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Visual Basic Developers Revolt Against Microsoft

Posted by Hemos on from the the-battle-of-the-programmers dept.

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."

36 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Oi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  2. What's the fuss about? by KevinKnSC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does VB6 not work, all of a sudden?

    1. Re:What's the fuss about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    2. Re:What's the fuss about? by isorox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Does VB6 not work

      Correct

      all of a sudden

      Incorrect

    3. Re:What's the fuss about? by Frans+Faase · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:What's the fuss about? by arkanes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  3. stranded by Apreche · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    1. Re:stranded by tacocat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:stranded by Nykon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
    3. Re:stranded by npsimons · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Nathan's blog
  4. In other news... by lexarius · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  5. Breaking news by zeath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Breaking news by shufler · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Breaking news by shadwwulf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

  6. Ah, the joys... by TuringTest · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... of a proprietary-source based community.

    --
    Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  7. Unbelievable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  8. No surprises by ross_winn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Ross Winn "not just another ugly face..."
  9. VB6 People Whine Too Much by nberardi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

  10. I'm sure there are people who want support for NT6 by datastalker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.

    --
    Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
  11. Reconsider? by BandwidthHog · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --

    Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
  12. This just in by Fr05t · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  13. Cry babies by LordNimon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
    To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
    1. Re:Cry babies by daviddennis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

  14. Artificial Jobs? by GeckoX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    No Comment.
    1. Re:Artificial Jobs? by ralphdaugherty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

  15. Here goes... by tclark · · Score: 4, Funny

    wait for it...

    wait...

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

  16. Perfect opportunity for Microsoft by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft by sahala · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.

    2. Re:Perfect opportunity for Microsoft by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Informative

      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...

      --
      Comment of the year
  17. Re:Don't Cry for Them, Argentinaaaa... by Fr05t · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.

  18. Re:100 MVP's signed? by BillAtHRST · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  19. VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C# by Frans+Faase · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C# by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:VB6 isNot VB.Net and VB.Net is C# by Frans+Faase · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

  20. Wait a second.... by wandazulu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  21. I am glad I develop with free software tools. by Captain+Rotundo · · Score: 3, Insightful

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