Re: Will VB hurt .NET? Instead of .NET helping VB?

In article <3a735a6e@news.devx.com>, jkaczor@acoupleanerds.com says...
>
> "Mike Mitchell" <kylix_is@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3a71fed0.47447172@news.devx.com...
> >
> > model in VB.NET. You know it yourself. Up to 60% of VB programmers
> > have never used a single class, for heck's sake, and you're expecting
> > 'em to suddenly get the message from Microsoft and become OOP zealots?
>
> Where did you get that figure?
>
> Not that I disagree. Then, if you lump in the crop of "ASP/VBScript"
> developers
> never "creating a class" (I would rather say that than "using a class), what
> does the
> figure now become?

I remember reading in one of the VBPJ editorials (within the past 3
months) that either 40% or 60% (can't remember which -- Mike might be
correct at 60%) had never used the "class" capability introduced in VB4.
--
Patrick Steele
(psteele@ipdsolution.com)
Lead Software Architect

In my consulting (and previously as employee) life here in Italy I have
determined that less than 10% of VB users use a fair share of VB
capabilities (e.g. classes, interfaces etc.). All the others are VERY good
at cut and paste, creating horrendously bloated forms with everything locked
in and lots of global variables (no classes, no user controls, no multi-tier
architectures... ehm, better, no architecture at all!).

I don't know what happens in other countries but surely here 90+% of VB
users have not the intellectual background (and even less the will to learn)
to grasp a furiosly OO environment like .NET.

Alessandro Coppo
a.coppo@iol.it

P.S.: I belong to the other 10%... ;-) and I feel NO regret for all the
people who did not understand in the last 10 years the OOP was to be
mastered.

Michael (michka) Kaplan wrote in message <3a7493bc$1@news.devx.com>...
>And how about SQL Server adoption? :-)


SQL Server costs a lot of money, so people get it if and only if they cannot
help it.

By the way, to explain my previous postings, had MS delivered C# + CLR a
couple of years ago (when I still trusted them) I would have been enthusiast
about the whole thing.

Now, I have been burned too many times to still trust MS. If something comes
from Redmond, I switch to the I-will-use-it-if-there-are-no-alternatives
mode which did me good, because in the last 3 years MS brought out (and
killed) WebForms / DNA / DNA2000 / DCOM / COM+ etc. etc. etc

Sorry, I work and I need stable platforms to solve my clients needs. This
does not mean that I am idle: this year I am adding Java to my toolkit and
almost surely 2002 will be the year of Perl: Yet, I need tools which give me
time to learn them, master them and use (ammortizing investment) before
throwing away.

Given MS past record, there is NO guarantee that they will not ditch .NET in
2/3 years time if this suits their corporate strategy. I cannot invest time
(and money) in these conditions.

Alessandro Coppo
a.coppo@iol.it

P.S.: I think that .NET here in Italy will be an TOTAL failure for the
reasons I gave in my previous post.

> SQL Server costs a lot of money, so people get it if and only if they
cannot
> help it.

But it's kid brother MSDE is free.

--
Jonathan Allen

Path: news.devx.com!news.devx.com!209.77.70.17
Xref: news.devx.com vb.dotnet.discussion:16500

> Some use the acronym "RAD". Whadda I know? <g>

Not the same thing. Still waiting...

> And how about SQL Server adoption? :-)

Gimme a break. Most small businesses consider copying their .MDB to another
computer 10 feet away from the operational ones an adequate backup strategy.
They run VB programs written by one of their employee's brother's neighbor
(because he's "really good with computers").

That's how I started way back when. Only it was a government sponsored
health clinic with a yearly budget in the millions.

In three years, I was able to bring them from Access + VBA to a multi-user
VB6 / SQL Server 7 solution complete with customizable business logic
(stored as VBScript in the database). Of course it still exports data in
Access, FoxPro, DBase, and the other legacy formats required by the
government. I not only built the system entirely on my own, I had to teach
myself how to do it along the way.

The same time, the other departments spent 50K+ trying to keep a Unix kludge
working. Last I heard, it still doesn't work and the government won't pay
their bills until it does. The sad part is I could have rewritten the system
in VB from scratch in about a month.

If some kid who barely knows VB can build a fully functional enterprise
system in 3 years, while a dozen Unix experts can't keep a less-functional
system running, there is only two possible conclusions. Either that kid was
a genius, or MS has done a **** good job with their tools so far.

--
Jonathan Allen


"Sjoerd Verweij" <nospam.sjoerd@sjoerd.org> wrote in message
news:3a75e80e@news.devx.com...
> > And how about SQL Server adoption? :-)
>
> Gimme a break. Most small businesses consider copying their .MDB to
another
> computer 10 feet away from the operational ones an adequate backup
strategy.
> They run VB programs written by one of their employee's brother's neighbor
> (because he's "really good with computers").
>
>
>

On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 12:11:09 -0800, "Jonathan Allen"
<greywolfcs@bigfoot.com> wrote:

>> SQL Server costs a lot of money, so people get it if and only if they
>cannot
>> help it.
>
>But it's kid brother MSDE is free.
>

I got a feeling I read somewhere that you're not allowed to do
anything very much with MSDE - distributing it and suchlike. It is
really intended as a local, cut-down SQL server for trialling purposes
and proofs-of-concept.

MM

On Sun, 28 Jan 2001 22:44:33 +0100, "Alessandro Coppo"
<a.coppo@iol.it> wrote:

>
>I don't know what happens in other countries but surely here 90+% of VB
>users have not the intellectual background (and even less the will to learn)
>to grasp a furiosly OO environment like .NET.
>

And there's the nub of the problem. Purists of the OOP persuasion
cannot fathom how anyone would want to program differently, and yet
most programs used to be written in a non-OOP (but perfectly
structured) manner. And you cannot say that they were all 'broken'
because they were non-OOP.

You simply cannot say to two or three million 'casual' VB users,
"learn how to do it properly with OOP", because they'll just think
you're weird. "What," they ask, "is the point when all I want to do
is...[fill in simple requirements here]?"

Until OOP zealots (and, you have to face it, you know who you are!)
can stop talking down to the folks who like a simple, easy life and a
simple, easy way of achieving what they need, the barriers will always
be up, you will not convince them to change, and Microsoft will lose a
huge amount of programming users, who will just tell everyone within
earshot that they had to get out of programming because Microsoft
changed the language and it isn't easy any longer.

Don't forget, you can have the ugliest, dirtiest, quickest way
imaginable of stringing a few functions together and calling it a
program, but if that impresses an employer or a client, who wants only
to get some job of work done for a minimum of outlay, then Classic VB
is just about the only way to achieve that - and that is (painful
though it may be to some people) how the cookie crumbles in Real Life.

Okay, so now convince me that OOP is better!

MM

> Don't forget, you can have the ugliest, dirtiest, quickest way
> imaginable of stringing a few functions together and calling it a
> program, but if that impresses an employer or a client, who wants only
> to get some job of work done for a minimum of outlay, then Classic VB
> is just about the only way to achieve that - and that is (painful
> though it may be to some people) how the cookie crumbles in Real Life.

*yawn* Development in VB.NET is just as fast -- if not faster -- than in
VB6.

But then again, you wouldn't have a clue about that, now would you?

MSDE is almost as bulky as SQL Server and scales less than MDB's (just 5
connections). Only MS could come out with such a bright idea.

Alessandro Coppo
a.coppo@iol.it
www.geocieties.com/alexcoppo/

> I got a feeling I read somewhere that you're not allowed to do
> anything very much with MSDE - distributing it and suchlike.

*bzzzt* <g>

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/msde/genfaq.asp

Q: What are the redistribution terms for solutions built using MSDE?
A: Developers can freely distribute MSDE solutions built with Visual Studio
6.0 Professional or Enterprise edition development tools, or with Office
2000 Developer edition. See the End-User License Agreement (EULA) for the
full distribution and royalty terms.

> If some kid who barely knows VB can build a fully functional enterprise
> system in 3 years, while a dozen Unix experts can't keep a less-functional
> system running, there is only two possible conclusions. Either that kid
was
> a genius, or MS has done a **** good job with their tools so far.

Only two conclusions?

First we can discount the genius stuff - it took the kid *3 years* after
all.
Second, if it took the kid *3 years*, then it's hardly a good ad for the
tools.
Third, the Unix experts weren't.
Fourth, they were laughing so hard at the amount of time it was taking the
kid to
get his system off the ground, they didn't have time to maintain their
system.

Andy.

Oh yeah - there should be a coupla <g>s in there - I think.

Mike,

> Don't forget, you can have the ugliest, dirtiest, quickest way
> imaginable of stringing a few functions together and calling it a
> program, but if that impresses an employer or a client, who wants only
> to get some job of work done for a minimum of outlay, then Classic VB
> is just about the only way to achieve that - and that is (painful
> though it may be to some people) how the cookie crumbles in Real Life.

Mike, please don't stop posting! You've no idea how much you've made me
laugh!

>
> Okay, so now convince me that OOP is better!
>
> MM

What's the point? It would be absolutely no use at all to you!

BTW, I know how you love contractors - do you have any contract vacancies at
your place?
You just gotta get me on there - I sounds like a riot!

Andy.

You seem to not understand the term "scales".

MSDE is considered scaleable because you can go from 5 users to dozens just
by switching to SQL Server. If you need even more users, then you can move
to SQL Server Enterprise. Since it uses the underlying system, the
transition is as simple as a backup and a restore.

Sure Jet can support more than 5 connections, but even at 2 or 3 performance
is often intolerably slow. And since the limitation is in file I/O, you
can't just throw more memory and CPUs at it. Then there is the fact that you
have to kick everybody of the database just so you can compact it, which is
needed on a daily basis to avoid bloating.

--
Jonathan Allen


"Alessandro Coppo" <a.coppo@iol.it> wrote in message
news:3a76094b@news.devx.com...
> MSDE is almost as bulky as SQL Server and scales less than MDB's (just 5
> connections). Only MS could come out with such a bright idea.
>
> Alessandro Coppo
> a.coppo@iol.it
> www.geocieties.com/alexcoppo/
>
>
>