J
Jim Hubbard said:
Ray Cassick (Home) said:UGH!
I am a VB developer since the day it was born. I purchased my first copy
of VB version 1 from Babbage's software at the Galleria mall in September
of 1991 and have never looked back since.
I have gotten into many religious battles with other developers over the
typical arguments that VB is a real language that can be used to write
real applications by real developers.
I have gotten to know it very well, spending countless hours learning,
studying and making sure that I understood as much of the language as I
can.
All that, and even I think it should die a quite death and be replaced by
VB.NET
Support for VB Version 6 ends on 3/31/2005. Let it die with dignity and
respect.
It is a time to mourn the past and grow towards the future.
If you want to read the rest visit my blog at the link below...
http://spaces.msn.com/members/rcassick/Blog/cns!1pXjHq-RqqMSQdLvn5n4gdnw!113.entry
Stephany Young said:Soapbox time!!!!!!!!
I cannot understand how, on and after 1 April 2005, I am not going to be
able to do things with VB6(SP6) that I can do on and prior to 31 March
2005. Just because 'Mainstream' support is withdrawn from that date does
not mean I won't be able to use it.
Objective 1 of the petition talks about 'Preservation of assets'. If you
have an asset then it is in place today. If it works today then it is not
magically going to stop working on 1 April. It is therefore spurious to
argue that a 'Future versions of VB6/VBA' (sic) (which, at this stage,
there won't be) will destroy your asset(s). That's like saying that no
matter what models of automobile may be developed in the future, the
manufacturer will always have to provide support for the particular model
that I drive today. In other words - 'I want to see innovation but I also
want everything the way it has always been'.
In objective 2 it states 'This core should be enhanced and extended, and
changes should follow a documented deprecation process.' Am I the only one
who wonders how one can enhance and extend something and peprecate it at
the same time. To me 'enhance and extend' and 'deprecate' are complete
opposites.
In objective 3 it states 'The decisions of if, how and when to migrate
code to .NET should lie with the customer. Some may choose to remain with
unmanaged VB, especially for legacy code bases. Some will use only VB.NET,
others a mix.' Please excuse my mistake in thinking that this is exactly
the case today and is not going to change on 1 April. Also, don't forget
about the developers who are using a mix of VB6, VB.NET and C#.NET to
provide solutions.
In my personal experience I only encountered 2 'issues' in VB6 which
needed to be addressed by Microsoft and both were addressed in later
service packs. In the meantime a rather unattractive workaround was used
to acheive the desired result. While there was much gnashing of teeth at
the time, the pain soon passed. It does beg the question 'What new things
are people attempting to do with VB6 that are throwing up so many
widespread issues that mainstream support is still required?' I am quickly
coming to the view that some are trying to use VB6 to do something that it
is just not designed to do and then criticising Microsoft when it doesn't
do it. If that is the case then I'm afraid I cannot support that sort of
behaviour. I also wonder if some have been using mainstream support as an
alternative to 'Read The Flaming Manual' or other methods of self-help
support - It certainly appears that many use these newgroups in that
manner.
In some of the articles regarding this petition it talks about projects
not being migrated to VB.Net because it is complex. So what. An automobile
is complex compared to a bicycle but that doesn't stop teenagers migrating
from the bike to the car. Complex does not mean difficult!!! Unfortunately
there are those who equate the two words and, in doing so, do nothing more
than make things difficult for themseleves. There are also those who seem
incapable of doing anything unless the entire wherewithall is handed to
them on a plate. Along with these are those who wring their hands and make
themselves sick with worry in case they don't get a particular line of
code right the first time. To all those for whom the cap fits all I can
say is, get of your backsides, learn something for yourselves, be prepared
to try something. You'll be surprised just how much one can get done when
one is not spending ones efforts in waiting for someone else to do it for
one or worrying if one has got it right first time.
To finish, I believe that Microsoft announced the timetable from ending
mainstream support for VB6 some 2 years ago, so I'm also wondering why it
has taken so long for a petition such as this to appear, or is it nothing
more than a knee-jerk reaction to the recent reminder.
Stephany
Stephany Young said:Soapbox time!!!!!!!!
I cannot understand how, on and after 1 April 2005, I am not going to be
able to do things with VB6(SP6) that I can do on and prior to 31 March
2005. Just because 'Mainstream' support is withdrawn from that date does
not mean I won't be able to use it.
Objective 1 of the petition talks about 'Preservation of assets'. If you
have an asset then it is in place today. If it works today then it is not
magically going to stop working on 1 April. It is therefore spurious to
argue that a 'Future versions of VB6/VBA' (sic) (which, at this stage,
there won't be) will destroy your asset(s). That's like saying that no
matter what models of automobile may be developed in the future, the
manufacturer will always have to provide support for the particular model
that I drive today. In other words - 'I want to see innovation but I also
want everything the way it has always been'.
In objective 2 it states 'This core should be enhanced and extended, and
changes should follow a documented deprecation process.' Am I the only one
who wonders how one can enhance and extend something and peprecate it at
the same time. To me 'enhance and extend' and 'deprecate' are complete
opposites.
In objective 3 it states 'The decisions of if, how and when to migrate
code to .NET should lie with the customer. Some may choose to remain with
unmanaged VB, especially for legacy code bases. Some will use only VB.NET,
others a mix.' Please excuse my mistake in thinking that this is exactly
the case today and is not going to change on 1 April. Also, don't forget
about the developers who are using a mix of VB6, VB.NET and C#.NET to
provide solutions.
In my personal experience I only encountered 2 'issues' in VB6 which
needed to be addressed by Microsoft and both were addressed in later
service packs. In the meantime a rather unattractive workaround was used
to acheive the desired result. While there was much gnashing of teeth at
the time, the pain soon passed. It does beg the question 'What new things
are people attempting to do with VB6 that are throwing up so many
widespread issues that mainstream support is still required?'
I am quickly coming to the view that some are trying to use VB6 to do
something that it is just not designed to do and then criticising Microsoft
when it doesn't do it.
If that is the case then I'm afraid I cannot support that sort of
behaviour.
I also wonder if some have been using mainstream support as an alternative
to 'Read The Flaming Manual' or other methods of self-help support - It
certainly appears that many use these newgroups in that manner.
In some of the articles regarding this petition it talks about projects
not being migrated to VB.Net because it is complex. So what. An automobile
is complex compared to a bicycle but that doesn't stop teenagers migrating
from the bike to the car. Complex does not mean difficult!!! Unfortunately
there are those who equate the two words and, in doing so, do nothing more
than make things difficult for themseleves.
There are also those who seem incapable of doing anything unless the entire
wherewithall is handed to them on a plate.
Along with these are those who wring their hands and make themselves sick
with worry in case they don't get a particular line of code right the first
time. To all those for whom the cap fits all I can say is, get of your
backsides, learn something for yourselves, be prepared to try something.
You'll be surprised just how much one can get done when one is not spending
ones efforts in waiting for someone else to do it for one or worrying if
one has got it right first time.
To finish, I believe that Microsoft announced the timetable from ending
mainstream support for VB6 some 2 years ago, so I'm also wondering why it
has taken so long for a petition such as this to appear, or is it nothing
more than a knee-jerk reaction to the recent reminder.
Herfried K. Wagner said:Hi Jim,
For those who are interested in signing the petition:
General information (press, blog articles, etc.) about the petition:
http://classicvb.org/
List of signatures:
http://classicvb.org/petition/
Cor Ligthert said:It says for me something about *those* MVP's.
Unluckily do I find it therefore very strange to see your name as the only
*hard* regular from this newsgroup in that list.
Ray Cassick (Home) said:Ok, I was a stupid head here and gave the wrong link to the wrong blog
entry...
http://spaces.msn.com/members/rcassick/Blog/cns!1pXjHq-RqqMSQdLvn5n4gdnw!111.entry
Stephany Young said:I cannot understand how, on and after 1 April 2005, I am not going to be
able to do things with VB6(SP6) that I can do on and prior to 31 March
2005. Just because 'Mainstream' support is withdrawn from that date does
not mean I won't be able to use it.
Objective 1 of the petition talks about 'Preservation of assets'. If you
have an asset then it is in place today. If it works today then it is not
magically going to stop working on 1 April. It is therefore spurious to
argue that a 'Future versions of VB6/VBA' (sic) (which, at this stage,
there won't be) will destroy your asset(s).
In other words - 'I want to see innovation but I also want everything the
way it has always been'.
In objective 2 it states 'This core should be enhanced and extended, and
changes should follow a documented deprecation process.' Am I the only one
who wonders how one can enhance and extend something and peprecate it at
the same time. To me 'enhance and extend' and 'deprecate' are complete
opposites.
In objective 3 it states 'The decisions of if, how and when to migrate
code to .NET should lie with the customer. Some may choose to remain with
unmanaged VB, especially for legacy code bases. Some will use only VB.NET,
others a mix.' Please excuse my mistake in thinking that this is exactly
the case today and is not going to change on 1 April. Also, don't forget
about the developers who are using a mix of VB6, VB.NET and C#.NET to
provide solutions.
mainstream support is still required?' I am quickly coming to the view
that some are trying to use VB6 to do something that it is just not
designed to do and then criticising Microsoft when it doesn't do it. If
that is the case then I'm afraid I cannot support that sort of behaviour.
Why do you think I would say that, this is your iterprettation, you cannotWhat does it say to you? Does it say that people who would loose assets
without further support for VB6 are amateurs and idiots?
I don't see the sense of this related to my message it were only two lines,Although I use .NET (VB.NET, C#) and like the features of VB.NET,
preservation of assets (and the other points of the petition) is very
(most) important for me. It doesn't make sense to compare features of
Classic VB with features of VB.NET, or features of COM with features of
.NET, in order to say "X is better than Y". The fact that there is a lot
of Classic VB/VBA code which will not be migrated in forseeable future for
oeconomic reasons, should make people think about Classic VB's future.
Again, I don't see the sense from the last sentence, can you explain that asI encourage everybody here to sign the petition. Even if it doesn't
affect you, the signatures will help others to preserve their assets, and
it will bring the Classic VB community a large step closer to .NET.
Stephany Young said:It is riduculous to argue that the line of 'Classic' VB that works today
will not work in the future because 'Mainstream' support has been
discontinued.
I cannot understand this doomsaying that because 'Mainstream' support is
being discontinued, a 'bug' that is not apparent today in the 'Classic' VB
IDE/Compiler/Runtime might magically appear on or soon after 1 April 2005
Support for VB4 ended long ago but there is still an awful lot of software
being written in VB4 without a lot of doomsaying.
For the record, I have yet to encounter a problem caused by SP6 for VS6,
so I am rather surprised by such a wide ranging claim as 'SP6 brings more
problems than it solves.'.
I can only reiterate - If your VB6 program stops working next month then
it will be because of a bug in your code or some external factor; It won't
be the fault of VB6.
Cor Ligthert said:Why do you think I would say that, this is your iterprettation, you cannot
find one sylabile in these newsgroups where I ever have used the word
"idiot" that is not my style and absolute opposite from the way I think
about people.
My interprettation is that it is not a good attitude when you are helping
others to look back too the past and "helping" is in my opinion what one
of the first goals of a MVP should be.
I don't see the sense of this related to my message it were only two
lines, can you explain that.
Again, I don't see the sense from the last sentence, can you explain that
as well.
Helping customers to preserve their assets is providing help too.
I wanted to make sure that you don't think that I stopped using .NET
because I signed the petition.
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