work was to write an off-line chemical process schedule optimisation and inventory management application in VB6/VBA. I still shudder everytime I think about it.

Why would anyone miss that language? Let alone bother to sign a petition to save it. If your job relies entirely on a language that your average 12 year old can pick up in a week or two, you're in trouble.

Re:My first programming job

[Anonymous Coward]

Gack! -- VBA? I remember writing a simple, little app. using VBA, under Excel, so that a guy on the day-shift could type in the depth read on a dipstick, from out in the tank-farm, select the type of tank (e.g. toal capacity, what type of heads, &c.), and read the actual volume of stuff(tm) in that particular tank. Very simple math -- adding up a lot of arcs and rectangles -- first semester calculus stuff. 'Took so long to run (about a minute/calc, back in '96, on old 486 box) that I re-wrote the app, as a .dll in c++, back at home, and got better than a 1000x speed-up... now, you can't even use external .dlls in Excel (something about a security patch). That's something that I would bi*%h at M$ about. Sending VB/VBA the way of the dinasour is not.

Re:My first programming job

[BenjyD]

It wasn't quite that bad - somebody wrote the mathematical programming optimisation bit in Fortran. Everything else, from editing schedules to calculating inventory profiles, was in VB and was very slow.

The worst thing was, the company's next product (sold for many, many thousands of pounds) actually used VBA for a major part of the interface, which meant the C++/Fortran developers wasted months dealing with bugs and interfacing problems with VB because management wanted a VB interface.

Hope they don't read slashdot, anyway.

Don't Cry for Them, Argentinaaaa...

[Frumious Wombat]

IBM will happily sell them Visual Cobol, or Visual PL/I, or I'm sure they still have some LOGO for PC interpreters in a warehouse somewhere.

Seriously, how much different is the new VB.Net? It's not like the Beast announced one morning that all application programming for Windows would be Standard ML of NJ. A book from O'Reilley and a couple of afternoon workshops should bring them up to speed.

Re:Don't Cry for Them, Argentinaaaa...

[Fr05t]

"Seriously, how much different is the new VB.Net?" It's pretty much the same as C# but no braces for code blocks, and you declare variables with the "As" keyword.

So basically it kind of looks like VB, but you can actually do something with it. It's different enough a lot of VB programmers fail to grasp it simply because they've had their hand held for so long with no desire to actually learn any other languages or do anything past the most simple of applications. Note that I said a lot, not all.

Re:Don't Cry for Them, Argentinaaaa...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are others of us who have degrees in CS, and know other languages, but got pigeonholed because of our VB experience. I had to fight tooth and nail to get out of VB development and am happily doing Linux/QT/Embedded development now.

Re:Don't Cry for Them, Argentinaaaa...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like the Beast announced one morning that all application programming for Windows would be Standard ML of NJ.

If that happened I'd be back to Windows in a second. All would be forgiven. I'd hail Bill Gates as a visionary.

I remember guys in bad suits

[wonkavader]

I remember sweaty, frightened, forty-year old guys in suits (really bad polyester suits) who were trying to get into microcomputer jobs when I was just starting out as a professional.

The were mainframe people, and mainframes were drying up, at the time, and they knew nothing about microcomputers. They had been doing the same thing for years, and they didn't know what to do. They looked like a deer in headlights.

Interviewing them, they kept trying to use mainframe concepts to answer questions about microcomputers. They were... not a good fit. I don't know what happened to those people -- we stopped seeing them after a few years.

The VB folks seem like the same sort of problem. It's an object lesson on not getting tightly bounc to just one thing.

Re:I remember guys in bad suits

[kupci]

I don't know what happened to those people -- we stopped seeing them after a few years.

Look in the mirror someday.

HAHAHAHA

[signingis]

Shouldn't this be in the Humor section? No, really.

Re:HAHAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be in the Hummer section. Don't ask me why.

100 MVP's signed?

[dtfinch]

That's an amazing feat. Microsoft's MVP directory lists only 111 in the VB section. http://www.microsoft.com/communities/MVP/MVP.mspx

Maybe some are hanging out in the ASP (vbscript) or Office (vba) sections.

Re:100 MVP's signed?

[BillAtHRST]

This has nothing to do with whether VB is good or bad -- pay your money and take your choice. What it has to do without is forced conversion of large numbers of apps for which VB.Net provides no added value. Cost of conversion is significant, since VB.Net is not backward compatible with earlier versions. VB.Net also requires .Net runtime, which is ~23MB -- adding to deployment issues. Dropping support for VB clearly benefits MS, but just as clearly does not benefit users -- since when is this a good thing?

Re:100 MVP's signed?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with whether VB is good or bad

...and where exactly did he say it had anything to do with it?

He just said it's amazing because almost all MVPs signed.

Fuck 'em!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you:

• Based your entire programming career on Visual Basic
  
• Built your company's core product using Visual Basic
  
• Integrated Visual Basic into any mission critical system.
  

and did not provide a migration path, you deserve what you get.

gee . . .

[edward.virtually@pob]

Obsoleting something that works so they can sell new things? It's another Microsoft innovation! And the plot of a recent movie.

Re:gee . . .

[endx7]

Are....you implying VB works?

Who's laughing now?

[Mycroft_514]

>The were mainframe people, and mainframes were drying up, at the time, and they knew nothing about microcomputers. They had been doing the same thing for years, and they didn't know what to do. They looked like a deer in headlights.

And now they are in demand and making more than the micro people. Enough people retired that the demand is there, because the schools aren't training them anymore.

As for VB6, well there are some good things for it. I don't care if MS EOLs it, just make sure that the programs still run under the new OS. I've still got some programs that haven't been ported to VB from CB yet. The code is still running 12 years later. Some day I might get around to converting it.

Re:Who's laughing now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it's great consolation to all those mainframe guys who have been unemployed for the last 15 years that they are now in great demand. They can rise up out of the homeless shelters and return to their rightful place making $30K/yr swapping tapes and writing JCL.

Re:Who's laughing now?

[Mycroft_514]

He who laughs last laughs best.

Kids coming into mainframe at entry level are making 40K,

And today it's the web developers that are homeless.

Re:Who's laughing now?

[eglamkowski]

I find it hard to believe web developers are the homeless ones. I've been looking for a job for the past 6 weeks and virtually every "application developer" job turns out to be a web developer position, at least here in Georgia. It's just about all anybody is hiring these days, at least if postings on the major job sites are to be believed.

Then again, I suspect the major job boards aren't really the best gauge of the REAL job market, but that's quite a discussion unto itself...

Re:Who's laughing now?

[snorklewacker]

> Kids coming into mainframe at entry level are making 40K,

That's pathetic. I made $45K at entry level for hacking perl. Probably because I worked at another job (support) where I made just slightly more, and I wouldn't take less. I was best qualified, they hired me. Sometimes it is what you know.

I guarantee that mainframe job has no advancement. 'course neither does hacking perl, but I've switched again to a job that's only technical in a secondary sense (business analyst). I have lots of choices. Mainframe guys see more of their hardware carted away every year.

Re:Who's laughing now?

[Mycroft_514]

>Mainframe guys see more of their hardware carted away every year.

Horseshit. IBM is selling it like it was going otu of style, and if someone is carting it away then they must be carting it here.

Mainframe jobs have plenty of advancement, in fact better than the web jobs in places like around here.

Oh, and we don't do any perl in the entire shop, yet the company is looking at grossing $1 Billion this year.

See, we have a product, and we use computers to SUPPORT that product. Unlike so many web jobs that have no product.

But you keep laughing, I'm coming up on my 5th year here, where I'll get that extra week of vacation. Where my health care is paid for. Where the company supplies me with broadband at home to support the systems at work.

Oh, and we never laid off anyone during the whole downturn. Show me a web company that can say that.

And during the dot com boom, one year I did make about $125K. On the mainframe. Too bad for you web guys isn't it?

Re:Who's laughing now?

[snorklewacker]

Did I say I was a webmonkey or perl-grinder now? I'm not that insane (though I still end up hacking more perl than is good for me). But I work for one of the largest software companies in the world (not the largest, no), and I don't see anyone using COBOL, RPG, or JCL anywhere in it. Not in my division, not anywhere in the reqs for the whole company. Of course IBM is still selling big iron, but I just don't see a whole lot of of new storage units going to ISAM blocks, know what I mean? At some point, it's really just big scaleable HA hardware, without a lot of skills transferring over from the days of washtub drives. It's not a very gradual evolution either -- the VB6 codemonkeys by comparison just have to learn a little new syntax.

Re:Who's laughing now?

[Mycroft_514]

>Of course IBM is still selling big iron, but I just don't see a whole lot of of new storage units going to ISAM blocks, know what I mean?

You mean VSAM, but in a different contex, yes it is growing in leap sand bounds, since VSAM is part of the underpinnigns of DB2.

No RPG here, but plenty of COBOL AND JCL makes the world go round.

Different strokes, but those of us old mainframe dinosaurs are doing well.

VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Frans Faase]

In this case they are right to object. VB.Net is not the successor of VB6. VB.Net is simply C# with a different syntax. There is no smooth transition from VB6 to VB.Net. It is not a matter of learning a new syntax, it is a matter of having to a total new semantic. Companies that have invested 50 man year in the development of VB6 applications are now faced with the fact that they will require to trow in another 10 man year just to make the transition to VB.Net. It is simply the arrogancy of Microsoft here, I guess, that they think what is better for their customers than their customers do. It seems that only MS thinks that the .Net framework is a great success.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Anonymous Coward]

This is correct. I have managed to pry my company's flag ship product out of the cold dead fingers of VB6 and move it to VB.Net.

It constitutued a complete rewrite and rearchitecting (made up word?), as VB.Net is really an entirely new language with a similar syntax to VB6.

The best thing about VB.Net is that it has the words "Visual Basic" in it's name which causes managers to think that it is the same thing, allowing people like myself to rewrite dying applications in a somewhat better language. (It is *MUCH* more difficult to push for a port from vb6 to java or c++ or something similar)

However, this is typical Microsoft behavior in the whole "ummm ya... it's time for you to upgrade. no, we don't care if you are still doing fine with your old technology, we need some more money" tradition.

The really sad thing is that there are many MANY people who earn their living writing VB6 code that either do not have the ability or just don't care to learn a new development paradigm. These are the people that will be left out in the cold. On a personal level I'd love to see VB6 die a quick and merciless death, but on a professional level i think it is stupid to throw away years of investment in a reasonably mature platform because it isn't fashionable anymore.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[pclminion]

Companies that have invested 50 man year in the development of VB6 applications are now faced with the fact that they will require to trow in another 10 man year just to make the transition to VB.Net.

Aww, poor babies. They picked a proprietary framework sourced by a single vendor, they are now reaping the consequences.

The developers who can transition to something new will prove their worth. The ones left bleeding in the wreckage were never really developers in the first place.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Anonymous Coward]

there are many MANY people who earn their living writing VB6 code that either do not have the ability or just don't care to learn a new development paradigm

How is it possible that someone who earns a living writing VB6 code wouldn't have the ability to learn another language? Do you think VB6 is somehow fundamentally easier than all other languages? What about things like Python, which have a reputation for being very easy to learn?

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[worst]

It's quite simple:

VB6 allows you to accomplish "business goals" in a very mediocre manner.

Take a look at all the "Teach your self VB6 in 21 days" books out there. There are a considerable number of developers that learned to code using these types of materials.

Usually these are people that had no intention of ever programming, but kind of "fell" into it.

It is much harder for these people to grasp such a fundamental paradigm shift (such as object oriented programming) than your average went to school for it type of coder. You know what they say about anecdotal evidence, but i've had several jr. programmers who were going to school for CS and couldn't handle the switch to object oriented development.

Look, anyone can learn anything they set their mind to, but sometimes, it is incredibly hard, or even impossible to break out of the mind set you were previously in...

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[scotlewis]

VB.Net is simply C# with a different syntax.

You could say the same about any Turing-complete language: C is just Pascal with a different syntax, or Prolog is just FORTRAN with a different syntax. A programming language is its syntax. The fact that VB.NET and C# have similar under-lying principles doesn't make them the same language. Much like moving from VB6 to VB.NET, moving from C/C++ to C# is not just a matter of a re-compilation. It generally requires a fair amount of rewriting.

And, let's not forget that all of your VB6 code can still be called by VB.NET code. So your existing base is not lost (VB6 apps aren't going to magically stop running).

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Frans Faase]

No, actually at the time when they started developing this application, they did a very good analyses of all available technologies, and it turned out that VB was simply the most suitable development platform taking into account all factors. You appearantly haven't understood all the factors that are involved with developing software in a commercial environment, not some pet project where you can pick whatever you want.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[pclminion]

I really don't follow. You just said that this will probably cost them another 10 man years to fix. Sounds to me like they really blew the cost analysis.

You appearantly haven't understood all the factors that are involved with developing software in a commercial environment

Funny. It looks like they're the ones who committed the monumental screwup.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Frans Faase]

It has been almost ten years ago that they decided to select VB as their development platform. At that time it was the only platform available that allowed you to develop GUI without having to write incredible amouth of Win32 API calls in C. This was before the development of MFC. In the past ten years about five people on average worked on that application. And it went already through several redesigns.

When developing a commercial application you often have no other choice than to select from the available tools if you want to finish your application before your competor does. And most often you are quit restricted in your choices, if you want to deliver fast and cheap. It is very difficult to look in the future, and often the people managing software development are not aware of the fact that every "short time" decision often has "long term" effects. The name software is very misleading, because over and over again reality proofs that "software" is much harder than "hardware". The hardware we have is completely different from the one that we had ten years ago. Everything has changed. It is relatively cheap to change hardware, even to change hardware interfaces, compared to the cost of changing software to another development platform.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[pclminion]

Well, hopefully they now have a more realistic risk factor when it comes to a single-source development platform produced by a notorious monopolist corporation.

I'm not trying to be abrasive; obviously the planners could not have known what the world would be like 10 years into the future. But the fact remains that that particular risk factor was grossly underestimated.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[el_gordo101]

And, let's not forget that all of your VB6 code can still be called by VB.NET code. So your existing base is not lost (VB6 apps aren't going to magically stop running).

Plus, all of your .NET code can be called by VB6 code using COM interop. It ain't pretty, but it can be done.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[zeath]

As I replied to someone else in the thread I've created, programming is much like cooking - you can memorize recipes, or you can learn the chemical and physical interaction of the ingredients. Learning the interaction means you can apply your knowledge to future situations (i.e., VB.NET). Memorizing recipes means you can reproduce a bundt cake (i.e., VB6) again and again and again. The bundt cake might taste really good, but after a while you're probably going to need to make something else to keep people coming back (i.e., keep your job).

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[zeath]

You just sent a shiver down my spine.

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[ralphdaugherty]

The name software is very misleading, because over and over again reality proofs that "software" is much harder than "hardware". The hardware we have is completely different from the one that we had ten years ago. Everything has changed. It is relatively cheap to change hardware, even to change hardware interfaces, compared to the cost of changing software to another development platform.

That is very insightful, and something I haven't seen said so well before.

rd

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[bdbolton]

"On a personal level I'd love to see VB6 die a quick and merciless death, but on a professional level i think it is stupid to throw away years of investment in a reasonably mature platform because it isn't fashionable anymore."

A slashdotter with a heart! you sir, are NOT the usual cold calus (sp?) hacker that i have come to expect!

I applaud you!

Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C#

[Anonymous Coward]

VB.Net is not just C# with different syntax. C# is more pure OO and has features that VB does not (VB.NET is still 4GL). The CLS just enforces some type standards and such.

However I am not a .NET expert (I primarliy do Java/J2EE, C, Perl, etc), but I do think that the price of using VB (quick turnaround, really a sortof RAD tool) is that some day it will be obsolete. All code runs that risk, but any language (especially 4GL) that is only provided by one vendor is in that position. That is just one of the tradeoffs of that type of language.

VB (from what I know) was originally developed so non-technical people could write Windows Apps (quickly) without too much knowledge of CS theory. Of course there is a tradeoff and this is part of it. While it is unfortunate that all of those old apps will have to continue with no support, they should never have been used that long. Part of Software Engineering is considering maintenance costs. Considering how old VB 6 is, this was inevitable.

VB.NET certainly seems redundant (at least according to Mr Grimes -> http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=9204/ddj050201dnn/) .
At any rate, VB is dead, do get over it. As for learning new languages: learn to keep your knowledge current or you will be a dinosaur, that is the way it works. If Sun quit supporting Java, I'd still find work. I know enough other languages and theory so it's not a problem. VB isn't even a language as much as it is a tool (just like it's evil twin Powerbuilder). We aren't even talking apples to apples. C/C++/Java have numerous IDE's and don't depend on one company to keep them afloat.

Wait a second....

[wandazulu]

I hope there are no OO purists armed with mod points reading this, but VB is actually pretty decent, at the end of the day, for things like rapid development, interface prototyping, etc. All things being equal, VB is *easy*, and sometimes you just want easy. Yes, you can be easy in any language, but to the non-programmer, VB was the ultimate double-click and get started tool. Learn a few concepts about forms and controls, and you're pretty much set (who here knows VB and hasn't seen an app where every single line of code was crammed into the form, narray a module in sight).

VB allowed me to write my first app: a little one-screen program that calculated exposure times for pinhole cameras (in VB3). Knew zilch about programming at the time, but I was able to slap it together and it worked. The code was absolutely horrible and for such a simple thing, it had bugs simply because I didn't know what I was doing. When I gave it out to a few people (just the .EXE and vbrun300.dll) they came back with suggestions/bugs and before I knew it, I moved "up and out" and became a professional C++/Oracle developer. Not everyone who works with VB becomes a programmer with a capital P, but some do, and some are simply happy to have scratched that particular itch and glad it came off so easily.

VB6, honestly, is the only tool I can think of that retains that ease of use with a very forgiving nature ("don't worry about declaring your variables...we'll trust you") to allow the uninitiated a chance to come up with something that may be only for him or her, or becomes the next killer app. If I were starting today, looking for something to write my little pinhole calc app, what would I use? VS.net? I wouldn't know what project to start with. Java? Sure, what IDE? Python/Ruby/Perl? All good, but if I only have Windowz, and am not a programmer, I may not know they exist. I knew VB existed because quickbasic was already on the machine, and the high school student working at Software etc. knew to point me at the VB box when I said "well, I know qbasic, but I'm looking for something to run under this Windows thing..."

That is my only justification for really liking VB, even after all these years; sometimes you just want the functionality and don't care how it looks and it needs to be done fast (and hopefully with a minimal runtime if it's going to moved to another machine). MS is free to put the .net framework on every copy of windows forever, but try to wrap your head around the classes and concepts if you're not already familar with them. VB dispensed with all of that and was just what it was.

Re:Wait a second....

[daem0n1x]

So basically you think VB is great because you can't do any real work with it, but it's very fine for those who don't know what they're doing to create applications that don't work.
Funny, those are my issues against VB.

Re:Wait a second....

[ralphdaugherty]

I may not know they exist. I knew VB existed because quickbasic was already on the machine...

QB or an equivalent is not on MS boxes anymore, right? I guess another good reason for a beginner to go to Linux.

rd

Re:Wait a second....

[maetenloch]

QB or an equivalent is not on MS boxes anymore, right?

Actually all MS OS's since 2000 have had VBscript built in, which is a pretty full-featured BASIC with file IO and can access most of the common controls. It's mostly used for web scripting, but it will run on any system. Just type it into a text file, give it a .vbs extension, and double click on it.

Here's an example that displays disk info:

dim drvpath, fso, message

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set dc = fso.Drives

For Each d in dc
If d.IsReady then
message = message & "Drive " & d.DriveLetter & ": " & d.VolumeName & "Size: " & d.TotalSize & vbCr
Else
message = message & "Drive " & d.DriveLetter & " is not available." & vbCr
End if
Next

Wscript.Echo message

Re:Wait a second....

[Organic Brain Damage]

You nailed it. The key benefit of VB, from v1 to v6 was quick and easy development for simple windows applications.

These "code snobs" whining about VB not being a "real language" are all teensy weensy little cry-babes in soiled diapers.

They never programmed a Mac in Pascal or used C to make a WinSDK application a la Petzold. They have no clue how labor intense it was to make a GUI application (for Mac or Windows) before VB1 came along and changed the development paradigm.

(Sure there were some obscure languages that had similar features, but none of them ever went anywhere and none of them ever would).

Re:I'm sure there are people who want support for

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet there are zero people who want support for "NT6," since it doesn't exist.

They've always been revolting

[FullCircle]

Now they're rebelling

My life with VB

[daem0n1x]

Some time after the dotcom bubble blew up, I was forced by unfortunate circunstances to join a VB-only developing team. That was a time when all the tech companies in my country were going bankrupt or massively firing people. I had to take the task and shut up. It lasted for a whole year.
I've never been so unhappy in my life. For the first time, I was ashamed of telling people what I did for a living.
Now my job is very boring, but at least I can walk with my head straight.

agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

VB developers, of all programmer types, seem to whine the most. They whine when people won't answer their inane posts on message boards ("urgent my boss needs it tomrorrow help me now!"), they whine when they have to learn new things, and they whine when they are told that VB isn't the best language for any given task. I've been using Managed DirectX for a while, and when one SDK release removed some unmaintained VB.NET examples (the C# ones were more up-to-date) you would have thought it was the end of the world the way the VB types worked up a temper tantrum with their moaning, yelling, and screaming. "Microsoft hates us, you guys are stupid, it's all a conspiracy against VB, VB is a great language". Geez. VB.NET and C# are practically the same language anyway; only a language bigot would refuse to read C# examples.

Re:agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there are those who whine on and on about VB programmers.

So you're saying that

[BlindRobin]

VB programmers are revolting ?

That's just mean....

Re:I give away a slogan for your FOSS business mod

[arkanes]

VB 6 is the only language in common use without an open source implemenation. And there's been a couple half-assed ones, like OpenOffice's support of a VBScript look-alike.

Re:I'm sure there are people who want support for

[NutscrapeSucks]

(Note: I hate VB, but...) One problem is that VB integrates well with COM applications that are not EOL. For example:

+ If your shop is automating MS Office 2000 or XP, VB6 is usually the easiest way to do it.

+ If you have an ASP-based web applicaiton, it likely uses VB6/COM for backend components. For example, you may have purchased Microsoft Commerce Server for $$$

Yeah it's possible to do COM stuff with .NET, but it's not nearly as integrated and can be rather clumsy. So it is suprising that VB6 would be EOLed before Microsoft has finished "NETifying" everything.

I agree

[legLess]

I find VB revolting as well.

Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, if you're a programmer who is only proficient in VB 5 and 6, its time to think about moving into another occupation. I suggest becoming a cab driver or farmer.

I'm not so sure. I used to be a VB6 programmer. It was the only language I knew. Yes, VB is awful. But I didn't know better. However, once I started using Linux, I realized that my VB knowledge was worthless. So, I started learning Python. I haven't looked back since. Sure, python it a bit of a beginners language, but it was easy enough for me to understand. So yes, I think they should learn something else: Python!!

I am glad I develop with free software tools.

[Captain Rotundo]

I would find it terribly degrading to have to beg a company to please let me continue to be a customer. How totally absurd.

Re:I am glad I develop with free software tools.

[jgoemat]

I would find it terribly degrading to have to beg a company to please let me continue to be a customer. How totally absurd.

Me: Hello, I would like to order 10 Apple IIs.

Apple: Uh, we don't sell those anymore.

Me: What do you mean?!?! You're going to make me beg for them? That's totally absurd.

Apple: I'm sorry sir.

Me: I didn't want to pay for a color monitor, but fine. Give me 10 Apple IIIcs.

Apple: [sigh]

fah!

[eglamkowski]

As a C/C++ developer finding it hard to get a job at a time when everybody under the sun wants java or EXPERIENCED C# programmers, I'm not very sympathetic to their concerns of being stranded with obsolete skills.

Then again, I got a verbal offer for a C/UNIX programming job last Friday, so I can't complain too much. Took 6 weeks of looking to finally land a job.
*sigh*

Now I'm just awaiting written confirmation by mail so I can seriously enjoy my vacation starting later this week :-)

Re:fah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a C/C++ developer finding it hard to get a job at a time when everybody under the sun wants java or EXPERIENCED C# programmers, I'm not very sympathetic to their concerns of being stranded with obsolete skills."

You should be the first guy to be sympathetic since you had similiar problems. Talk about bad Karma!

Re:fah!

[eglamkowski]

I didn't whine about the changing market needs. Instead, I got some java books and started studying.

I'm rather shocked at the mad rush to implement the entire world in java. There's a whole lot to it that I find quite alarming given its widespread use. But one of the things that annoys me most of all about it is the lack of backwards compatibility between JREs. What a mess that must create when it comes to deployment! *shudder*

Re:fah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I didn't whine about the changing market needs. Instead, I got some java books and started studying."

I don't think the VB6/VB.NET question has much to do with the job market. Nobody is dropping support for C++ the way MS is for VB6.

Nevertheless, if you and other C++ programmers were somehow able to join together to promote C++ (and it actually worked) it might turn out better for you guys then learning Java.

For the VB6 guys, petitioning MS may be a more efficient use of their time than picking up a book on Java and hoping that somebody cares that they read it. I don't see many job openings for Java programmers with no professional Java experience.

Just what are they no longer supporting?

[JVert]

When was the last time they release a critical update? MSDN hasn't been touched in years, seems like they only thing they are fighting is the marketing of "You're a VB programmer? but VB is at its EOL. What else do you know?" Both sides are stupid from what I see. VB6 lasts 10 years, so plan for 2002 to be retired in 2012, thats not even that far away. Tell me how 2002 and 2004 are the same but I need the 2002 to compile with 1.0 framework.

List of who not to hire!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least we now have a list of people NOT to hire! In the future. These guys have been stranded since they learned VB6 they are just realizing it now, the laziest employee's on the planet. They deserve their fate for their laziness.

Quotes are around the wrong words

[Anonymous Coward]

...millions of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) applications and "strand" programmers that have not trained in newer languages.

Perhaps this should read ...millions of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) "applications" and strand "programmers" that have not trained in newer languages.

Firstly, VB6 is a relatively new language. Perhaps some of these "programmers" should learn more established and standardized languages (new and old) that are a little more suited for creating applications.
For me, VB6 served its purposes for quickly solving *small* problems in Windows... I wouldn't call anything I've written in VB 6 a full blown "application",... they're more or less VBS scripts with an EXE extension.
VB.NET is an improvement if you make the assumption that the .NET framework in general is an improvement, but as far as I'm concerned, there's better choices out there most of the time.

Re:Quotes are around the wrong words

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wouldn't call anything I've written in VB 6 a full blown "application",... they're more or less VBS scripts with an EXE extension."

I have a practical definition. Any program that makes money is a full blown application in my book. I'll let those with less experince debate which language is better.

Re:I give away a slogan for your FOSS business mod

[Anonymous Coward]

> VB 6 is the only language in common use without an open source implemenation.

Delphi. PL/SQL arguably falls in there as well, given that it's not trivial to leap to the few procedural languages of free RDBMS's.

Trivia: Ken Silverman

[Anonymous Coward]

Still uses QBASIC to prototype code.

(He's been mostly working with voxels if you've not followed what he's done since the Build engine)

cab driving and farming

[Anonymous Coward]

both very high learning curve, and high stress.

It's not the programmers it's the code base!

[jfb3]

The problem isn't whether the programmers can write code in .NET. The problem is that the existing code base that runs much of Corportate America, and small business, is written in VB. (10 years of code.)

They don't want to see their code base break next year because some patch from Microsoft breaks the VB6 runtimes.

Re:It's not the programmers it's the code base!

[JVert]

Would be nice if they gave out the source of vbrun dll. Seems almost possible at this point.

Re:It's not the programmers it's the code base!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! I think a good solution would be to find a way to reincorporate the VB6 runtime libraries into Longhorn. It would at least give developers more time to update their apps. Maybe some of the MVP's can get together and write a VM for VB6 apps.

Re:It's not the programmers it's the code base!

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

The problem is that the existing code base that runs much of Corportate America, and small business, is written in VB

Now that makes me sleep better at night . . . NOT!

That's the price

[base3]

of being a sharecropper. Sometimes the landlord decides he doesn't want you on his land anymore.

Microsoft Abandoning .NET

[kupci]

This is a good point. Everybody leaps to the silver bullet (in this case C#), while much work is done in tried and true languages such as C, C++, VB, etc. The difference seems to be that VB, unfortunately is proprietary.

As many have already pointed out, many companies have quite a bit of capital investment in VB code (now "legacy" it seems), just as, so they say, 80%-90% of the business applications are written in COBOL. Who'd have thunk we'd still be running apps written in the '60s to get work done, and thus run into the Y2K issue? This is what many other posters apparently don't get, most likely they are in the comfortable situation of being able to chose their own language, OS, requirements etc, or a not coders at all.

The other point is that many many apps are still written in C, best example is Linux, Windows, etc. There was a recent post by Richard Grimes, in his last article about .NET in which he proposed that Microsoft did not have confidence in .NET because they weren't using it to write their own apps (Office, etc), i.e. eat their own dog food. (I don't have the link, check www.theserverside.com)

Many posters correctly pointed out this is no small feat, and why should Msft rewrite working apps in the "new, new" language?

I'm sure there is just as much criticisim against C as there is against VB, in fact, VB is actually quite "C" like. Therefore, just as Ken Silverman is free to write stuff in QBASIC and expect it to work, so should VB coders. In this is the opinion the VB folks are expressing, no doubt Msft will back off.

This is the disadvantage of having to support legacy stuff, but like or not Msft has to, otherwise they will lose the confidence of companies who want return on investment, and not have to rewrite their code every year, especially when Msft decides to scrap .NET or what have you.

Re:I'm sure there are people who want support for

[ClosedSource]

You're right about legacy COM components and ASP, but for new web applications, ASP.NET usually eliminates the need for using COM on the backend.

Since all ASP.NET pages are compiled into a class that can call anything in the FCL, there's no performance advantage in using COM components (except for any overhead related to the CLR, although COM can add overhead too).

As you suggest, however, if you want to take advantage of existing COM components, it's easier to do that from outside .NET.

Event tied to references

[Frans Faase]

The nice thing about events in VB6 is that any variable that references an object that can generate event, automatically responds to these events when an event handling method has been defined. This is a very simple and elegant mechanism, because it works automatically. In many other languages you have to do many things yourself.

No!

[Frans Faase]

In VB6 any class that is defined as public automatically has a COM interface. The problem with this is that you have to run regclean often, once you have changed the interface, because all those objects are poluting the registery. Creating an object in the local executable and in a foreign process is completely transparent, and so is communication between executables. You are usually not aware of this, until things go wrong due to syncronisation. I think VB6 is the language with the most closest COM intergration, but is a fact that is also unknown to most ordinary developers.

what's it good for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Visual Basic sucks. Especially it's classic form. VB was supposed to die with .NET. But due to immense pressure and whining from these same newbies, they included a half-assed OO version with .NET. Now they still want the classic form?

What for I say? the language is obsolete. Let it go.

I just don't get it

[Ripley29]

So Microsoft is saying they are not going to support it... So what? I've used VB for years (As well as other languages like any programmer worth their salt does), and I've never had to call in a support case to Microsoft concerning bugs in the language... Not once.

Any problems you would run into with VB are well documented on Newsgroups. Plus, the VB MVPs are complaining about not wanting to port existing code. So don't! If your application has been around for years, it's not going to stop working tomorrow because Microsoft says VB6 is a dead language.

...Sounds like it's more of a political move on the part of MVP's who don't want their certification to become obsolete in the eyes of Micro$oft.

Oh Ive been there

[mnmn]

Imagine what I felt when they stopped distributing QBASIC. It was the highest form of programming languages.

So I decided that will never happen to me again.

I learned C.

This is why you should use C/C++ for essentials

[JeffTL]

ANSI C, and likely C++ as well, will probably be compilable or easily modifiable to compilability well into the future. Not being proprietary, so long as there is a demand for a compiler, one will be maintained. I don't know about Objective-C; it's a nonproprietary language but it is so associated with OPENSTEP and Cocoa that that whenever Apple quits using it, it'll pretty much be dead. But hey, since it's a superset of C, a bit of rewriting to standard C would be easier than converting VB to anything else. I don't know what the main programming language of 2055 will be, but it'll probably be something that could be recognized in 2005 as a relative of C.

OO isn't the problem

[slapout]

I think one of the problems is that VB.net can only target the .Net platform. I think VB 6 programmers want an object oriented language. They just don't want to be limited to .Net

RAD

[slapout]

Why is everyone here so Anti-VB 6? VB 6 is great at what it is designed for: RAD -- Rapaid Application Development. There's no other language where you can throw together a quick and dirty Windows program so easily.

Re:RAD

[ralphdaugherty]

Talk about answering your own question.

rd

Why is everyone here so Anti-VB 6? VB 6 is great at what it is designed for: RAD -- Rapid Application Development.

There's no other language where you can throw together a quick and dirty Windows program so easily.

Re:RAD

[jbplou]

Because they don't feel its programming if you don't have to worry about buffer overflows all the time and VB doesn't use semi-colons, something most slashdotters believe a programming lanuage must have.

Re:RAD

[ynohoo]

have you never heard of Borland Delphi - where Microsoft stole all their RAD ideas after '95? And eventually their lead designer to create .NET? Having worked with both, I found Delphi slick, and VB clunky by comparison.

Proprietary Language

[johnnnyboy]

I think this brings up the issue of using proprietary languages such as VB. If VB was an industry standard language ISOed and used accross other platforms then these programmers wouldn't be completely stranded.

Microsoft doesn't care about standards or do not have any responsibility, they don't give the "hoot" about those programmers only that they are currently standing in their way to continue their market dominance.

Re:Proprietary Language

[NullProg]

All these posts and only yours contains any wisdom. Any language that is not ANSI/ISO certified will be subject to the whims of the vendor. People still haven't learned its the libraries that separate the language from the platform. Isolate the data/work from the UI.

A generic BASIC could have ruled the world had IBM/APPLE/ATARI/AMIGA/COMMODORE came together in the mid-80's and defined it.

Larry Wall, as benevolent as he is, is still the master of Perl and could change the language at anytime.

these programmers wouldn't be completely stranded
These programmers are stranded because they found a shortcut to thier problem solution. While I don't dissmiss them, I also don't have any pity for them as well. Most don't have the skill to write the MFC wrappers that wrap the Win32 calls that make VBxRUN.DLL run.

Do you think that the C#/Python/PHP/Java/Ruby etc. crowd will learn from this that their language is subject to it's owners whim? I'm still waiting for any of these languages to compile thier own interpreter.

At what point do you stop being a computer programmer and start being an API expert?

Enjoy,

Re:Proprietary Language

[ClosedSource]

"Most don't have the skill to write the MFC wrappers that wrap the Win32 calls that make VBxRUN.DLL run."

Which is good since MFC has nothing to do with VBxRUN.DLL.

Re:Proprietary Language

[NullProg]

I stand corrected.

The two VB programs I still occasionally run when I boot to windows require MFC4.5. After running WLIB and WDISASM on them I see that the programs are a mixed MFC/VB hybrid. This is why I assumed the VB runtime needed MFC.

I went ahead and dumped VBrun400.dll and VBrun300.dll and both call back into Win32 native calls with no other external dependancies. The VBrun300 does have both 32 and 16 bit functions, it also has the old windows thunking mechanism.

Thank you for correcting me.
Enjoy,

Patch here...

[leonbrooks]

Thanks, Naken!

Should add that...

[leonbrooks]

...converting from MSVB to anything else is painful, just like converting from MS Windows to anythging else. However, GamBas, XBasic and a few others are syntactically not far away from VB6 if you do need to do a conversion, and because they're FOSS they need never die.

Because of the way Naken's written VB2C, it's quite a reasonable approach to rework that into a VB2otherBASIC converter rather than converting a large MSVB project by hand.

Re:I give away a slogan for your FOSS business mod

[nberardi]

I thought there was an OSS release of VB6 a couple months ago? I remember something like that being posted on /.

Real Basic(tm) as an alternative

[Tablizer]

What about switching to Real Basic? I have not used it myself, but some say it's pretty good compared to VB6. I don't know about full compatibility with VB either. But, it may be something to consider at least for new projects.

Software is "harder" than hardware? Pleeez

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds nice on the first glance, but it doesn't really work. I'd say it's really apples and oranges. You could have complex software and simple hardware and you could have it the other way around as well. Saying that one vast category of diverse items is "harder" than the other is pretty much meaningless.
And, it's worth considering that hardware has to preceed software and so it informs the fundamentals of what software can be. Software is called "soft" because it can exist as nothing more than a collection of electrons. Expanding the term to infer some meaning about difficulty is perhaps creative, but not profound. If if were done in a humorous way, it could be profound as well but this post doesn't seem to take it to that point and it just seems misleading.

Visual Basic Developers are Revolting...

[MrPoopyPants]

I've known that for a long time.

As a VB and VB.net Developer - Total Crap!

[vtechpilot]

VB.Net has an excellent upgrade tool that comes with Visual Studio that parses your VB6 Code and spits out nice new VB.Net code (with a few exceptions.)

It has been my expirience that the code that did not upgrade well, did so because it was written badly. All the things that developers have been told to avoid like global variables. Come back to haunt you here. In short good VB6 code practially upgrades itself, and bad VB6 code is a porting night mare. Any surprise here?

So the people who can't easily port wrote (or maintain) bad code. Do I feel sorry for them? No. They are just being forced to address problems that should have been fixed a long time ago.

As far as MVPS goes, its basically a good old boys club. If you know the right people you get in. Its basically a title that lets consultants charge more. Its not an MCSD who certifiably knows something. If the MCSD's were complaining, I'd be more inclined to listen.

Java ...

[big-giant-head]

Remeber IBM has thier own clean room version of the JDK, as well as Blackdown, so even if Sun dumped Java tommorow development would continue. Also IBM, BEA and JBoss make java app servers (I'm sure I forgot some). IDE's that are available... NetBeans, Eclipse, WSAD (Eclipse + WepShere + Plugins), Jbuilder, IDEA ..... again I'm sure I foregot some.... Supported platforms Win, Mac, Linux, Solaris, BSD ......

VB M$ and ???? (sound of wind whistling)

Point is that while java may be vendor owned, it's much more open source-like in terms of support and multi platform availablility.

QBASIC IS BEING DROPPED!!!

[Timmy D Programmer]

OH NO!!,
I was gonna build our entire infrastructure around it.

I invite you to read the petition and its FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, you, who accuse the people who signed the VB6 petition of not wanting to learn a new language, don't understand the issue at hand.

The problem is with having to completely re-write old working code to ensure that it will still work in the future and to make it interoperable with the new code (which they, by the way, are happy to write in VB.NET, C#, etc.).

How would *you* like to rewrite those gigantic masses of old code that took you a long time to write in the first place and that still works well? And while you're doing it, think at the same time of all the other people who, unlike you, are doing new development, or improving their software in a new programming language or in an old one.

http://classicvb.org/petition/faq.asp