Re: Microsoft MVPs Say They Want Old VB Back

>Delphi is a good example though of how a designed language can develop
>without the catostrophic break that occured with VB6 to vb.net.
The key to what you are saying, I think, is "designed". As I'm sure you
know, Delphi was designed from the ground up to be an OO language. It
conformed to the Pascal standards, but this was far and away less of a
burden than having to accommodate the "language stability" of previous
versions. I'm guessing you would agree, but I would theorize that Delphi
hasn't required a major overhaul like VB had between VB6 and VB.NET because
Delphi's birth itself was a major overhaul on the current programming
methods of the day.

Slightly off topic: one of my favorite quips at the time was "The only
problem with Delphi is that it's Borland Delphi and not Microsoft Delphi."
It had most everything a programmer wanted in a language, but (because of
VB's deathgrip on language stability, ironically enough), it was more
difficult to find Delphi work.

- Mitchell S. Honnert


"Doug Taylor" <Doug.TaylorNTP@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:tbnl4112f50iit9fudu8kgds0csjenatdn@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:18:28 -0500, "Mitchell S. Honnert"
> <news@honnert~R~E~M~O~V~E~.com> wrote:
>
>>> People that use VB in their jobs. (Ranges from 3,000,000 to 6,000,000
>>> depending on where you get your numbers.)
>>>From this wording, someone would be included in this number if they did
>>the
>>majority of their day-to-day work in VB.NET and, when a bug cropped up or
>>some minor change was necessary, did some work in the VB6 IDE. Your point
>>about hard data is well taken. It could be applied to this stat as well.
>>A
>>much better hard number would not be people who just "use" VB6, but do the
>>majority of their work in VB6.
>>
>>>> There were a hell of a lot of COBOL programmers leading up to Y2K; it
>>>> didn't mean they *liked* COBOL, just that the money was good.
>>> And?
>>The Y2K COBOL programmers are an example of the danger is measuring a
>>languages "popularity" by how many people are using it. So, just because
>>there are 3,000,000 to 6,000,000 people who spend more than zero hours a
>>year working with VB6, it doesn't necessarily follow that those people are
>>in lockstep agreement that MS should have created VB7 instead of VB.NET.
>>Yes, it is conjecture, but it is based on my experience. One can make a
>>very good argument that, from a company's standpoint, it makes sense to
>>keep
>>using VB6 or even that a VB.COM would increase a VB6 programmers
>>productivity, but in my experience people don't like using VB6 any more.
>>The programmers themselves want to move to VB.NET, even if their bosses
>>don't want them to. This type of programmer isn't exactly the best
>>"poster
>>child" for your argument.
>>
>>> Do you have hard facts as to the rise or sale of Delphi? I admit that I
>>> am ignorant concerning the popularity of Delphi.
>>Sorry, Jim. I know you won't like this, but all of my evidence is
>>anecdotal. I can only tell you what I've experienced.
>>
> Delphi is a good example though of how a designed language can develop
> without the catostrophic break that occured with VB6 to vb.net.
> Delphi 7 is internally numbered as version 15 and though I haven't
> tried it I bet a program written for version 1 would run on it with
> little or no modification. But then Pascal, like C, C++ have ISO
> standards, so compilers have to be written to cope with at least the
> base standard. In addition Kompass and then Borland had a policy of
> writing the next compiler using the existing version, this ensured
> code compatibilty. Unfortunately, Basic has never been constrained by
> any standards, so it grew, yet still had to support ideas that were
> good at the time, but later seemed stupid. You could write GOSUB
> xxxxx in VB6, but how many VB6 programs actually used that feature.
>
> It was this and many other arcane constructs that led to MS wanting to
> have a clean break, I like many others agree that a far better job
> could have been made of the upgrade tool, but I for one have had very
> few problems running my code through it.
>
> I agree with Mitchell, I feel that a petition focused on providing a
> better migration tool would be more likely to succeed, even three
> years after the release of .Net
>>> This is simply a company that knows that they can do anything they damn
>>> well please and are not shy about cramming what THEY want down the
>>> throats
>>> of their customers.
>>Again, I apologize for not having the time to research any hard data for
>>you, but I can relate my experience. I made this same point with
>>Herfried,
>>but everyone I knew viewed the coming of VS.NET as a long overdue answer
>>to
>>the prayer of a major overhaul to the Visual Basic language. So, in
>>effect,
>>we had the exact opposite viewpoint as you, namely that MS was finally
>>giving us something we'd been asking for for a long time instead of
>>something that was being forced on us without any kind of prompt. And
>>when
>>it comes down to it, I guess this difference in viewpoint is at the heard
>>of
>>all of the other details we've been "discussing".
>>
>> - Mitchell S. Honnert
>>
>>
>>"Jim Hubbard" <reply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>news:X7KdnZTo_YHE29ffRVn-2A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>
>>> "Mitchell S. Honnert" <news@honnert~R~E~M~O~V~E~.com> wrote in message
>>> news:%23PttVKLNFHA.3076@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> "Jim Hubbard" <reply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> news:LKadnXgrQJkONtTfRVn-tg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>
>>>>> "Mitchell S. Honnert" <news@honnert~R~E~M~O~V~E~.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:ONy%23d5INFHA.1096@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>> This could have been done with VB.Net. Microsoft saw fit to allow C
>>>>>>> and C++ code to be able to be compiled within the Visual Studio IDE,
>>>>>>> but not Visual Basic. Why not?
>>>>>> Maybe it was because C++ wasn't screwed up like VB6 was.
>>>>>
>>>>> IYHO? Religous zeal is best relegated to religion.
>>>> "Religious zeal"? I mention in the post that I don't know C++, so why
>>>> would I be a C++ zealot? Notice the word "maybe" there. I really did
>>>> mean maybe.
>>>>
>>>>>>Maybe MS didn't want the taint of VB6 at all associated with their
>>>>>>next-generation application development tool.
>>>>>
>>>>> What "taint"? The opinions of programming language zealots? I, and
>>>>> 4,000,000+ others, respectfully disagree.
>>>> I'm not doubting the veracity of your data, but I do have an honest
>>>> question here: what is the "4,000,000+"? Is it people who use VB6?
>>>> Use
>>>> VB6 exclusively?
>>>
>>> People that use VB in their jobs. (Ranges from 3,000,000 to 6,000,000
>>> depending on where you get your numbers.) I don't know of any
>>> programmers
>>> that use any language exclusively.
>>>
>>>>In any case, you apparently presume that all of the those programmers
>>>>4,000,000 actually *like* programming in VB6. I put it to you that a
>>>>significant portion of those programmers, if not the majority, would
>>>>give
>>>>their eye teeth to be able to never see VB6 code again in their life.
>>>
>>> Here you go again with suppositions instead of facts. I will only
>>> discuss
>>> facts about this thread as all other arguments are futile.
>>>
>>>> There were a hell of a lot of COBOL programmers leading up to Y2K; it
>>>> didn't mean they *liked* COBOL, just that the money was good.
>>>
>>> And?
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>I've stated before that VB6 was a great tool for the time, but by
>>>>>>today's standards it's crap. I don't know C++, but my assumption was
>>>>>>that it was OK the way it was, whereas VB was long overdue for a major
>>>>>>overhaul.
>>>>>
>>>>> According to whom?
>>>> Me. I've used special care in this thread not to speak for anyone else
>>>> but me. All opinions in my posts are mine.
>>>
>>> Good enough.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Sure there were some issues, but never was there a call by the classic
>>>>> Visual Basic community for a completely new language. This
>>>>> hallucination is uniquely Microsoft's.
>>>> In another post, I mention how the runaway popularity of Delphi
>>>> signaled
>>>> to MS the inherent demand for a better RAD tool than VB6.
>>>
>>> Do you have hard facts as to the rise or sale of Delphi? I admit that I
>>> am ignorant concerning the popularity of Delphi.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't think so. If I understand things correctly, VB.COM would be
>>>>>>> an IDE that integrated both VB6 and VB.Net features while fixing
>>>>>>> known
>>>>>>> VB6 issues. in other words, something that should have been a part
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> VB.Net.
>>>>>> I think your statement above is evidence of the mixed signals in the
>>>>>> petition. The petition is calling for a major upgrade to VB6 and yet
>>>>>> you say that "we'd" be happy with just a better upgrade tool.
>>>>>
>>>>> I said we'd all be happy to move on. Moving on is (if made possible
>>>>> by
>>>>> an upgrade too that actually worked for larger projects) preferable to
>>>>> rewriting our existing codebase.
>>>>>
>>>>>> (I don't think you are using the royal "we", so I'm assuming you are
>>>>>> speaking on behalf of the petitioners.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Not all of them. As you will notice, I am only a supporter of the
>>>>> petition.....not an author.
>>>> OK. Point taken. I do still happen to believe that a solution of a
>>>> better upgrade tool is far more in line with the problems stated in the
>>>> petition.
>>>
>>> Since we have neither solution, either would be an improvement.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>The conclusion I draw from this is that petitioners don't really want
>>>>>>to
>>>>>>address the problems stated in the petition itself, but the unstated
>>>>>>"problem" that they think VB.NET should never have been developed in
>>>>>>the
>>>>>>first place.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't draw that conclusion at all. I haven't seen anyhting in the
>>>>> petition that says that Microsoft should not have produced a new
>>>>> programming language. It deals mainly with backwards compatibility
>>>>> and
>>>>> continued use of the HUGE VB6 codebase in use.
>>>> The fact that there is no mention of this in the petition is exactly my
>>>> point. In this thread, I've noticed that the strongest supporters of
>>>> the
>>>> petition are the very same people that believe that MS should have
>>>> developed VB7 instead of VB.NET. So, the reason (IMHO) that the
>>>> petitioners want VB.COM is not to address the problems listed in the
>>>> petition, but to get what they wanted all along, VB7.
>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't agree.
>>>>>> Which part of what I said don't you agree with? That a better
>>>>>> upgrade
>>>>>> tool wouldn't solve the problems stated in the petition? That VB.COM
>>>>>> would be a major undertaking?
>>>>>
>>>>> To your statement....."that the proposed solution is overkill." It is
>>>>> no less than the C/C++ programmers recieved.
>>>>
>>>>>>> What they are asking for in VB.COM is exactly what the C/C++
>>>>>>> programmers got in Visual Studio .Net.
>>>>>> I've heard this argument used several times and I have the same
>>>>>> response every time. Just because VS.NET's support of C/C++ is in
>>>>>> principle the same as a theoretical support for VB6 in VS.NET it
>>>>>> doesn't mean that it makes economic sense to invest in this
>>>>>> development. To use an analogy I've used before, if I already have a
>>>>>> mortgage, the principle of getting a loan to buy a house is the same,
>>>>>> but that doesn't mean I can buy *another* house. So, just because
>>>>>> Microsoft felt it was a good investment to incorporate C/C++ into
>>>>>> VS.NET doesn't mean that (especially so far after the fact) it would
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> a good investment (from their perspective) to do it for VB6.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know the financial situation, costs or revenues gained from
>>>>> Visual Basic or C++. Niether do you. This is pure speculation on
>>>>> your
>>>>> part. I could just as easily argue that Visual Basic 6 was more
>>>>> financially feasable because of the enormous 3rd party component
>>>>> market
>>>>> that supports it. But, without hard data, that would be just as
>>>>> speculative as your argument.
>>>> Agreed. We're both speculating. But in speculating, we uncover each
>>>> other's attitudes and presumptions about the issues. And I rather
>>>> enjoy
>>>> the conversation. Else I wouldn't be keeping a thread going that is
>>>> already 15 levels deep. :-)
>>>
>>> I rarely start threads.....but when I do.......
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> (In all fairness, a great deal of this thread has been reduced to pure
>>>>> speculation - including my speculation on the reasons for Microsoft's
>>>>> abandonment of the largest programming group on history. Perhaps we
>>>>> should stick to what can be tested and proven?)
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I happen to think one of the biggest reasons that C/C++ was supported
>>>>>> in VS.NET and not VB6 is related to Doug's original point about
>>>>>> VB.COM
>>>>>> being a "dead-end project". In practical terms, VB6 wasn't
>>>>>> incorporated into the original version of VS.NET (nor will it be with
>>>>>> VB.COM) for the simple reason that MS programmers themselves use
>>>>>> C/C++
>>>>>> more than VB.
>>>>>
>>>>> Finally we agree on something.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Too many programmers would have viewed being assigned to the
>>>>>> "VB6.NET"
>>>>>> as a one-way ticket to professional oblivion. "Oh, so you worked on
>>>>>> the VB6.NET project, eh? That's nice. Next!"
>>>>>
>>>>> If the development was continued (as requested in the petition, and
>>>>> has
>>>>> been Microsoft's track record with Visual Basic since it's inception)
>>>>> it
>>>>> wouldn't be a one-way ticket. In fact, those programmers would have a
>>>>> greater number of companies desiring their services - just as they did
>>>>> with the most popular programming language in the world - VB 6.
>>>>>
>>>>> The old, tired argument that you are insinuating that these
>>>>> professional
>>>>> developers at Microsoft buy into (that classic Visual Basic is a "toy
>>>>> language") is only put forth by those ignorant of the business needs
>>>>> of
>>>>> the businesses that have adopted Visual Basic 6 as their premier RAD
>>>>> tool.
>>>> I think you are confusing *my* attitude with the attitude that I
>>>> speculate is prominant in MS.
>>>
>>> No. I understand that you are projecting your suppositions on the
>>> Microsoft team. And, I agree with you. That very well may have been an
>>> issue for them, but it shouldn't have been.
>>>
>>>>I consider myself to be a big supporter of Visual Basic as a whole,
>>>>railing against the stereotype that VB isn't for "real programmers".
>>>>Besides, I believe that MS employees would consider being assigned to
>>>>VB.COM a dead-end job not because it's *Visual Basic*, but because it's
>>>>a
>>>>dead *version* (from MS's standpoint) of Visual Basic. So, while MS
>>>>employees may have a false and unjustified stereotype of the person who
>>>>programs in Visual Basic, the reason (IMHO) that they wouldn't want to
>>>>work on the project is they'd rather work for a project that was
>>>>enhancing
>>>>a product for the future rather than extending the life-time of an aged
>>>>product.
>>>
>>> You're right. It is s dead version. But it is only so because
>>> Microsoft
>>> decided to abandon it. There are no technical issues that would
>>> preclude
>>> Microsoft's implementation of a serious upgrade tool, the inclusion of
>>> classic Visual Basic in the current Visual Studio .Net IDE or that would
>>> preclude the enhancement of the language.
>>>
>>> This is simply a company that knows that they can do anything they damn
>>> well please and are not shy about cramming what THEY want down the
>>> throats
>>> of their customers.
>>>
>>> Jim Hubbard
>>>
>>
>


.

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