Addition to the VB Community

[Mike Mitchell]

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002 14:22:02 -0600, "Dan Fergus" <dan@vbforest.com>
wrote:

>What I am pointing out is that you and others have continuously said that
>moving to VB6 from VB5 was a piece of cake. I just want you to remember
>that it wasn't!

For us it was. We converted numerous VB3 and VB5 apps to VB6 with
nothing more than a load and compile. Some of those apps were fairly
minor; a few were huge. We had no problems whatsoever. I do remember
vaguely about Bruce McKinney's falling out of love with Visual Basic,
but I can't possibly begin to speak for any problems he may have had.

But in the case of VB6 to VB.NET, even trivial code will need to be
converted. Obviously, that must be the case, because otherwise a
conversion wizard wouldn't be needed. Microsoft did not supply a
conversion wizard with any of the previous versions of VB, did it? No,
and that's because none was needed. The code was backward compatible.


If the conversion wizard copes with the VB6 to VB.NET migration, all
well and good, but if not, the only other way it is going to get done
is by the programmer.

The thought of spending weeks or months painstakingly converting code
by hand would fill me with dread, and probably a lot of other
developers would feel the same way. I'd be thinking the whole time
about the reasons why I was doing this, and cursing Microsoft's lack
of compatibility every painful step of the way. I'm taking perfectly
good code that has been through hundreds of hours of debug and test
and also stood the test of time at the hands of hundreds of users in
several countries, and I am deliberately having to "break" it by
rewriting it in order to convert it! Therefore, all the debugging has
to start all over again, right back from square one. Sod's law says
this won't uncover all the bugs straightaway, so suddenly the users
who are given the VB.NET version have a problem. The app they've been
using for ages suddenly goes wrong. Perhaps it goes wrong at 5:30 p.m.
on a Friday afternoon, just as they're running off weekly reports.
Come Monday morning, you're going to have some pretty angry users who
had to stay late till 10 p.m. to collate those reports by hand. Even
if it's only an insignificant error, to a user this always means "the
app broke". Period. Suddenly, users start to complain that IT broke
"their" app which had been working absolutely fine up to then.

Mad, or what? Sure, I'm mad! Crazy, or what! Sure, they're completely
bonkers for putting us though this.

We had to visit other locations in other countries in order to roll
out some of the original classic apps. So, because the app needs to be
rewritten for it to run in VB.NET, inevitably those visits are going
to have to be repeated in order to ensure that the roll-out happens
again as planned. Who is going to pay for all this TOTALLY UNNECESSARY
effort and expense? You got it! The mugs who are falling for the whole
..NET scenario are going to be the ones paying, that's who. If you have
only ONE pissed off user somewhere, that's one that you wouldn't have
had if you hadn't gone through the rewrite.

This is just a small sense of what the transition of VB6 code to
VB.NET will mean for most classic VB users, and once again I say that
the changes from VB5 to VB6 pale into insignificance by comparison.

MM

[Karl E. Peterson]

Hi Dan --

> What I am pointing out is that you and others have continuously said that
> moving to VB6 from VB5 was a piece of cake. I just want you to remember
> that it wasn't! I have heard, maybe not from you, that the upgrade wizard
> only works for simple projects and that anything complex will fail. The
> code from Bruce's book did not upgrade because it was more than simple.

Actually, a lot of us said he was building a house of cards, and that he really
oughta be scared of that architecture/style. His typelibs were a freakin' disaster
just waiting to happen. **** few others were bit the way he was. It's never any fun
saying, "told ya so," but that's clearly the case in point with your example.

Later... Karl
--
[Microsoft Basic: 1976-2001, RIP]

[Kunle Odutola]

"Karl E. Peterson" <karl@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:3c5b1376@10.1.10.29...

> His typelibs were a freakin' disaster
> just waiting to happen.

**** convenient though....

Kunle

[Mike Mitchell]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2002 14:27:19 -0800, "Karl E. Peterson" <karl@mvps.org>
wrote:

> It's never any fun
>saying, "told ya so,"

You're right there, Karl. I won't have ANY fun at all when I start
saying it....

MM

[Gary Nelson]

Dan,

> Not all apps Mike. Remember a guy named Bruce McKinney and the BIG stink
> that VB6 broke the code for his book on VB5?

I suppose it depends on what you do. For me the port from VB3 to VB4 was a
little rough, and took me over a month. The reason was that I do a lot of
binary file I/O and Unicode took some getting used to. From VB4 I ported
straight to VB6 (I skipped VB5, perhaps in disgust for the VB5CCE beta that
destroyed my production machine just as we were taking the VB4 version to
market), but that port took only about a week (for over 100,000 lines of
code). The VB.Net port looks to be a real bear.

Gary

[Mike Mitchell]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:18:11 -0000, "Gary Nelson" <gn@contanet.es>
wrote:

>Dan,
>
>> Not all apps Mike. Remember a guy named Bruce McKinney and the BIG stink
>> that VB6 broke the code for his book on VB5?
>
>I suppose it depends on what you do. For me the port from VB3 to VB4 was a
>little rough, and took me over a month. The reason was that I do a lot of
>binary file I/O and Unicode took some getting used to. From VB4 I ported
>straight to VB6 (I skipped VB5, perhaps in disgust for the VB5CCE beta that
>destroyed my production machine just as we were taking the VB4 version to
>market), but that port took only about a week (for over 100,000 lines of
>code). The VB.Net port looks to be a real bear.

I "ported" a 300,000 line app from VB5 to VB6 just by loading it and
recompiling. We tried everything we could to break the VB6 version,
but it just worked. And afterwards we were able to start adding newer
stuff incrementally, like disconnected recordsets straight into a grid
at runtime. That's how computing should be, not the ballsup of totally
rewriting first.

MM

[Karl E. Peterson]

"Kunle Odutola okocha.freeserve.co.uk>" <kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS> wrote in message
news:3c5b1721@10.1.10.29...
>
> "Karl E. Peterson" <karl@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:3c5b1376@10.1.10.29...
>
> > His typelibs were a freakin' disaster
> > just waiting to happen.
>
> **** convenient though....

Script kiddie...
--
[Microsoft Basic: 1976-2001, RIP]

[Kunle Odutola]

"Karl E. Peterson" <karl@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:3c61b71c@10.1.10.29...

> > > His typelibs were a freakin' disaster
> > > just waiting to happen.
> >
> > **** convenient though....
>
> Script kiddie...

And I love my OO too.... <g>

Kunle

[Microsoft Basic II: born 2001]

[David A. Rothgery]

"Kunle Odutola" <kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS>okocha.freeserve.co.uk>
<"Kunle Odutola" <kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS>okocha.freeserve.co.uk>>
wrote:
>
> "Karl E. Peterson" <karl@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:3c61b71c@10.1.10.29...
>
> > > > His typelibs were a freakin' disaster
> > > > just waiting to happen.
> > >
> > > **** convenient though....
> >
> > Script kiddie...
>
> And I love my OO too.... <g>
>
> Kunle
>
> [Microsoft Basic II: born 2001]

Either 2002, when it was released, or whenever the VB.NET project got
started inside of MS (which AFAIK was in 1999). But not 2001.

--
Dave Rothgery
Picking nits since 1976
drothgery@alum.wpi.edu
http://drothgery.editthispage.com

[Kunle Odutola]

"David A. Rothgery" <drothgery@alum.wpi.edu> wrote in message
news:MPG.16cbc45e56ef576e989702@news.devx.com...

> > And I love my OO too.... <g>
> >
> > Kunle
> >
> > [Microsoft Basic II: born 2001]
>
> Either 2002, when it was released, or whenever the VB.NET project got
> started inside of MS (which AFAIK was in 1999). But not 2001.

Or 2001 when the language's definition finally stabilised?
;-)

Kunle

[Dan Barclay]

On Thu, 7 Feb 2002 21:47:06 -0000, "Kunle Odutola"
<kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS>okocha.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

>
>"David A. Rothgery" <drothgery@alum.wpi.edu> wrote in message
>news:MPG.16cbc45e56ef576e989702@news.devx.com...
>
>> > And I love my OO too.... <g>
>> >
>> > Kunle
>> >
>> > [Microsoft Basic II: born 2001]
>>
>> Either 2002, when it was released, or whenever the VB.NET project got
>> started inside of MS (which AFAIK was in 1999). But not 2001.
>
>Or 2001 when the language's definition finally stabilised?
>;-)

Uhhh... what's your definition of "stabilised"?

LOL

Dan

Language Stability is a *feature* I wish VB had!
(#6)

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 07 Feb 2002 16:25:50 -0600, Dan Barclay <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote:

>Uhhh... what's your definition of "stabilised"?

Released?

MM

[Kunle Odutola]

"Dan Barclay" <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote in message
news:kkv56u0elaj2vmei77bl65k5hubdfefpul@4ax.com...

> >Or 2001 when the language's definition finally stabilised?
> >;-)
>
> Uhhh... what's your definition of "stabilised"?

http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/di...erm=stabilized

or

http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/di...erm=stabilised

Kunle

[Dan Barclay]

So, you think the *new* language meets any of the following?

To make stable or steadfast.
To maintain the stability of (an airplane or ship, for example) by
means of a stabilizer.
To keep from fluctuating; fix the level of: stabilize prices.

ROTFLMAO! Yea, I'm sure the new one is as stable as the last.

Dan

On Fri, 8 Feb 2002 02:33:14 -0000, "Kunle Odutola"
<kunle.odutola@<REMOVETHIS>okocha.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

>
>"Dan Barclay" <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote in message
>news:kkv56u0elaj2vmei77bl65k5hubdfefpul@4ax.com...
>
>> >Or 2001 when the language's definition finally stabilised?
>> >;-)
>>
>> Uhhh... what's your definition of "stabilised"?
>
>http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/di...erm=stabilized
>
>or
>
>http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/di...erm=stabilised
>
>Kunle

Language Stability is a *feature* I wish VB had!
(#6)

[Kunle Odutola]

"Dan Barclay" <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote in message
news:sp686uk62kasne38mab10q2gdqjcfmq00u@4ax.com...
> So, you think the *new* language meets any of the following?
>
> To make stable or steadfast.
> To maintain the stability of (an airplane or ship, for example) by
> means of a stabilizer.
> To keep from fluctuating; fix the level of: stabilize prices.
>
> ROTFLMAO! Yea, I'm sure the new one is as stable as the last.

Script kiddie. Thought you might dig out the funnies... ;-)

Kunle