For Your Amusement

I wasn't sure how to proceed as far as a title was concerned but I wanted to get
this out.

Microsoft has seen fit to ignore its VB developer base. My reaction has been to
move to another platform and begin re factoring my bread and butter app back
into C++ where it existed originally before a friend (?) convinced me to move it
into VB about ten years ago.

The first paragraph of the foreward of "C++ GUI Programming With Qt 3" (I'm
using Qt 4) reads like this:

"Why Qt? Why do programmers like us choose Qt? Sure, there are the obvious
answers: Qt's single-source compatibility, its feature richness, its C++
performance, the availability of the source code, its documentation, the
high-quality technical support, and all the other items mentioned in Trolltech's
glossy marketing materials. This is all very well, but it missed the most
important point: Qt is successful because programmers like it."

There it is. The word ~like~ is in italics and for a good reason. Before I
received the book I had been playing with examples and actually found myself
having fun and enjoying it. To the point that I remarked about the phenomena to
my wife.

And that's the point of this post, I guess. Microsoft in all its wisdom has
missed the boat completely. VB was so remarkably popular because it was fun.
I'll just laugh silently at anyone who tries to convince me that the point and
click .NET wonderland is anywhere near as much fun as trashing (yes trashing not
thrashing) around in good old VB. Ballmer, baby, you blew it. Ya coulda had it
all...

---
Stefan Berglund
.