Re: A VB6 fan asks... why do YOU stick with VB6???

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"Bob O`Bob" <filterbob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ujo2uDllGHA.1208@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


then they (''devco'') are missing the boat, too.

Actually, I don't think so. I think some of them would like to see a
Classic Basic compatible compiler in the mix, I just don't see them doing it
for the reasons I stated.

Microsoft created the most popular programming tool in the universe -
twice.
(well, technically, the first was by a little Albuquerque start-up named
"Micro-Soft")

Yup. Clearly correct.

The second time, (VB) it was pretty much by accident, and they had (still
have) no clue
/why/ it really happened. Asking developers what they what want is a
*wrong* approach.

I don't think it was so much by accident as it was decided based on
intuitition, from people who (back then) had an appreciation of the needs
and developers.

It is NOT about catering to developers
... it is about inspiring _people_ to BECOME developers.

I agree, in part. It's not about catering to developers but it *is* about
not letting other objectives take you off course. That is what happened in
*every* problem case concerning MS Basic. Most of the corruption at VB4
was due to MS's mission to force the Unicode issue and other similar pieces.
All of the corruption with VB.Net was due to pressing the .Net platform.

I (and *many* others) also agree that they can do far more with Delphi to
inspire people to take up software development. Heck, the base language was
used years ago as a teaching language and they let that go completely. They
also let non-developer managers run the ship nearly into the ground. AH
left Borland for exactly that reason (and you can hear that in his interview
on MS TV (Channel 9?). For the past, probably, 6 to 10 years
Borland/Inprise has been on a mission to sell ALM to huge shops. A couple
of guys went along on some sales calls and found that they didn't even
mention Delphi in passing! Heck, they were talking to high level IT shop
management who didn't know any more about software development than specs,
schedules, and what they read in the latest trade rags.

Those days are over. The new DevCo is going to be focusing on the developer
level.

No derivative of Pascal is ever going to match that.

I've been surprised at how well Delphi (aka Object Pascal) fits the hole VB
left. I agree that nothing is ever going to *match* that, but it'll come
far closer than vFred, simply because things "fit" better into the whole.
The guys designing the language, libs, and IDE *use* the language so when
they make additions the changes "fit" into a big picture. Like language
additions *used* to fit with Basic.

I actually said something close to that to Klaus in Dallas in 1982,
and he didn't disagree. Pascal is for programmers. BASIC makes
ordinary people feel they /can/ program.

No doubt about it. OTOH, some relatively simple changes to Delphi will get
a lot of what's currently missing covered. It will never be Basic, but then
neither will VFred. Remember, the guys that created the ClassicBasic that
you and I know and love are no longer involved, nor will they ever be again.
What you see is *all* you get. The current "keeper of the keys" for vFred
has no experience with the language or developers and is *completely*
clueless.

So, don't take my comments as saying that I like Delphi better than
ClassicBasic. I haven't said that (and I retain that position even on the
Delphi ng's... and they tolerate that well now<g>). My point is that there
isn't *that* much difference and that with some judicious tweaking we could
get a lot of what we love about VB included in Delphi *without* corrupting
Delphi into VB (which would be as wrong as the vice versa).

Bottom line, it's not VB, but it's *much* better than I thought (or than you
think).

Dan


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