Self-Interest & VS.NET

[Ray Collins]

>I'm particularly interested in hearing from those of you who argue against
>the pain and expense which may be suffered by large corporations which
>have a need to port exisiting VB6 apps to the .net platform. Don't forget
>to describe why it is that you feel such pain for large corporations which
>wouldn't hesitate a moment to hand you a pink-slip on christmas eve if
>they thought it was in the self-interest of the management and/or
>stockholders.

If you thought about the questions I asked in my previous thread then
perhaps you would know the answer to your question above.

It is not simply a question of porting VB6 apps. The bigger question is
whether to add the .net framework to the companies existing infrastructure
to support these apps as this is most likely where the pain and suffering
will be evident. My job is to advise companies on the IT infrastructure
they need to support their business and to help them build that
infrastructure. Coming off a major Y2k spending spree business is far more
conservative with its IT spending. If there is no compelling reason to spend
they won't, as an example look at the slow uptake on things such as faster
processors. At the moment small/medium businesses are generally happy with
their IT and are not in a hurry to change it. Larger organisations are
gearing up to move cautiously to Windows 2000 due to the advantages of
Active Directory. From a business perspective what is the compelling reason
to spend more money on a move to .NET ? What can't the known and stable
technologies that are available now not do for them ?

>
> You ask that like you might think I care. :-) I know, heresy, but if VB
> doesn't make it through this decade it's not the end of the world.
>

I guess caring is what divides people on the issue of VB.NOT.

[Zane Thomas]

"Ray Collins" <NoSpam_ray.collins@bigpond.com> wrote:


>It is not simply a question of porting VB6 apps. The bigger question is
>whether to add the .net framework to the companies existing infrastructure
>to support these apps as this is most likely where the pain and suffering
>will be evident.

Since my original post was about .net I don't see why you're bothering to
point out to me that porting VB6 apps is not the only issue.

>My job is to advise companies on the IT infrastructure
>they need to support their business and to help them build that
>infrastructure.

Great, I hope you enjoy doing that.

But that's not the issue I'm interested in. What I am interested in is
the 'pain' _individuals_ apparently are feeling over vs.net (as evidenced
by the numerous emotionally charged, and sometimes nasty posts we've
seen).

If some corporation _needs_ and wants what .net has to offer, and sets
about using it, then I assume that's because they think it will be good
for the bottom line. In that case the programmers get paid, the
corporation gets whatever it wanted (hopefully), and life goes on until
the next evolution in technology. Everybody's happy, and Bill rides off
into the sunset on another train full of gold. Where's the problem with
that? :-)

Why should I care if corporations have to give some of their money to my
programming friends in order to stay competitive? Sounds like a good
thing to me, and you know they'll squeeze every last dollar (hour of work
whatever) out of you they can. So why are there so many expressions of
concern for corporations on this newsgroup? Seems that self-interest
would weigh in on the side of supporting .net - just for the fun and money
if nothing else.

So what other factors are behind the reaction we've seen? I think that
one of them is lack of skill-portability - when you've been enjoying
yourself and earning a good wage using tools you've mastered already it's
a ***** to have to actually learn something new. MS strikes back for
corporate america by making VB programmers learn new tricks! Hahah - this
is getting strange and circular in a way. That's the way coevolution and
adaptation work - or something like that. :-)

Geesh, I'd better stop babbling and get back to work.

>> You ask that like you might think I care. :-) I know, heresy, but if VB
>> doesn't make it through this decade it's not the end of the world.
>>
>
>I guess caring is what divides people on the issue of VB.NOT.

Oh come on - here let me put on my Bill Clinton mask - I care, I feel your
pain ... all better now?

The sense in which I don't care, which apparently wasn't obvious in my
last post, is that VB is just a programming language. I'm not married to
it or any other programming language. If you kick it. I don't care. If
it becomes obsolete, replaced by better tools, I don't care - unless you
count liking to move on to better tools in which case I definetly do care.


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Jeff Peil]

Hi Dan,

"Dan Barclay" <dbarclay@ih2000.net> wrote in message
news:1mo17t06end1p7c4prc2q8mb0daj7rfh1s@4ax.com...
>
> Bait's tasty. It's the hook ya gotta avoid <g>.

Bah and it looks like you managed to bait me in replying to Zane.

> Can't speak for everyone, but what I've said all along is that with
> regard to using VB for development of apps with long lives either (a)
> we've been mislead or (b) they don't "get it".

Perhaps VB's major-change cycle is a little short (as it seems to be every 3
revisions or so), but I don't know that it's really too different from other
languages. C99 is *not* C90, C++ 98 is not ARM C++, etc.

That said, where the language is not revised, it does seem stable, apps
written with older versions of VB continue to work today.

Off hand, I can't think of a popular programming language with a longer
stability window than 10 years.

> VB.net will, without a doubt, appeal to J&C programmers. They'll love
> it. But, then, they'll love C# as well. It will also appeal to
> biggots who think they should teach us dumb asses how to program.
> That is, us millions of dumb asses who bought that nasty MS Basic
> based product and made apps with it anyway.

Well I don't know that I agree with you on it's appeal. Many Java/C++
programmers I know, myself included, dislike the syntax of basic (and to a
lesser extent pascal.)

> More likely, if dotnet is successful, the intent is for it to be a
> layer *everywhere*. Not just net apps, but including the desktop.
> Now those loyal users who made VB (and Windows) a success are left
> with a complete rewrite as a conversion just to get back on the
> desktop.

Using outdated tools is *not* a crime, and porting forward is only done when
there are worthwhile benefits (that includes things like not moving between
compatible compiler releases, as you cannot be sure of the impact from
changes without substantial testing.)

IMO for development of new Apps, or even (through COM Interop) extending
existing Apps, using VB.NET over VB6 makes much more sense than it would to
rewrite an entire working VB6 app to do things in a VB.NET friendly design.

> Is that in a lot of people's interest? Dunno. I *do* know that it's
> not in my interest, or in the interest of developers who have existing
> apps.

This is still something that puzzles me, the majority of Apps I've worked on
are highly modular, and different peices of the same application are often
build with different compilers (usually different C++ compilers)
specifically because the effort involved in changing the compiler used for a
given module did not make sense (of course this generally happened at the
DLL/EXE level, within a given EXE/DLL generally everything would be build
with the same compiler.)

Generally speaking, given a modularly designed application it should be able
to revise a piece at a time, where benefits in doing so do exist. The COM
interop story for .NET is pretty decent, and should make communicating
between VB6 and VB.NET relatively simple.

I guess I just don't get the "there's a new compiler/language feature, we
should use it NOW" mentality.

> What's more, you can complain about the ATL code and MFC, but I'd
> pretty much be willing to bet that *your* libraries of *your* code
> continue to work. Have you seen me complain about the way dotnet
> windows with their controls, properties, and methods have changed?
> New environment... that stuff's fair game. It was fair game for all
> that stuff to change in the move from DOS to WIN and again to 32bit.
> API's changed... so what. Nice that they made an effort to keep the
> transition manageable, but some stuff changed. The language isn't
> fair game.

On the MFC front, for writing components, MFC continues to work, but only in
the same sense that VB6 will continue to work for writing code. It's there
for legacy reasons (just like VB6 will keep working for legacy reasons), but
effectively ATL has suplanted MFC for writing COM controls.

> But, what sense does it make to *re*learn a language you already know?

It depends on *where* you want to go. ISO C++ is *VERY* different from ARM
C++, yet most of the C++ programmers have followed along, as it went in the
direction they wanted to go. Of course, I think that there is still more
ARM C++ expertise today than their is ISO C++, but that is changing a little
bit every day. Which again is very different from C, yet many C programmers
did decide to migrate to C++.

If a language changes enough that it is no longer headed in a direction you
want to go, it's probably time to evaluate other languages.

> Bottom line, though, isn't "what's better for a particular
> programmer". The bottom line is "what's best for this app". The
> answer to that is that: what's best is the environment that lets the
> developer turn his *knowledge of the business problem* into a
> *solution to the business problem*. VB is a language and a product
> that has let us get at the heart of solutions without rooms full of
> programmers who only understand how to code.

Programmers who don't understand the problem they are trying to solve, and
only grasp the language they are using are, imo, never effective.

> While I can't tell you why VB caught on, I can also tell you MS
> doesn't have a clue about that either. MS Basic was chosen for VB
> because there was a good user base for it. Cooper wanted C under it
> as I recall. Even then, MS Basic wasn't chosen because they
> understood *why* it was popular.

Probably because there is no single reason why any language is popular...

> I think VB programmers can make the transition. It's the apps. Then
> it's wondering if you should write that app in VB.net for fear they're
> going to change it again. It comes back not to "can they make the
> move" but "does it make sense to make that move". They can also move
> successfully to C#, C++, Delphi, Java...

I don't think it's merely an issue of fear, as it is reevaluating
directions. Both Java and C# fill a void that I don't believe was
previously well filled, as they are strongly typed, easy to use, and provide
a fairly decent level of protecting the programmer from his own mistakes. I
can't comment on Delphi as I haven't looked at it in years, and I've never
actually done any production development with it.

> Have you seen anybody who wears a "I am a VB programmer" badge? It's
> more like a confessional for most. As to threads and the other
> functionality of C#, (1) the syntax and behavior changes do not affect
> that in the first place and (2) most VB apps are vertical apps which
> are marginally helped by multiple threads. It's cool and will be used
> if it's there... it is not what made VB popular nor will it be what
> keeps VB popular. A few whiners have been complaining not because
> they need multiple threads for what they're doing but because somebody
> else has it and they don't. It also makes cool mag articles.

Regarding reference counting (and thus VB6 style deterministic
finalization), I think threading support was in fact, the key cause of it's
death. Safe reference counting *without* multiple threads may be expensive,
but it is an order of magnitude cheaper than safe reference counting within
a multithreaded design. The perf hit to a VB6 style ref counted system when
you bring in threading would be huge.

I'm not saying threading is essential for VB, I'm just saying that threading
is probably the key reason that you lost the deterministic destruction in
VB6.

> There is no reason not to add new capabilities to MS Basic, or put MS
> Basic into new and more challenging environments. It worked with VB
> going from DOS to Windows. One has nothing to do with the other.

Given limited resources (and yes, even MS has limited resources) a reason
does become apparent. For a time after the last version of MS Basic for
DOS, I'm sure there was no reason not to add new capabilities for DOS,
outside limited resources (that is sales would have paid for it.) While
competition in other spaces made applying the resources that would be needed
elsewhere a better choice.

[Ray Mercer]

Zane,
>>Your condescending attitude
>
> If you want to be a **** take it to the offramp ok?

If you don't think you are being condescending deciding what is good for
VBers and saying we get to take our "badge of being a VB programmer" with us
into the .NET world, then I guess we see things differently. But it's
pretty lame to just post an insult and ignore the point.

Ray

[Zane Thomas]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:05:25 +0900, "Ray Mercer" <raymer@mvps.org> wrote:

>If you don't think you are being condescending

No I don't - I was trying to carry on something resembling a decent
conversation. If you don't want your widdle feelings getting hurt then go
somewhere else.


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Nancy Folsom]

In article <3a70e5f3$1@news.devx.com>, kprobst@vbbox.com says...
> However, as the fun desktop application development tool we have grown to
> love and hate and live with, VB is for all practical purposes dead.

Oh, for the love of god, it's a PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. It's not your
favorite pet hamster. It's not your mother. It's not your lucky jersey.
It's a p.r.o.g.r.a.m.m.I.n.g. .l.a.n.g.u.a.g.e.

> And that
> is, I think, what a lot of people will never forgive Microsoft for (and I
> include myself in that camp as well). For years we clamored for more
> freedom, more access to the OS, more OO, more of the things other languages
> had and we didn't. This time around we get a lot of new features, but the
> essence of the language

Heh. Can a programming language (programming language, folks) have a
soul?

> has changed so radically that it makes me scratch my
> head and wonder if, as Cooper likes to say, the inmates are running the
> asylum. I can see the direction the company wants to take from a certain
> perspective, but from this one it certainly makes no sense.

Sorry, look you guys. You're new at this martyr business, and I have to
admit y'all are doing a really good job at it...like, actually, I think
I'll annoint y'all honorary FoxPro programmers, but, hey, since we're
being repetitive here, and nobody really seems to care....

IT'S A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE.

--
Nancy
So that all can benefit from the discussion,
please post all followups to the newsgroup.

[Jason Bock]

Zane Thomas <zane@mabry.com> wrote in message
news:3aaff2e4.879177515@news.devx.com...
> You ask that like you might think I care. :-) I know, heresy, but if VB
> doesn't make it through this decade it's not the end of the world.

Really? Man, I better change my 5-year career plan around .

I would personally hope that languages continue to evolve. I mean, people
are bickering about VB.NET issues, and then I read an article tonight about
genetic programming in New Scientist, where people are solving some waaaaaay
cool problems. Not only are they evolving solutions to tough problems,
they're evolving better ways to solve problems in the first place. And I
bet those problems could've been solved in most any language that's
currently out today. Now, what the pain is to do GA in a particular
language is subjective, but...then again, didn't you and Karl write a VB app
that demonstrates GA? Could've sworn I saw something that evolves a
sentence somewhere on the net. Then again, there's always
http://www.joyofvb.com. Point is, while I realize there are issues in
changing the meaning of what an Integer type is (this really breaks
design-by-contract rules - namely, an interface and an implementation should
not break old clients) I'm not going to lament about it for the rest of my
career.

OK, I'm rambling a bit here. Personally, if people love, hate, discuss,
throw fits, analyze VB.NET, that's their choice. I'd rather move on.
Issues have been clearly stated, and we'll see what MS does, if anything,
for VB.NET. But the advantages of .NET in general are so overwhelming that
I can't see why anyone would not want to use it. Seriously, the ease and
productivity I see with .NET in my own experimentation (which would lend me
to believe it's not "vaporware") is making me itch to get on more .NET
projects in the future.

Languages evolve. Technology evolves. English as we know it today is
different than what it was 100 years ago. And, within America, there are
different dialects and names for different objects, yet we still interop.
For example, I asked some co-workers today if they knew what a bubbler was.
Being a Wisconsin native now living in Minnesota, I guessed that they never
heard of the term, and I was right. Blank stares everywhere. When I told
them what it was (a drinking fountain) and after they stopped laughing, we
all knew what the term meant. Interop. Happens all the time. We always
find ways to figure out what different terms for the same concept mean, and
move on.

I'd rather solve problems that I find interesting and/or the clients that I
consult for find interesting than to get wrapped up in all of the
discussions that occur here (yes, I have found them interesting in general,
but IMO it's getting old - points have been made). Personally, I love
..NET - it's pretty much everything I ever wanted out of Java, but better. I
just hope the IDE is more stable in Beta2 .

Regards,

Jason Bock

P.S. Even if VB.NET didn't have the impedance mismatch that it has over
VB6, I would still be concerned at what some Windows developers will do in
..NET, especially VBers. I'm not saying that all VBers are incompetent. Far
from it. But I have seen a lot of VB code that is truly hideous. And now
those developers will have the freedom to spawn threads left and right and
create inheritance trees 'till the cows come home. <chills/>

[Zane Thomas]

"Jason Bock" <jrbock@execpc.com> wrote:

>I would personally hope that languages continue to evolve.

Yep.

GAs are really cool, you pointed to Jonny's site: http://www.joyofvb.com
which has the best VB GA code in existence.

>but...then again, didn't you and Karl write a VB app
>that demonstrates GA?

Nah, I wrote it and he stuck a link or something and his name on it. One
of these days I'm going to put it back in the condition it was in when I
finished.

Not that it's any big thing. It's a very simple program which
demonstrates the most basic fundamentals of GAs (and evolutionary theory).

>Could've sworn I saw something that evolves a
>sentence somewhere on the net.

It's somewhere on http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/


>But the advantages of .NET in general are so overwhelming that
>I can't see why anyone would not want to use it.

Bingo!

>Languages evolve. Technology evolves. English as we know it today is
>different than what it was 100 years ago.

Word homie.


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Bill McCarthy]

Hi Jay,

"Jay Glynn" <jay_glynn@agla.com> wrote in message
news:3a70f0e6@news.devx.com...
>
> C# is done enough that MSFT has developed huge chunks of the CLR with it.
> That takes it a step past *vapor*, wouldn't you think.
>

In fairness I wouldn't call C# vapourware, but the promise of platfrom
independance sure seems to be. Look at how quick MS were to realise info
about their Jump to .NET for Java after settling with Sun, yet at the same
time, we are still yet to see one concrete bit of evidence of a CLR for
another platform. Who's going to write it if MS doesn't ?

Also, I think it is way too soon to even think of .NET as proven. Some of
the stuff is working fine, but some of it has such rediculous overheads.
Look at the load times for a simple winForm app as an example. It's one
thing to write all the chunky classes, it's another thing to get them
performing well. When a Vb.NET desktop app loads as quick as a VB6 app and
has the same or better memory footprint and the same or better performance
in things such as drawin, structured file IO etc, then, and only then will
it have been proven as a step forward.

[Bill McCarthy]

Hi Zane,

"Zane Thomas" <zane@mabry.com> wrote in message
news:3aabdd2e.873619203@news.devx.com...
<snip>
> I won't comment on vb.net other than to say that my advice
> to anyone starting with windows programming at this moment would be to
> learn c#.
>

Well this is a VB7 group. If you want to rave about how good .NET is from a
C# perspective then there's another group for that.

So, care to share with us how on one hand you think .NET is sooooo good for
VBers, yet on the other hand you don't think VB.NEt is worth commenting on
compared to C#.

[Zane Thomas]

"Bill McCarthy" <Bill_McC@iprimus.com.au> wrote:

>Well this is a VB7 group.

I'd say you're a few months late expressing concerns about the content in
this newsgroup.

>If you want to rave about how good .NET is from a
>C# perspective ...

Of course I haven't been doing that, so I can only wonder what you think
your point is.

>So, care to share with us how on one hand you think .NET is sooooo good for
>VBers, yet on the other hand you don't think VB.NEt is worth commenting on
>compared to C#.

It's all been said before, and even if it hadn't been I'm under no
obligation to respond to points I don't find worth discussing.


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Mark Burns]

"Zane Thomas" <zane@mabry.com> wrote in message
news:3a9aa686.859627484@news.devx.com...
>
> I'm going to explain why I think it's in My interest to go forward with
> dotnet. I hope to see responses which explain why your perceived
> interests lead you to the conclusion that vs.net is not a Good Thing[tm].

Uhm...which of the VB/.Not "Detractors" has ever said anything like VS.Net
or the .Net platform sucks...or is not a Good Thing[tm] in your parlance. I
have not, I have never heard Karl say that, nor michka, nor Dan, or...well
you get the picture. What we have been harping on is the one and only
failure here, and that is the upgrade/migration/(VB6<->VB.Net) co-existence
story.

Now, since that VB6<->VB.Net upgrade/co-existence story is not all that it
could be, for whatever reasons, this obviously gives current VB programmers
(and, by direct extension, their managers/code-owners) cause to pause and
consider what/where/when their next steps are to be. Some may decide to stay
with MS and VB.Net, others will stay with MS and learn C#, others still will
flee MS and go to Java or Delphi or other pastures they percieve to be
greener (I make no attempt at quantifying those possible moves, here.)

MS erred in presenting their software developers with the choice to stay or
go because of their sub-optimal upgrade/co-existence strategy for VB, and
that is not a Good Thing[tm] no matter how you slice it.

<snip>
> Related, but less obvious, is an issue of personal freedom and how I
> perceive that MS has made it possible for me to live the kind of life I
> want to live.
<more snipping>
> ...And I resent their use of the federal government
> to attempt to gain the upper hand in what should be a competitive
> situation
<more snipping>
> I'm particularly interested in hearing from those of you who argue against
> the pain and expense which may be suffered by large corporations which
> have a need to port exisiting VB6 apps to the .net platform.

Uhm...who said anything about "large coporations"? We've been talking about
"large codebases" suddenly rendered "legacy" because of the machinations of
some other external company's seemingly-arbitrary decisions. It does not
logically follow that we're necessarily talking about "large corporations"
here now, does it?
<Hmm... why is it I hear the beat of the rotors of black helicopters as an
undertone in your message, here?<g>>

> Don't forget
> to describe why it is that you feel such pain for large corporations which
> wouldn't hesitate a moment to hand you a pink-slip on christmas eve if
> they thought it was in the self-interest of the management and/or
> stockholders.

<looking up for the helicopters...><g>
Anyway...to try and answer your question more directly, I neither think nor
feel that the .Net platform or vs.net, in and of themselves, are bad things
at all. I look foreward to using them. However, what I resent <to use your
word above...2 quotes back> as a VB programmer/developer is the feeling of
being manipulated, displaced, barred from the natural foreward progression
we were led to expect by history - by the decisions of those who seem to
care not a bit about the effects of those decisions on us, our lives, our
feelings, and the previous sweat equity we have in our current code bases.
It _really_ just ticks me off when those concerns of ours (we are the
customers, here, after all) are so blithely...ignored.

I do feel like the victim of the wicked Djinie, here.
How would you feel, if I were to promise to build you your dream house...for
free <I being the Djinie here>? Great, right...everything you want will be
in there...in the colors you want...in the materials you want...you get it
all!
Sounds great, right?
Only, I'm the developer and builder, and I'm left-handed whereas you are
right-handed. After I build you your dream house and you enter it for the
first time, you discover that I have built everything left-handed because
that's how I liked it better...nevermind how you might have preferred it -
asking you what you would have preferred never even occured to me....
How do you feel about this dream-home now? <said as I press the keys into
your hands as I leave.>

[Bill McCarthy]

Hi Zane,

"Zane Thomas" <zane@mabry.com> wrote in message
news:3ab82a70.893396828@news.devx.com...
>
> >If you want to rave about how good .NET is from a
> >C# perspective ...
>
> Of course I haven't been doing that, so I can only wonder what you think
> your point is.
>

Well you said you wouldn't recommend anyone for anyone new to programming to
learn VB.NET. So I am asking you why ? Why do you think they shouldn't learn
VB.NET, yet on the same hand you claim the move to .NET is so good for VB ?
?????


>
> It's all been said before, and even if it hadn't been I'm under no
> obligation to respond to points I don't find worth discussing.
>

oh, okay then , you only want ot raise issues then ignore them. Fine. Thanks
for sharing.

[Zane Thomas]

"Bill McCarthy" <Bill_McC@iprimus.com.au> wrote:

I suppose you didn't notice that I was trying to explore some issues other
than the same ones which have been beaten to death already. But it was
nice to see you acknowledge that your chiding me for not being ontopic in
this newsgroup was silly. Apology accepted. :-)

>Well you said you wouldn't recommend anyone for anyone new to programming to
>learn VB.NET. So I am asking you why ? Why do you think they shouldn't learn
>VB.NET, yet on the same hand you claim the move to .NET is so good for VB ?

I already answered that question but I'll do it again just for you cause
you're such a nice guy: What I have said is that VB gets its best chance
at a future - assuming dotnet flies - by being ported to dotnet. That
much is obvious. Further I think that in the dotnet environment its only
chance for surviving is to be put on a par in every possible way with c# -
that's what MS has done imo.

But I like c# better, I think it's a more modern and consistent language
than VB and that's why I would recommend it to new programmers.

>oh, okay then , you only want ot raise issues then ignore them.

Bullshit Bill, take the bullshit to the OR ok?


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Bill McCarthy]

"Zane Thomas" <zane@mabry.com> wrote in message
news:3ab930a0.894980812@news.devx.com...
>
> Apology accepted. :-)
>

LOL ! Now I know you are easily pleased with vapour <bg>

>
> I already answered that question but I'll do it again just for you cause
> you're such a nice guy:

True, and modest.

> What I have said is that VB gets its best chance
> at a future - assuming dotnet flies - by being ported to dotnet. That
> much is obvious. Further I think that in the dotnet environment its only
> chance for surviving is to be put on a par in every possible way with c# -
> that's what MS has done imo.
>

Hey ? What about pointers, unsafe blocks, bitshifting, operator overloading,
etc. ? You call not having them in VB.NET on par with C#, (and please don't
tell me you don't use unsafe blocks now will ya) ?


> But I like c# better, I think it's a more modern and consistent language
> than VB and that's why I would recommend it to new programmers.
>

Yeh, yeh, yeh, but how so ?? Examples ? What do you find inconsistent in
VB.NET ??

>
> Bullshit Bill, take the bullshit to the OR ok?
>

Hey, don't get me started...