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Microsoft Remains Firm On Ending VB6 Support
An anonymous reader submits "CNet reports that
Microsoft is remaining firm an ending support for VB6, despite a petition
and many requests from its developer community.
If only VB were a F/OSS project instead of a proprietary customers could be assured of continued support as long as there was demand.
Are there any good F/OSS implementations of VB out there for customers to migrate to? One can only hope that enlightened groups like
the Agility Alliance would warn about the risks of using such software that can be end-of-lifed even while they're in heavy use."
Now if only they will end vb.net support ....
That's like asking if there are any nice versions of Hitler.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Too bad they are abandoning it. Fortunately for me, I'm still using QBASIC for all of my programming! Sassan
If only VB were a F/OSS project
oh NO!!. DON'T GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS!!!!
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Could you be firm on ending development too? I mean, its not like your stuff is getting that much better with time.
It seems like this would be a good time has for a serious discussion on whether or
not to continue using C for serious programming projects. As I will
explain, I feel that C needs to be retired, much the same way that
Fortran, Cobol and Perl have been. Furthermore, allow me to be so bold
as to suggest a superior replacement to this outdated language.
To give you a little background on this subject, I was recently asked
to develop a client/server project on a Unix platform for a Fortune
500 company. While I've never coded in C before I have coded in VB for
fifteen years, and in Java for over ten, I was stunned to see how
poorly C fared compared to these two, more low-level languages.
C's biggest difficulty, as we all know, is the fact that it is by far
one of the slowest languages in existance, especially when compared to
more modern languages such as Java and C#. Although the reasons for
this are varied, the main reasons seems to be the way C requires a
programmer to laboriously work with chunks of memory.
Requiring a programmer to manipulate blocks of memory is a tedious way
to program. This was satisfactory back in the early days of coding,
but then again, so were punchcards. By using what are called
"pointers" a C programmer is basically requiring the computer to do
three sets of work rather than one. The first time requires the
computer to duplicate whatever is stored in the memory space "pointed
to" by the pointer. The second time requires it to perform the needed
operation on this space. Finally the computer must delete the
duplicate set and set the values of the original accordingly.
Clearly this is a horrendous use of resources and the chief reason why
C is so slow. When one looks at a more modern (and a more serious)
programming language like Java, C# or - even better - Visual Basic
that lacks such archaic coding styles, one will also note a serious
speed increase over C.
So what does this mean for the programming community? I think clearly
that C needs to be abandonded. There are two candidates that would be
a suitable replacement for it. Those are Java and Visual Basic.
Having programmed in both for many years, I believe that VB has the
edge. Not only is it slightly faster than Java its also much easier to
code in. I found C to be confusing, frightening and intimidating with
its non-GUI-based coding style. Furthermore, I like to see the source
code of the projects I work with. Java's source seems to be under the
monopolistic thumb of Sun much the way that GCC is obscured from us by
the marketing people at the FSF. Microsoft's "shared source" under
which Visual Basic is released definately seems to be the most fair
and reasonable of all the licenses in existance, with none of the
harsh restrictions of the BSD license. It also lacks the GPLs
requirement that anything coded with its tools becomes property of the
FSF.
I hope to see a switch from C to VB very soon. I've already spoken
with various luminaries in the C coding world and most are eager to
begin to transition. Having just gotten off the phone with Mr. Alan
Cox, I can say that he is quite thrilled with the speed increases that
will occur when the Linux kernel is completely rewritten in Visual
Basic. Richard Stallman plans to support this, and hopes that the
great Swede himself, Linux Torvaldis, won't object to renaming Linux
to VB/Linux. Although not a C coder himself, I'm told that Slashdot's
very own Admiral Taco will support this on his web site. Finally,
Dennis Ritchie is excited about the switch!
Thank you for your time. Happy coding.
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
More like customers would have never gotten any support (outside of newsgroup posts saying RTFM when there is no FM) in the first place.
now I can go find all those people who said I should learn VB when I was in school, so that I could get one of the many "good jobs" working with it. I am sure you all heard that crap:
"OH, you want to be a programmer? I hear that there are lots of VB jobs! even though I am a useless toolbox that doesn't know anything about anything, I plan to give you advice anyway"
I will find them and and sing my new song:
you said I should
learn about VB
that it would help
find jobs for me
but I said I wouldn't
stoop so LOWWW
I TOLD YOU SO
I TOLD YOU SO
I TOLD YOU SO
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
I'll add some points that VB and VB programmers have in their favour:
4. Men tip their hats when they see you on the street. Women curtsie politely. You are recognized as a software engineer and respected as such.
5. You get a "free ice cream" card when you go to Baskin Robbins. Every 6 hole punches on the card gets you a free icecream cone of two scoops!
6. Barbers give you a shave and a haircut for only one bit instead of two.
"1. I want to know exactly what is going on in my code. I do not want it generated for me."
So, I gather you don't use a compiler?
Just because they declare end-of-life doesn't mean the cd's are going to burst into flames.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
We'll just go to our business and VPs and say, "Hey, IT needs to re-write and redeploy over 50 applications because Microsoft is no longer supporting the technology. Can we have $5,000,000 and halt all current projects until it's done?"
Who's its Daddy?
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
She never knew him!
A. Microsoft not supporting VB will not make it cease to work. You can keep using it if you like, it just ceases to be thier problem if it doesn't work.
B. Microsoft not supporting VB is like saying "don't do drugs". VB is the crack-cocaine of software engineering. True, it will give you a quick fix, but if you use it continually, you are screwed.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
Abandon Microsoft the first time they abandon you. Fool you once, shame on Microsoft, fool you twice, shame on you.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
VB to VBScript to JScript to PHP . . .
I'd say you're still starting.
Microsoft != Unshaven smelly unwashed hippies
Microsoft != F/OSS
therefore,
F/OSS == Unshaven smelly unwashed hippies
Well, that just proves what we already knew
Your incorrect usage of the word sane is driving me insain.