OK there Mr. High & Mighty
on
XBox Delayed
·
· Score: 2
Which big corporation does everyone think of as inspirational, moral-always does the right thing, and makes everyone happy?
I don't know of one. Granted, only a few others sport the sort of egregious abuses of monopoly power that Microsoft does, but so what.
You don't like Microsoft? Fine go buy a Nintendo. Have fun. Go buy your shiny new ball from a different evil corporation.
Any for-profit entity is *for profit*. You want to support a new order that respects people and the world in general? Then support, work at, and otherwise propagate non-profit entities.
I for one, probably won't buy any new game system at all. I don't have time for it anyway with the new Compaq Presario 7000Z I bought from the "evil" for-profit Compaq Corporation.;)
Yeah, you're most likely right of course. But, my idea is much more fun.
Think about it though, how likely is the military to be in possession of simulation software like I mentioned with full-out graphics capabilities that actually runs on those spiffy supercomputers they own? Maybe very likely. If not, then a Beowulf cluster is the perfect starting point along with existing code perhaps from the likes of Loki.
Not encryption... modeling of the ground actions to be take in Afghanistan or other areas. Probably need to know just how hard it's going to be. Couple the micro-management concerns of a first person shooter with the strategic elements of a real-time strategy with the parallel concerns of mutiple agents in the field and you could probably simulate a proper battlefield in short order.
It just means we will write what we want about Microsoft using FrontPage or any other tool we wish anyway. They come to your door complaining you used FrontPage to disparage them (how *ARE* they going to know anyway unless you leave in their crappy custom META tags?), then tell them to F*CK OFF!
Come on people, get a grip.
Too many people have died in the defense of our liberties to give companies like Microsoft the time of day on crap like this. What the hell are they thinking anyway?!
Oh, and before someone ever so smartly points out that Microsoft is a private organization and can do whatever they like in a EULA because it's a contract, think twice. Think about it, why should Microsoft get to control the discourse of the common man when the government (for the most part) can not?
Are we saying that Microsoft is a special large organization that should have *MORE* power than the government?
Who would die to defend Microsoft's right to do that???
And to that end, the best way to get profits is to enslave, as much as possible anyone who can contribute to your bottom line. People can be flighty and unpredictable, and that's our nature. We don't always do the same thing time after time because the best course of action is usually a patchwork of compromises and actions that best benefit us in our current situation. Organizations that seek consistent results (not just corporations) have to homogenize the environment in order to reduce their risk factors and facilitate easy growth. Once they do that, they expand. Once they've expanded, they control. And once they start to control.. they tell you who to associate with, what your goals are, where to be, when to do tasks, and how to live.
In ceding your personal power to an organization, you'll be giving them some level of control. It's inevitable then that you become secondary to the system and be controlled by it.
Note that this isn't always a bad thing, but a balance must exist.
It occurs to me that there are already a substantial number of games available for Linux. How about concentrating on making them available on the PS2 with a porting effort instead of writing a game from scratch? The way I see it, if you're writing a game for the PS2 as the project, you're really dealing with 2 major topics, the machine's architecture AND the porting effort and all of the issues inherent to that (which you'll need in order to get a working compiler, etc.). If you limit yourself to one of the two issues, I think you'll have a much better chance of meeting your goal.
That said, how about considering porting a gaming toolset/harness/framework to the PS2 as a sort of bootstrap for games to be easily developed for the PS2? What comes to mind for me is SDL and one or more of the toolkits surrounding SDL (especially PyGame!). That way, you'll be able to actually contribute something to the community, and you'll get working PS2 games (hopefully) in the bargain.
On the other hand, you could just obtain the stock PS2 development kit (whatever it is) and concentrate on just making a game using the tools they recommend. Given the lack of PS2 titles though, that must be more difficult than it sounds.
First, they have to figure out *why* it's a threat. Part of being an effective and moral software professional is the ability to be rational. Why is the DMCA a threat? Is there anything good about it too? Etc. I hear more demonizing about the DMCA and any kind of IP law than I know what to do with, and much more of it than I care to consider comes down to "because I don't like it". I'm sure thieves don't like car-theft prevention devices either, but the larger good of society guarantees that they're here to say despite that.
Even if your students still don't know about the DMCA when your class is finished, it won't matter. It's much more important for them to have a handle on being able to separate the issues on their own.
Apparently, I need to become more familiar with PostgreSQL. I looked at using it for a client a while back, but I quickly backed off of it when I realized that it's not a viable option for Windows OSs (there is a port of it for Windows, but I guess it's not very well tested or trusted). That is still an issue, but being able to do SPs with it would be nice.
On the other hand, MySQL is coming along nicely on Windows, so I might just wait to see what they come up with. I probably won't get clients to use either anyway and I don't know how hard I would push at this point, but I'm definitely going to keep these options in mind for clients that hate using proprietary products (which is a tough thing when you start talking about database technology!).
and it's a worthy goal. Unfortunately, there's two major problems with them:
1. Too many people use them for procedural programming anyway. There's just things you can't do otherwise, so the capability has to be there. But the capability is often abused.
2. They're too proprietary. I'm not up on ANSI SQL standards enough to know by how much each one deviates and whether the ANSI standard provides a complete enough standard for SP operations, but it occurs to me that MySQL could stand to gain a lot by exactly toeing the ANSI standards line. Just a thought I guess.
I agree that the point of SPs is performance. But nothing I described would really preclude that. I wouldn't have used Perl either, but that doesn't mean it's a bad start. For now anyway, it's just a hack. They're not caching execution plans, etc. anyway, so this debate is almost entirely worthless.
On that note, you could afford to be nice you know, it wouldn't cost you a dime. Besides, I tried to re-butt by looking at the logic you employed above, and their really isn't anything other than a couple assertions. We could both come up with an entire list of social/political and technical ways of how to improve on the idea, but the tone of your message is completely insulting, so why should I waste my time?
You're not nearly as great yet as you would like to be. Your post gives that away more clearly than meeting you would.
if they put hooks into a generic MySQL facility which allows *any* programming language to serve as a SP language in the server. Why can't I use Python? Why can't I use xxx? It's widely rumored that Microsoft is doing this same thing for the next version of SQL Server, so this really isn't such a radical idea. The trick is to devise an abstraction within MySQL that represents all stored procedure capabilities, and then interface each target language to that layer.
I agree that having a Transact-SQL equivalent will be key to consideration by serious database users, but it's just a starting point.
/. is no longer the pure nest of "rabid Linux-ism" that it used to be. Some people may see that as a bad thing, but I think it's a good thing. The ideas behind Linux/open source/free software are good ones and deserve a thriving community. The community is made stronger by some idealogical opposition, which keeps it realistic.
In short, the Windows folks here really add favorably to the mix. The reaction isn't automatically "f*** off" anymore to ideas which aren't automatically hostile towards Microsoft.
I don't think we can reasonably expect every large scale change that Microsoft makes will result in little or no change for developers. And I see this as a good thing in the software design sense. In the software maintainability sense, yeah, it's bad (if not horrible). But at least Microsoft doesn't make us wait forever for these kinds of improvements. To use the original example: I personally have done Winsock code using VB. And it sucked. Big time. So much of the work I did should have been completely unnecessary.
But the new API? I'll take that with a shake please! I'd gladly dump all of that old code to be replaced with a few lines the new stuff; it's not a one to one translation anymore. VS.NET will help developers function with the OS at a much higher level semantically than was possible before. That increases productivity. Hell, I'll take two!
I know you're just trying to be funny, but a number of languages make it easy to write crappy code. Among them is Perl, the local favorite here. Not trying to be flame bait, but I don't see how everyone can get all smug about VB's deficiencies (which do exist I readily admit) without looking to their own favorite languages first.
Aside from the coolness factor, why would you run Linux on a PS2 anyway? The PS2 doesn't have enough dynamic storage or networking ability to make it into a nice PC-like or net appliance unit, does it?
Apologies in advance if this seems like a stupid question.
I have to concur. The FCC and the manufacturers can kiss my butt, because I am NOT going to HDTV as a consumer until it costs *less* than regular TV and allows me all of the same capabilities I have today and then-some. Why should I? What possible reason can anyone really give me?
But the browsers aren't 'virtual machine' friendly. Microsoft is basically giving their JVM the boot and preventing a JVM from being installed (if I understand the security part correctly).
However, none of this prevents a developer from buying a Java package to compile his Java applications/beans to.NET IL for use in a.NET environment. Such a compiler isn't available yet, but you can bet your butt one will be available (unless Sun interferes of course, which they could I suppose with baseless lawsuits).
.NET truly is language neutral, but it won't be API neutral.
I don't know of another answer besides Java Web Start. I think people aren't talking about it because it's not usually practical for the average browser user because of the initial download.
Having said that, let's take a quick look at Google searching on 'java application deployment'. Here are a couple interesting leads (which may or may not fit your needs depending on the nature of the extranet you're servicing):
I'm talking out of my ass a bit here, because I haven't actually tried this but...
It's a fact that.NET includes extensive security APIs. It should be true (here's the unverified piece) that Visual Studio.NET will also allow me to write ActiveX control (it allows 'Web Control' projects so that should be true).
The two combined means that Microsoft could be providing ActiveX controls with capable of being highly secure.
Of course, that doesn't stop trojan writers from utilizing the old tools to write old-style ActiveX controls, which the new browser will have to be able to execute in order to avoid pissing off all of the existing ActiveX control authors.
Also - if Sun is smart, they will use ActiveX to sneak a JVM into the browser anyway. The browser doesn't have to know that it's actually executing Java in a control; Microsoft wouldn't be able to stop that without ditching ActiveX browser controls (not likely).
Oh, and I know that schools are emphasizing Java, and rightly so. After all, if you want to teach OO using 'standard' C++ to students you have to use Microsoft's tools (to be effective anyway, I have experienced this first hand) which professors abhor. So, enjoy your Java. Hell, go get certified. But learn VB and other MS tools too, you *will* need them. You'll probably use both skill sets at some point anyway (unless you close your mind, but then guys like me will mow you down in the market - it's your choice).
All very true. I don't see this as so much of an offensive move by Microsoft. Sun basically took their ability to be a quality Java player away, so they decided not to play at all.
Sun will just have to come up with a way for applets to bootstrap themselves into the new browser without causing a 5 meg download. That shouldn't be too difficult technically, but it will take time to get the applet authors to get the bootstrap in place (either via code internal to the applet itself or via a wrapper ActiveX control which brings in the JVM - hell ActiveX will still be there - why not bootstrap off of it?!).
Isn't there a version of Java being developed for release under.NET (by Hewlett-Packard)? I believe so. So, you will be able to run Java under.NET eventually, sort of.
Why 'sort of'? Well, there is the issue of the Java APIs. I doubt that the providing vendor will get those 100% right, but they might even shoot for J2EE compliance. If Sun is wise, they won't fight that either..NET will be going everywhere and they have much to lose by keeping Java out of.NET.
However,.NET won't fix the issue of Java missing from the browser. But Sun has seen this coming for some time now, hence the existence of what used to be called 'Java Activator', now called 'Java Web Start' I think (see http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/javawe bstart/ for details).
On the plus side, this does mean we can look forward to not worrying about users actually using Microsoft's Java in browsers. The feature set of that JVM is more limited in terms of the APIs (e.g. Swing) it supports compared to Sun's more current JVMs. Applet developers could actually standardize on a Sun JVM baseline now; not that applets are all that important anymore.
Come to think of it, this doesn't really even affect most Java client-side application as most of those ship with some version of the JVM anyway.
*shrug* I guess we saw this coming a long way off though. Microsoft hasn't really surprised anyone on this.
Obviously, you wouldn't encourage your staff to learn this way on production servers/nuclear reactors/airplanes/medical patients/etc, but yes, it does work. One of the big barriers to learning is fear and being intimidated by the material and/or the setting. If you pretend you're already enculturated in that setting, you will remove the big barriers to learning.
The brain's bandwidth is only going to be limited by your emotional filters, so just remove them when you need to learn. It's your brain, why not learn to use it!
And when the dust settled, I wound up using Python + Tkinter (for the GUI stuff; you actually have a choice in Python - unlike VB).
You will:
-Miss the click VB IDE.
-Work harder to achieve database access.
-Need to read documentation.
-Find yourself in the middle of a very supportive and hard-working community.
-Be using a rewarding and structured language which achieves portability in most situations with great ease.
-Enjoy full OO and some functional language support.
-Wish you never had to use another language again.
You won't:
-Struggle with your code's maintainability.
-Be hemmed in by VB's language limitations anymore.
-Be worrying about licensing issues.
-Pay money for your tools, unless you want to.
-Miss VB.
Slashdot Mirror
Which big corporation does everyone think of as inspirational, moral-always does the right thing, and makes everyone happy?
;)
I don't know of one. Granted, only a few others sport the sort of egregious abuses of monopoly power that Microsoft does, but so what.
You don't like Microsoft? Fine go buy a Nintendo. Have fun. Go buy your shiny new ball from a different evil corporation.
Any for-profit entity is *for profit*. You want to support a new order that respects people and the world in general? Then support, work at, and otherwise propagate non-profit entities.
I for one, probably won't buy any new game system at all. I don't have time for it anyway with the new Compaq Presario 7000Z I bought from the "evil" for-profit Compaq Corporation.
Yeah, you're most likely right of course. But, my idea is much more fun.
Think about it though, how likely is the military to be in possession of simulation software like I mentioned with full-out graphics capabilities that actually runs on those spiffy supercomputers they own? Maybe very likely. If not, then a Beowulf cluster is the perfect starting point along with existing code perhaps from the likes of Loki.
Hmm....
;+)
Not encryption... modeling of the ground actions to be take in Afghanistan or other areas. Probably need to know just how hard it's going to be. Couple the micro-management concerns of a first person shooter with the strategic elements of a real-time strategy with the parallel concerns of mutiple agents in the field and you could probably simulate a proper battlefield in short order.
:)
Hmm...
My $0.02 worth of a guess.
It just means we will write what we want about Microsoft using FrontPage or any other tool we wish anyway. They come to your door complaining you used FrontPage to disparage them (how *ARE* they going to know anyway unless you leave in their crappy custom META tags?), then tell them to F*CK OFF!
Come on people, get a grip.
Too many people have died in the defense of our liberties to give companies like Microsoft the time of day on crap like this. What the hell are they thinking anyway?!
Oh, and before someone ever so smartly points out that Microsoft is a private organization and can do whatever they like in a EULA because it's a contract, think twice. Think about it, why should Microsoft get to control the discourse of the common man when the government (for the most part) can not?
Are we saying that Microsoft is a special large organization that should have *MORE* power than the government?
Who would die to defend Microsoft's right to do that???
I didn't think so.
And to that end, the best way to get profits is to enslave, as much as possible anyone who can contribute to your bottom line. People can be flighty and unpredictable, and that's our nature. We don't always do the same thing time after time because the best course of action is usually a patchwork of compromises and actions that best benefit us in our current situation. Organizations that seek consistent results (not just corporations) have to homogenize the environment in order to reduce their risk factors and facilitate easy growth. Once they do that, they expand. Once they've expanded, they control. And once they start to control.. they tell you who to associate with, what your goals are, where to be, when to do tasks, and how to live.
In ceding your personal power to an organization, you'll be giving them some level of control. It's inevitable then that you become secondary to the system and be controlled by it.
Note that this isn't always a bad thing, but a balance must exist.
It occurs to me that there are already a substantial number of games available for Linux. How about concentrating on making them available on the PS2 with a porting effort instead of writing a game from scratch? The way I see it, if you're writing a game for the PS2 as the project, you're really dealing with 2 major topics, the machine's architecture AND the porting effort and all of the issues inherent to that (which you'll need in order to get a working compiler, etc.). If you limit yourself to one of the two issues, I think you'll have a much better chance of meeting your goal.
That said, how about considering porting a gaming toolset/harness/framework to the PS2 as a sort of bootstrap for games to be easily developed for the PS2? What comes to mind for me is SDL and one or more of the toolkits surrounding SDL (especially PyGame!). That way, you'll be able to actually contribute something to the community, and you'll get working PS2 games (hopefully) in the bargain.
On the other hand, you could just obtain the stock PS2 development kit (whatever it is) and concentrate on just making a game using the tools they recommend. Given the lack of PS2 titles though, that must be more difficult than it sounds.
First, they have to figure out *why* it's a threat. Part of being an effective and moral software professional is the ability to be rational. Why is the DMCA a threat? Is there anything good about it too? Etc. I hear more demonizing about the DMCA and any kind of IP law than I know what to do with, and much more of it than I care to consider comes down to "because I don't like it". I'm sure thieves don't like car-theft prevention devices either, but the larger good of society guarantees that they're here to say despite that.
Even if your students still don't know about the DMCA when your class is finished, it won't matter. It's much more important for them to have a handle on being able to separate the issues on their own.
Now they can stop the brain drain with some simple FUD.
Comrade: "Oh, you want to leave the country to work in the US? Well, I have a gift for you."
Programmer: "What's the Vaseline for?"
Comrade: "It will make your stay in prison easier to bear."
That would probably be the end of that.
Apparently, I need to become more familiar with PostgreSQL. I looked at using it for a client a while back, but I quickly backed off of it when I realized that it's not a viable option for Windows OSs (there is a port of it for Windows, but I guess it's not very well tested or trusted). That is still an issue, but being able to do SPs with it would be nice.
On the other hand, MySQL is coming along nicely on Windows, so I might just wait to see what they come up with. I probably won't get clients to use either anyway and I don't know how hard I would push at this point, but I'm definitely going to keep these options in mind for clients that hate using proprietary products (which is a tough thing when you start talking about database technology!).
and it's a worthy goal. Unfortunately, there's two major problems with them:
1. Too many people use them for procedural programming anyway. There's just things you can't do otherwise, so the capability has to be there. But the capability is often abused.
2. They're too proprietary. I'm not up on ANSI SQL standards enough to know by how much each one deviates and whether the ANSI standard provides a complete enough standard for SP operations, but it occurs to me that MySQL could stand to gain a lot by exactly toeing the ANSI standards line. Just a thought I guess.
I agree that the point of SPs is performance. But nothing I described would really preclude that. I wouldn't have used Perl either, but that doesn't mean it's a bad start. For now anyway, it's just a hack. They're not caching execution plans, etc. anyway, so this debate is almost entirely worthless.
On that note, you could afford to be nice you know, it wouldn't cost you a dime. Besides, I tried to re-butt by looking at the logic you employed above, and their really isn't anything other than a couple assertions. We could both come up with an entire list of social/political and technical ways of how to improve on the idea, but the tone of your message is completely insulting, so why should I waste my time?
You're not nearly as great yet as you would like to be. Your post gives that away more clearly than meeting you would.
if they put hooks into a generic MySQL facility which allows *any* programming language to serve as a SP language in the server. Why can't I use Python? Why can't I use xxx? It's widely rumored that Microsoft is doing this same thing for the next version of SQL Server, so this really isn't such a radical idea. The trick is to devise an abstraction within MySQL that represents all stored procedure capabilities, and then interface each target language to that layer.
I agree that having a Transact-SQL equivalent will be key to consideration by serious database users, but it's just a starting point.
After all, he got modded up.
/. is no longer the pure nest of "rabid Linux-ism" that it used to be. Some people may see that as a bad thing, but I think it's a good thing. The ideas behind Linux/open source/free software are good ones and deserve a thriving community. The community is made stronger by some idealogical opposition, which keeps it realistic.
In short, the Windows folks here really add favorably to the mix. The reaction isn't automatically "f*** off" anymore to ideas which aren't automatically hostile towards Microsoft.
That's the way it should be.
I don't think we can reasonably expect every large scale change that Microsoft makes will result in little or no change for developers. And I see this as a good thing in the software design sense. In the software maintainability sense, yeah, it's bad (if not horrible). But at least Microsoft doesn't make us wait forever for these kinds of improvements. To use the original example: I personally have done Winsock code using VB. And it sucked. Big time. So much of the work I did should have been completely unnecessary.
But the new API? I'll take that with a shake please! I'd gladly dump all of that old code to be replaced with a few lines the new stuff; it's not a one to one translation anymore. VS.NET will help developers function with the OS at a much higher level semantically than was possible before. That increases productivity. Hell, I'll take two!
I know you're just trying to be funny, but a number of languages make it easy to write crappy code. Among them is Perl, the local favorite here. Not trying to be flame bait, but I don't see how everyone can get all smug about VB's deficiencies (which do exist I readily admit) without looking to their own favorite languages first.
Aside from the coolness factor, why would you run Linux on a PS2 anyway? The PS2 doesn't have enough dynamic storage or networking ability to make it into a nice PC-like or net appliance unit, does it?
Apologies in advance if this seems like a stupid question.
I have to concur. The FCC and the manufacturers can kiss my butt, because I am NOT going to HDTV as a consumer until it costs *less* than regular TV and allows me all of the same capabilities I have today and then-some. Why should I? What possible reason can anyone really give me?
But the browsers aren't 'virtual machine' friendly. Microsoft is basically giving their JVM the boot and preventing a JVM from being installed (if I understand the security part correctly).
.NET IL for use in a .NET environment. Such a compiler isn't available yet, but you can bet your butt one will be available (unless Sun interferes of course, which they could I suppose with baseless lawsuits).
However, none of this prevents a developer from buying a Java package to compile his Java applications/beans to
.NET truly is language neutral, but it won't be API neutral.
I don't know of another answer besides Java Web Start. I think people aren't talking about it because it's not usually practical for the average browser user because of the initial download.
n t/ java/launchers.shtml
:+)
Having said that, let's take a quick look at Google searching on 'java application deployment'. Here are a couple interesting leads (which may or may not fit your needs depending on the nature of the extranet you're servicing):
DeployDirector
http://www.sitraka.com/software/deploydirector/
CUJRE
http://solutions.cit.cornell.edu/Tools/deployme
Repeat this ten times: Google is our friend.
Good luck!
I'm talking out of my ass a bit here, because I haven't actually tried this but...
.NET includes extensive security APIs. It should be true (here's the unverified piece) that Visual Studio.NET will also allow me to write ActiveX control (it allows 'Web Control' projects so that should be true).
It's a fact that
The two combined means that Microsoft could be providing ActiveX controls with capable of being highly secure.
Of course, that doesn't stop trojan writers from utilizing the old tools to write old-style ActiveX controls, which the new browser will have to be able to execute in order to avoid pissing off all of the existing ActiveX control authors.
Also - if Sun is smart, they will use ActiveX to sneak a JVM into the browser anyway. The browser doesn't have to know that it's actually executing Java in a control; Microsoft wouldn't be able to stop that without ditching ActiveX browser controls (not likely).
Oh, and I know that schools are emphasizing Java, and rightly so. After all, if you want to teach OO using 'standard' C++ to students you have to use Microsoft's tools (to be effective anyway, I have experienced this first hand) which professors abhor. So, enjoy your Java. Hell, go get certified. But learn VB and other MS tools too, you *will* need them. You'll probably use both skill sets at some point anyway (unless you close your mind, but then guys like me will mow you down in the market - it's your choice).
All very true. I don't see this as so much of an offensive move by Microsoft. Sun basically took their ability to be a quality Java player away, so they decided not to play at all.
Sun will just have to come up with a way for applets to bootstrap themselves into the new browser without causing a 5 meg download. That shouldn't be too difficult technically, but it will take time to get the applet authors to get the bootstrap in place (either via code internal to the applet itself or via a wrapper ActiveX control which brings in the JVM - hell ActiveX will still be there - why not bootstrap off of it?!).
Isn't there a version of Java being developed for release under .NET (by Hewlett-Packard)? I believe so. So, you will be able to run Java under .NET eventually, sort of.
.NET will be going everywhere and they have much to lose by keeping Java out of .NET.
.NET won't fix the issue of Java missing from the browser. But Sun has seen this coming for some time now, hence the existence of what used to be called 'Java Activator', now called 'Java Web Start' I think (see http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/javawe bstart/ for details).
Why 'sort of'? Well, there is the issue of the Java APIs. I doubt that the providing vendor will get those 100% right, but they might even shoot for J2EE compliance. If Sun is wise, they won't fight that either.
However,
On the plus side, this does mean we can look forward to not worrying about users actually using Microsoft's Java in browsers. The feature set of that JVM is more limited in terms of the APIs (e.g. Swing) it supports compared to Sun's more current JVMs. Applet developers could actually standardize on a Sun JVM baseline now; not that applets are all that important anymore.
Come to think of it, this doesn't really even affect most Java client-side application as most of those ship with some version of the JVM anyway.
*shrug* I guess we saw this coming a long way off though. Microsoft hasn't really surprised anyone on this.
Obviously, you wouldn't encourage your staff to learn this way on production servers/nuclear reactors/airplanes/medical patients/etc, but yes, it does work. One of the big barriers to learning is fear and being intimidated by the material and/or the setting. If you pretend you're already enculturated in that setting, you will remove the big barriers to learning.
The brain's bandwidth is only going to be limited by your emotional filters, so just remove them when you need to learn. It's your brain, why not learn to use it!
And when the dust settled, I wound up using Python + Tkinter (for the GUI stuff; you actually have a choice in Python - unlike VB).
You will:
-Miss the click VB IDE.
-Work harder to achieve database access.
-Need to read documentation.
-Find yourself in the middle of a very supportive and hard-working community.
-Be using a rewarding and structured language which achieves portability in most situations with great ease.
-Enjoy full OO and some functional language support.
-Wish you never had to use another language again.
You won't:
-Struggle with your code's maintainability.
-Be hemmed in by VB's language limitations anymore.
-Be worrying about licensing issues.
-Pay money for your tools, unless you want to.
-Miss VB.
Best of luck!
It's not supposed to revolutionize typing or gaming. It's for Palms. For those folks, this is a god-send!
Geez...