Compile, Run, then Write

[Jonathan Allen]

VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
exception. Will this affect the way you work?

--
Jonathan Allen

[Rob Teixeira]

It'll take a little getting used to. I have to deal with a similar force of
habbit when I move to other languages during a course of a project (something
I'm glad to say I will be doing a lot less of when VB.NET gets released).
However, for me, I don't really write code while it's running. But I will
miss the ability to make small fixes to lines that throw errors.

-Rob

"Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com> wrote:
>VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
>severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
>exception. Will this affect the way you work?
>
>--
>Jonathan Allen
>
>
>
>

[Zane Thomas]

On 3 Apr 2001 19:58:37 -0800, "Rob Teixeira" <RobTeixeira@@msn.com> wrote:

>But I will
>miss the ability to make small fixes to lines that throw errors.

I'd miss it to if it had worked well with c++ when writing components, but
it didn't. :-)


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Jon Ogden]

"Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com> wrote in message
news:3aca9609$1@news.devx.com...
> VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> exception. Will this affect the way you work?
>

No doubt about it. I am unclear as to whether this is a feature to be added
later or not. Something I heard from one of the folks working on .NET
suggested it was not permanently gone.

[Tim Romano]

VB would crash now and then when I tried to use this feature, so I used it
infrequently. It was convenient when it worked. I will miss the IMMEDIATE
WINDOW much more.
Tim Romano

"Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com> wrote in message
news:3aca9609$1@news.devx.com...
> VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> exception. Will this affect the way you work?

I will miss it much. I do hope they bring it back ...

Jens

"Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com> wrote in message
news:3aca9609$1@news.devx.com...
> VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> exception. Will this affect the way you work?
>
> --
> Jonathan Allen
>
>
>
>

[Jonathan Allen]

The problem they are having is that when an exception is hit, the stack is
unwound. That makes it so that you cannot recover from unhandled exceptions.
They are working on it, but as of early March they haven't come up with a
clean way of doing it.


--
Jonathan Allen


"Jon Ogden" <jon@ogdenco.net> wrote in message
news:3acb088d$1@news.devx.com...
>
>
> No doubt about it. I am unclear as to whether this is a feature to be
added
> later or not. Something I heard from one of the folks working on .NET
> suggested it was not permanently gone.
>
>
>
>
>

[Russell Jones]

I think it was the most productive feature in VB. I hope they bring it
back--in fact, I hope they add it for all .NET languages.
<jens@esalar.be> wrote in message news:3acb2f18$1@news.devx.com...
> I will miss it much. I do hope they bring it back ...
>
> Jens
>
> "Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com> wrote in message
> news:3aca9609$1@news.devx.com...
> > VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> > severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> > exception. Will this affect the way you work?
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Allen
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

[Jason Kaczor]

"Russell Jones" <arj1@northstate.net> wrote:
>I think it was the most productive feature in VB. I hope they bring it
>back--in fact, I hope they add it for all .NET languages.

Yes, that would be the kicker.

Of course, I've kinda gotten used to not having it always available, I've
been developping with Delphi since v.1.0, and dabbling in Java as well.

I <feel /> that it has made me a better developer though. I do more design,
I do more unit testing, and planning up front, so that when I cut code it
works the first time... Inheritence will help as well. Get your base classes
working, and debugged, and boom, less meddling with your "apps'. Of course,
it could also just be racked up to my on-going career development and learning,
self-taught - started with VB.1.0, until v.3.0 was a "one-man-team", with
my own code conventions, then moved into a team environment.

I have yet to see someone get started in software development (even graduates
from respected educational institutes) that know's good engineering, debugging,
desing and documentation "out-of-the-box"...

Oh well. Perhaps beta3?

Regards
Jason Kaczor

[Zane Thomas]

On Wed, 4 Apr 2001 11:47:21 -0400, "Russell Jones" <arj1@northstate.net>
wrote:

>I think it was the most productive feature in VB. I hope they bring it
>back--in fact, I hope they add it for all .NET languages.

I'd like to see it too ... it's not super critical since recompile and
restart is a pretty short cycle. Still, not having a reliable
implementation of that in c++ was annoying at those times when a stupid
error could be quickly fixed and a test involving substantial setup time
(connect to net, start email download, etc).


---
Ice Z - Straight Outta Redmond

[Jonny]

Jonathan

> VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> exception. Will this affect the way you work?

For sure it will.

It means for every little experiment I have to stop everything, make my itty
bitty change, recompile, restart the session, re-attach the goddamn
debuggers, work my way through my complicated testing script until finally I
rebreak at the line I changed where I discover that ... "oh - changing the 0
to a 1 didn't work, I wonder of changing it to -1 will work". And so I have
to stop everything etc ...

I must say, what an inspired improvement. Now it takes me a day to 1 hour of
useful testing. Hey Mom Look!.They made me into a frikking C coder - at
last.

Jonny

[Mike S]

> VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
> severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
> exception. Will this affect the way you work?

Yes, it will force the programmer think before
experimenting/writing/compiling/debugging.

M

[John Cantley]

Zane

> I'd like to see it too ... it's not super critical since recompile and
> restart is a pretty short cycle. Still, not having a reliable
> implementation of that in c++ was annoying at those times when a stupid
> error could be quickly fixed and a test involving substantial setup time
> (connect to net, start email download, etc).

I agree that most of the time it is short but it seems that the long
ones are the ones that leave a lasting impression. I worked on a hugh
isapi dll and cussed everytime I had to rebuild the thing. Took 10-15
minutes to recompile. I would have never have designed it the way that it
was but such is the life of consulting. I will miss it if they leave it
out of VB, but I really hope they do add it to all of .net

John

[Mike Mitchell]

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001 19:59:26 -0700, "Jonathan Allen" <greywolf@cts.com>
wrote:

>VB6 allows you to literally write the program as it is running. VB.Net
>severely limits that ability because it cannot recover from an unhandled
>exception. Will this affect the way you work?

This is a VERY SERIOUS omission. The break-modify-continue of all VBs
up to now is an extremely powerful tool. Just losing this feature is
enough to turn off classic VB progammers in their thousands. They WILL
NOT want to use a dumb-cluck of an IDE that gives them this kind of
grief, without any obvious benefits and with a massively increased
runtime.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On 4 Apr 2001 07:54:31 -0800, "Jason Kaczor"
<jkaczor@acoupleanerds.com> wrote:

>I <feel /> that it has made me a better developer though.

Maybe, but it's not RAD! What quicker way is there of, say, seeing
which properties are available in an ADO object than by setting a
breakpoint in the running code, then doing ?xxx. in the Immediate
window? I'm not decrying design; on the contrary, it is vital. But you
need to use ALL the tools in the toolbox, and now it looks like the
toolbox has gotten emptier.

MM