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

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

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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

[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: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.

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: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: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