Microsoft's C++ bigotry

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:59:13 -0000, "Kunle Odutola"
<kunle.odutola@REMOVETHISokocha.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

>Is it really (Office - not the individual constituent parts)?. How times
>flies...

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like an apple. Sorry, that used
to be 'a banana', but there's parasites on ours apparently, so no
flies in with the bananas, okay? And in any case, it still works with
an apple.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 02:00:31 +1100, "Jason Sobell iGadget"
<iGadget_@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Java with a decent GUI for form design is also a RAD tool. RAD is not a
>bodge, but many people seem to presume that they are a 'RAD' developer if
>the 'wing it' and develop an application with no prior planning or design.
>This is what you are clearly looking for, and VB.NET does not deliver it in
>the easy way that VB6 does.

'Zactly! VB.Net does not deliver it in the *easy* way that VB6 does!
Three million programmers are now finding out how apt that is.

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On 16 Jan 2003 11:51:14 -0800, Rune Bivrin <rune@bivrin.com> wrote:

>What on earth is a "flig"? Or Microsift? or Micrisoft? Or do you mean you
>spell "it" with an i? If so, what's so fundamentally special about that,
>that you feel the need to share that information with us?

"Hey, kid, I waive my rights to the fifth amendment..."

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 11:58:14 -0000, "Kunle Odutola"
<kunle.odutola@REMOVETHISokocha.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

>If you restrict the numbers to Windows C++ developers (that use MSVC?).
>Otherwise, C++ has many more developers.

Than what? Classic VB? Surely, you jest, sir?

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 12:22:18 -0000, "Jonathan West" <jwest@mvps.org>
wrote:

>.... would leave them with no credibility at all.

Like, they still got some?

>When Microsoft drops VBA from Office, they will be messing with the
>customers of one of their top 2 products. The stakes start getting rather
>high at this point. How many major accounts will decide to say "thanks, but
>no thanks" to a new version of Office when their TCO calculation has to
>include a rewrite of their VBA apps? Office is already a pretty capable
>platform, and most companies haven't yet scratched the surface of what they
>can do with the existing versions. They might well decide that the current
>version is good enough for quite some time to come. No upgrades = no upgrade
>revenue for Microsoft.
>
>What would you do in their place?

The first thing I would do is put big signs up around the place,
saying "If it ain't broke, for f***s sake don't keep trying to fix
it!" And keen young programmers would pass by and look and say, gee,
then we'd better knock that latest gee-whizz idea of ours on the head
right now, 'cause, like, it was reel kool. And things would just
improve infinitesimally in small increments, bugs fixed, new designs
made backward-compatible, and so on. No pissed-off users. Credibility,
even! (Not so much revenue, though. Sorry. Have to tap into the
$40bn.) It ain't rocket science, no matter how often Microsoft tries
to pretend that every fart is an "innovation".

MM

[james]

How in the world do you know that VB.NET does not deliver anything easy if
you've never tried it ???? You can drap and drop controls onto a Windows
form and double click on them and write event code for them just as easy as
you ever could in any previous version of VB. The only difference is that
VB.NET allows access to a whole lot more functionality than previous
versions of VB either didn't have or support. Or that you had to go and buy
a 3rd party control to impliment. Development time in VB.NET is just as
fast if not faster, than previous versions of VB.
But, until you actually use it, you cannot give an informed opinion about
it, just wild , misleading statements.
james

"Mike Mitchell" <kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message >
> 'Zactly! VB.Net does not deliver it in the *easy* way that VB6 does!
> Three million programmers are now finding out how apt that is.
>
> MM

[Jonathan West]

"Kunle Odutola" <kunle.odutola@REMOVETHISokocha.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message news:3e270bc6@tnews.web.devx.com...
>
> > (And I thought the whole idea of VS.NET was to lure developers *away*
> > from competing products. Silly me!)
>
> I thought it was to produce the best dev toolset on the market (which it
> probably is). Silly me.

It won't matter that much to Microsoft if they think it's the best if enough
customers decide not to buy it. Silly you.

--
Regards
Jonathan West

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:24:37 -0600, Paul Clement
<UseAdddressAtEndofMessage@swspectrum.com> wrote:

>Unfortunately the foundation on which it was built was beginning to crumble. There were way too many
>half-baked implementations in Classic Visual Basic that really didn't make much sense to carry over
>into .NET.

Why carry anything over from classic VB into a *new* language? Why not
just develop the new language, eschewing compatibility 100%, but keep
the existing language (used by millions, nota bene) as an alternative,
classic RAD package? As for half-baked, I think VB6 was the best baked
version of all. No 'half' about it; it was top banana. In any case,
what, exactly, "was beginning to crumble"? You've never seen a more
widely used package than classic VB - although I have to admit that
Java is becoming pretty widely used now. If I were Microsoft I'd be
seriously worried about Java, you know.

MM

[Phil Weber]

> As for half-baked, I think VB6 was the best baked
> version of all. No 'half' about it; it was top banana.

Mike: What, in your opinion, made VB6 so much better than VB5?
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/talk...back_6566.html

> Although I have to admit that Java is becoming pretty
> widely used now. If I were Microsoft I'd be seriously
> worried about Java, you know.

Microsoft *is* worried about Java, which is why they updated VB to be able
to compete with it on equal footing.
--
Phil Weber

[Jason Sobell iGadget]

"james" <jamesw2@mesh.net> wrote in message
news:3e2724a5@tnews.web.devx.com...
> How in the world do you know that VB.NET does not deliver anything easy if
> you've never tried it ???? You can drap and drop controls onto a
Windows
> form and double click on them and write event code for them just as easy
as
> you ever could in any previous version of VB. The only difference is
that
> VB.NET allows access to a whole lot more functionality than previous
> versions of VB either didn't have or support. Or that you had to go and
buy
> a 3rd party control to impliment. Development time in VB.NET is just as
> fast if not faster, than previous versions of VB.
> But, until you actually use it, you cannot give an informed opinion about
> it, just wild , misleading statements.
> james

Actually, you are both correct.

It is indeed much more difficult to throw code at VB.NET in the
unstructured, potentially unreliable, and unmaintainable way that it is
possible in VB6. I have always said that VB6 allow the creation of very
poorly written applications by very average developers very quickly. Mike
thinks this is good, but having worked in industry I can attest that this is
why so many VB based development projects go many times over budget and
deadlines. I personally think this is a drawback of VB6.

You are correct in stating that since Mike has not used VB.NET, he is not in
a valid position to make an informed decision as a competent developer.
Perhaps he falls into the 'very average' (read 'poor') developer bracket,
and this is one reason he feels it would be difficult to move to VB.NET.

I've already posted several messages in the past describing issues I've
encountered during my move from VB6 (which I like very much) to VB.NET
(which I now enjoy using), but I have to say that all of the .NET languages
are aimed at the upper end developers, many of whom have Java and C++
experience, rather than many self/uni taught VB6 developers who simply
learnt the language to make money in the IT industry.

I suppose we can be impressed that Microsoft managed to produce a language
that let virtually anybody, no matter what their skill level, develop
applications so easily. Of course those applications were often dreadful and
unmaintainable with a nice GUI veneer, but they are seen by industry to
exist.
I use VB6 to teach business objects and database app development at uni
because every student is able to develop something runnable in the first 4
lectures (<8 hours), but at the end of the course I would probably only have
4 or 5 out of 100-200 that I would consider good software developers. Some
are even working in industry as VB developers and their code is so appalling
that I would never employ them.

As I said, Mike thinks this is good, but I do not. Most VB developers have
serious catching up and retraining to do in order to get to the minimum
requirements of competence for .NET. I feel sorry for those developers
because they often have to work very hard to keep up with the technology,
but we have to accept that not everyone has a natural talent for software
development like some of us geeks have and those without have now reached a
major hurdle.

Cheers,
Jason

> "Mike Mitchell" <kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message >
> > 'Zactly! VB.Net does not deliver it in the *easy* way that VB6 does!
> > Three million programmers are now finding out how apt that is.
> >
> > MM
>
>

[John Butler]

"Phil Weber" <pweber@nospam.fawcette.com> wrote in message
news:3e272834$1@tnews.web.devx.com...
> > As for half-baked, I think VB6 was the best baked
> > version of all. No 'half' about it; it was top banana.
>
> Mike: What, in your opinion, made VB6 so much better than VB5?
> http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/talk...back_6566.html


He he, hilarious...

Quoting Mike,Wednesday Feb 05, 1997:
"It's time people woke up to the fact that Microsoft simply cannot think
differently, cannot think small, cannot deliver compacts. They took the
small but perfectly formed VBX, decided it needed fixing, dumped it, and
brought out OCXs. Apart from being slow, cumbersome, and complex, OCXs are
suddenly passe, and ActiveX is what we're now expected to know and love."

and now you love VB6...

Thanks Phil!

rgds
John Butler

[james]

Jason, I think that "poorly written applications" can be written in any
language, including VB.NET. And from my experience as a hobbiest
programmer ( I do networking and pc maintaince) I can truthfully say, that
VB.NET has been as easy for me to use as VB6 an prior versions of VB has.
The more I use it the better I like it. (of course I've been using it since
Beta 1) What programs I do write are for specialized users. Mostly
database programs for small, commercial flower growers. And I've also been
playing with all kinds of graphics stuff using GDI+. And I'm having a
blast.
And, I'm a self-taught programmer. I started out with C, and moved to Basic
and some assembler along with other fun things. ( I enjoy a challange)
I don't know wheather Mike falls into the "very average" programmer
bracket or not. To me that makes no difference. My gripe with him has
always been that he makes outlandish statements about a programming language
and IDE that he has never spent any time using.
I feel that VB.NET can be learned and used by anyone that can use VB6. I
just think that for some people , when they see some of the verbose
statements used in VB.NET, they take an instant dislike to it. I know that
when I first used VB4 (didn't want to mess with earlier versions, Basic PDS
worked better for me at the time), I found it to be strange.
In fact, I seriously thought about not learning it and going back to using C
again.
But, I did and I've continued to get each new version and work with it and
learn it. Including VB.NET. And I keep finding more and more things that
it does and does well, that previous versions of VB either couldn't do, or
took some weird hacks to do.
And with the all the framework classes being available..........it really
gets to be fun !
james


"Jason Sobell iGadget" <iGadget_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3e2750b7$1@tnews.web.devx.com...
> >
> Actually, you are both correct.
>
> It is indeed much more difficult to throw code at VB.NET in the
> unstructured, potentially unreliable, and unmaintainable way that it is
> possible in VB6. I have always said that VB6 allow the creation of very
> poorly written applications by very average developers very quickly. Mike
> thinks this is good, but having worked in industry I can attest that this
is
> why so many VB based development projects go many times over budget and
> deadlines. I personally think this is a drawback of VB6.
>
> You are correct in stating that since Mike has not used VB.NET, he is not
in
> a valid position to make an informed decision as a competent developer.
> Perhaps he falls into the 'very average' (read 'poor') developer bracket,
> and this is one reason he feels it would be difficult to move to VB.NET.
>
> I've already posted several messages in the past describing issues I've
> encountered during my move from VB6 (which I like very much) to VB.NET
> (which I now enjoy using), but I have to say that all of the .NET
languages
> are aimed at the upper end developers, many of whom have Java and C++
> experience, rather than many self/uni taught VB6 developers who simply
> learnt the language to make money in the IT industry.
>
> I suppose we can be impressed that Microsoft managed to produce a language
> that let virtually anybody, no matter what their skill level, develop
> applications so easily. Of course those applications were often dreadful
and
> unmaintainable with a nice GUI veneer, but they are seen by industry to
> exist.
> I use VB6 to teach business objects and database app development at uni
> because every student is able to develop something runnable in the first 4
> lectures (<8 hours), but at the end of the course I would probably only
have
> 4 or 5 out of 100-200 that I would consider good software developers. Some
> are even working in industry as VB developers and their code is so
appalling
> that I would never employ them.
>
> As I said, Mike thinks this is good, but I do not. Most VB developers have
> serious catching up and retraining to do in order to get to the minimum
> requirements of competence for .NET. I feel sorry for those developers
> because they often have to work very hard to keep up with the technology,
> but we have to accept that not everyone has a natural talent for software
> development like some of us geeks have and those without have now reached
a
> major hurdle.
>
> Cheers,
> Jason
>
> > "Mike Mitchell" <kylix_is@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message >
> > > 'Zactly! VB.Net does not deliver it in the *easy* way that VB6 does!
> > > Three million programmers are now finding out how apt that is.
> > >
> > > MM
> >
> >
>
>

[Mike Mitchell]

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 11:52:11 +1100, "Jason Sobell iGadget"
<iGadget_@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I use VB6 to teach business objects and database app development at uni
>because every student is able to develop something runnable in the first 4
>lectures (<8 hours), but at the end of the course I would probably only have
>4 or 5 out of 100-200 that I would consider good software developers. Some
>are even working in industry as VB developers and their code is so appalling
>that I would never employ them.

As if this scenario is borne out in the hundreds upon hundreds of
pages in all those copies of Visual Basic Programmer's Journal! I
don't know exactly how long VBPJ was in print, but I still have the
CD-ROMs packed full of Basic Heroes, reams of articles by Karl et al,
tips, guest ops, and much, much more. And you're telling me that this
was all only catering to a bunch of lackadaisical, inadequate
programmers who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag?

Yeah, right!

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 13:59:22 -0800, "Phil Weber"
<pweber@nospam.fawcette.com> wrote:

>Microsoft *is* worried about Java, which is why they updated VB to be able
>to compete with it on equal footing.

Good for them! So what does VB7 look like, then?

MM

[Mike Mitchell]

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On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 01:03:48 -0000, "John Butler"
<nospamjrbutler@btinternet.com> wrote:

>He he, hilarious...

Well, I do my best to please!

>Quoting Mike,Wednesday Feb 05, 1997:
>"It's time people woke up to the fact that Microsoft simply cannot think
>differently, cannot think small, cannot deliver compacts. They took the
>small but perfectly formed VBX, decided it needed fixing, dumped it, and
>brought out OCXs. Apart from being slow, cumbersome, and complex, OCXs are
>suddenly passe, and ActiveX is what we're now expected to know and love."

That was true, or wasn't it? VBX came and went like a summer fling.
And then Bill fell in love with OCX and VBX was discarded like a Camp
Delta inmate. Oh, and we had to pay all over again for upgrades.

>and now you love VB6...

Not in the sense that I have a sexual relationship with it, but give
it time...

MM