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The same can be said about any language.
"Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug."
- John Lithgow
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Hi,
Having loyalty to one programming language or another is like having loyalty to a specific vendor. I (and assuming you too) don’t force yourself to buy gas from specific gas station. The minute your car is out of gas you simply drive up to the closest gas station to fill up your car. Now if the price or quality of the gas is at question you may look around for stations with the preferred quality.
The same scenario is valid for choice of programming language. The essence of being able to build systems by capitalizing on your company resources (vb programmers, C#, or any other languages) to deliver a quality product to the customer is a core value added by adopting the Dot Net programming model.
I am surprised to get this question in the pool, unless there are insiders information regarding the future of the language. I believe the need for language specific loyalty is long dead since the introduction of dot net.
Cheers
Raz
It is Illogical to define an inventor by his invention
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Somebody said... jeez what a remark! How about your own opinions?
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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Let me start off by saying that I believe it is possible to write good applications using VB6 if you have people with the right talent and VB6's syntax is suitable for the application. I also believe that it is also possible to be a bad programmer in C, C++, C#, or any other language. And I believe that C and C++ are not the best languages for all applications. I just happen to believe that Visual Basic has a higher number of self-delusioned programmers using the language than more terse languages like C++.
One thing I really appreciated about VB6 (and VB5) is that it allowed people who were not programmers to write programs when they had to. This is very important in my company's industry. But these people always understood that they were not programmers - nor did they want to be.
While I appreciate how .NET allows a library to be used with similar syntax in VB as in C# and C++/CLI (and other .NET languages), I am saddened (slightly) that VB has become more formal. This formality makes it more difficult for my company's target audience to use our hardware. VB6 was much easier for these customers to use. Oh well 
- Kevin
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Problem is VB is too easy to use, hence people with non programming backgrounds (similar to whats happening to to the web) moving into programming. These are the people who write horrendous applications, mainly down to bad user interfaces. The reason why there are fewer bad programmers using C/C++ and to a lesser C#, is down the learning curve needed to use these languages.
KevinHall wrote: One thing I really appreciated about VB6 (and VB5) is that it allowed people who were not programmers to write programs when they had to. This is very important in my company's industry. But these people always understood that they were not programmers - nor did they want to be.
Not from my experience, people (non programmers) were jumping on the IT bandwagon some even become contractors, down to the big £££'s and lack of professionals need to fill gaps in the IT market (UK, '90s).
Still being an experienced Win32/MFC/ATL ect, I wouldn't .net has made things easier the framework alone will take a lifetime to learn, and I suppose that's why people from VB/MFC backgrounds are not prepared to go through that whole learning curve again, but thats what our industry is about, you can't cling on to outdated technology forever, something new always replaces what you been using for years.
Anyway if your experienced and gone through training/college/university, it probably doesn't matter what language you use as long as it fits the job it's designed for.
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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norm .net wrote: The reason why there are fewer bad programmers using C/C++ and to a lesser C#, is down the learning curve needed to use these languages.
Yep! That's why I said "I just happen to believe that Visual Basic has a higher number of self-delusioned programmers using the language than more terse languages like C++."
norm .net wrote: Not from my experience, people (non programmers) were jumping on the IT bandwagon some even become contractors, down to the big £££'s and lack of professionals need to fill gaps in the IT market (UK, '90s).
I don't disagree. I expect most programmers to have this type of experience. But my company's industry is different and very narrow -- most people are mechanical engineers, integrators, and the like. The industy has historically not used computers very much, but in order to keep costs down and raise performance the industry is using more and more computer controlled equipment. The engineers and integrators like their job and programming is a hassle for them. These people really do need something like VB 6.0 to allow simple programs to be written. Our larger customers have the resources to hire real programmers who are all too happy to program using our C and C++ libraries. But most of our customers are very small and cannot afford a full-time programmer (nor do they really need the expertise of one for the level of work they do).
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"it allowed people who were not programmers to write programs when they had to."
"What we have here is a bad precedent." - Dilbert
Grim (aka Toby) MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
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That's an elitist attitude. Most technical fields (and even many non-technical fields) now days require some sort of interaction with a computer. And many of these people find that they need to customize some part of what they do, BUT they are not programmers by trade. For example:
- The photographer who wants to write scripts to automate auto-contrast for a batch of photos.
- The lab technician who needs to change how long a particular chemical or biological sample spends in a chamber or oven.
- The mechanical engineer (working for a newspaper printer) who needs to change how a virtual camming system works.
Should these people hire a programmer every time they need to change something?
I can hear some people already thinking "well, the user interface should be made flexible enough for non-programmers to tweak how they work". That sounds good and well, but without some simple type of programming, making the interface flexible becomes extremely difficult and complex. That's why Microsoft Office has VBA and why many other applications have some sort of scripting interface.
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- The first example is a macro, not a program
- The second example is a configuration option or a UI input, not a program
- The third example isn't well-enough defined to judge whether it should be a custom program or a configuration issue
The problem is that when non-programmers write programs, more often than not the actual programmers in the company end up wasting way too much time supporting badly written software that they don't even "own."
VBA is a glorified macro language, as are most of the other scripting systems to which you refer.
Grim (aka Toby) MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue IS NOT NULL
GO
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You're assuming a lot about what environment people are actually using.
For the first example: There are *nix programs that perform photo auto-contrasting. Someone could use the Python language to perform the action. They don't have to use PhotoShop (or GIMP) macros.
For the 2nd example: There could be a UI input on a larger program. But what if the program is small -- small enough not to warrant hiring a professional programmer -- and there wasn't at that time a UI input? If the program were written in a simple language, then the technician could change the time in a matter of minutes rather than waiting 2 weeks for a requisition to go through to bring a contractor in to make the change.
I also disagree with your definition of a language -- and maybe that is where we are getting confused. But to use your terminology: VB6 is a great macro language. It is more flexible than other "languages", and allows someone to put together a simple GUI.
And for the record, I've also seen VB6 used very effectively as prototyping tool. This is a conversation I've heard many times: "hey, look, I was able to piece this thing together to help me out with _______, but other people think really like it. Can you make it into a real product?" VB6 was what these people used to create the prototypes.
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I have programmed from BASIC to VB.NET. They all have there place. I never learned C# but looking at the code vs. VB it is not that different (to read). I took a course in C++ but never used it thus I have forgotten most of it. Basic does not have that problem.
As a programmer I use what the employer wants, good or bad. So far VB has been a good employment tool. (I rather be SQL programming).
DJJ
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Program in C#, I have used both vb.net and C# 2005. I find that C# has everything that vb.net does and more. C# might take a while to learn, but when you do its a execelent language
I can have my cake and eat it too.
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It is such a f**king language with i have worked with...
Nishit
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If it's such a #### language, why did you use it?
C/C++ is a much more advanced language, why didn't you use it?
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Niiiiiiiisssssshhhhhhuuuuuuu wrote: It is such a f**king language with i have worked with...
ok, that's why it is in your Interrests[^] list, hu ?
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I develop a library to be used by Visual Basic users and thus must write test code in VB. However my main development effort is in C++.
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But surely if it's a COM based library (control or interface) then does it really matter which language you use?
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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Yes, it most certainly does matter! I am writing an adapter interface for a C library that uses pointers and unions everywhere.
And by the way, the library used to be a COM library, but now I'm developing a .NET library for our VB.NET users. For this, I'm using C++/CLI.
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In that case "I use VB6 but not VB.NET"
Unless of course you consume the objects in VB.NET using CCW's.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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There is a lot of "VB.Net is bad" comments in here so I would like state the obvious. It’s up to the programmer to write good or poor code. You can do it in VB.Net or C#, it’s up to you.
I can’t help but feel that some comments here are more about people wanting to feel good about themselves because they use a “better” programming language, rather then just criticism.
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Yes, I expected this topic to degenerate into a fruitless anti-VB rant. My background is mainly C++, but I've done a fair bit of VB classic. In .NET I've used mainly C#, but have done VB .NET for the past six months. Main problem I've found is that IDE behaviour tends to be more streamlined for C#. That's more irritating than syntax differences.
Kevin
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hertz_j wrote: It’s up to the programmer to write good or poor code. You can do it in VB.Net or C#, it’s up to you.
That's my opinion too. You can even code with C++ crapy C-Code (another prejudice...), so where's the argument? 
As a german coder i feel very very comfortable with VB .NET, cause there are no "{}[]\" syntax-chars, so i don't have to Ctlr+Alt+7, +8, ... (german keyboard layout). This is a great improvment of typing speed.
Since .NET there are mainly no differences (of course there are some) between VB.Net and C# besides the syntax (we have the += operator, too  ).
It's up to you, to write good code, not a question of the "right" language...
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...I went to the library and found the book "my first BASIC program".
That was really great, I discovered a whole new world.
But one day, also long ago, there were colourful windows and devices that made clickiclickiclick. Could that be another world to explore? Little Coco tried to enter the clickety-world with the toy she knew: BASIC. That's how I stumbled into using VisualBasic.
In the light of colourful windows, I woke up and saw the new toys: Lots of better languages that seemed to cause less headaches. First I tried the language with the most beautiful name: JAVA! Java was cool, little Coco could embed applets into her first little homepage. One beautiful day, she actually understood classes and objects.
Later on, real life reached me and I had to learn Delphi, then C# was rising at my digital horizon. Those are my "real life languages". VisualBasic was a nice learning language for my first few thousand lines of code.
That's why I won't kick kiddies for using VB - I'll be silent and hope that they'll grow up. 
____________________________________
There is no proof for this sentence.
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I've never seen a single line of Delphi in my whole life, but I heard "rumors" that it produces very lightweight applications. Is that true?
________________________________________________
Tozzi is right: Gaia is getting rid of us.
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he didnt use it becuase he is to lazy