All the king's horses and all the king's men.......

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Hubbard
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Jim Hubbard

It seems that Microsoft is valiantly trying to undo the harm it has done to
itself by destroying VB6 in favor of the more bloated, less-RAD, less-user
friendly, less-productive VB.Net.

In fact, it is now giving away it's ebook "" in an effort to draw more
abandoned VB programmers into the gapping maw that is .Net. You can get
your own copy at http://tinyurl.com/lbryw . (That's
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/staythepath/additionalresources/introto2005/
for the paranoid among you.)

IMHO, this little rhyme best describes Microsoft's Visual Basic kingdom.....

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Fire when ready........
 
The world of programming is the fastest-changing human realm today. You can
choose to keep up, you can find some other occupation, or you can be a
hobbyist. That's about it, without all the stroking.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Professional Numbskull

Show me your certification without works,
and I'll show my certification
*by* my works.
 
Jeff Dillon said:
Clever way to promote your book! Reverse psychology...
Click to expand...

fwiw, I found no mention of the authors name in that ebook... it's been
available for quite a while now, along with another...

Free Book - Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic
..NET
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/staythepath/AdditionalResources/UpgradingVB6/default.aspx

I've picked and poked at those. Nothing serious. I just wish the "entire
book" download didn't break up into several separate files that represent
chapters.
 
Um..joke?

Ken Halter said:
fwiw, I found no mention of the authors name in that ebook... it's been
available for quite a while now, along with another...

Free Book - Upgrading Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Microsoft Visual Basic
.NET
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/staythepath/AdditionalResources/UpgradingVB6/default.aspx

I've picked and poked at those. Nothing serious. I just wish the "entire
book" download didn't break up into several separate files that represent
chapters.
Click to expand...
 
I understand that all things must evolve. They must grow....become better
and stronger or they die. And, usually they do.

Unfortunately, this (discarding VB6 for VB.Net) is one instance where a
company just made a mistake. And, this is the problem with a company like
Microsoft. They CANNOT admit their mistakes. They CANNOT fix them by
simply saying..."OK, we missed the mark on that - but we realize it and are
stepping back to where we went wrong and trying again with the help of the
developer community."

Microsoft simply does not admit mistakes. All companies make them (mine
included). Only the best long term companies (and governments for that
matter) admit them publicly, apologize (own their mistakes) and take steps
to rectify the situation. Microsoft is NOT one of those companies. (They
COULD be....but, they're not.)

Instead, they bull forward - taking YEARS to try and recover what they
simply tossed in the trash - a simple development language that (although
imperfect like all other programming languages) allowed for massive
application innovation by the masses in a simple, RAD environment. And,
five years later, it's still not back. They've gotten closer.......but
they've also lost the faith of the VB community in the process - ergo the
free VB.Net books and free Express versions of .Net.

They know they've screwed up. The free Express version offer was
Microsoft's attempt at getting back in the good graces of the part-time
developer community - the people that made Microsoft what it is today. So
far, not many are biting. They STILL want VB back. Sure, it could be
enhanced.....but .Net just isn't cutting it for the legions of part time
programmers that made Windows the most popular platform in the world.

I don't know why Linux hasn't caught on.......God knows I've screamed it
loud enough. Visual Basic (pre-VB.Net) was THE reason for he success of the
Windows platform. Why?

VB allowed part-time programmers (non-professional programmers) as well as
professional programmers to innovate on the Windows platform in a way that
no other programming environment or language ever has (or - God forbid -
ever will).

This brought the collective software innovation and brain power of MILLIONS
of people (of all intellectual abilities, countries, businesses and
backgrounds) to bear on problems and ways to solve them with software on the
Windows platforms.

In fact, VB developers (pre-.Net) were the largest programming group in the
world. They wrote more lines of code than any other language in the world
(perhaps more than all of them combined). They allowed small businesses to
adopt the Windows due in large part to the fact that the small business
could (with VB - not .Net) write its own software if pre-made solutions did
not exist without paying excessive professional programming salaries.

People from a myriad of backgrounds and experiences were able to write
applications that solved their own problems and filled their own desires for
software solutions to everyday problems. Many times these applications
caught on and a new small business was born - ever attached to Windows. It
is a CEO's dream-come-true - people willingly tying themselves to your
company flagship product.

The pre-.Net VB language was RAD to the Nth degree, with a plethora of 3rd
party company's writing and supporting components for VB to make it even
more RAD. This increased the ROI of VB in the enterprise and allowed an
unbelievably fast response time in the development of new applications to
meet ever-changing business demands.

And (in most cases), the resulting executables were easily downloadable via
the net even with the 1MB runtime - not the monstrosity we have now with the
23+MB .Net framework. Doesn't Microsoft know that approx 50% of all
Americans (the people that spend money on software) are still stuck with
dial-up lines - and will be for several years to come?

This massive mistake by Microsoft has tremendous and far-reaching
consequences for Microsoft and the PC industry as a whole.

Like the fact that the VB community has all but vanished. It is a shell of
its former self. Microsoft has taken so long to even start replacing the
RAD environment that the part-time programmers simply lost interest. And,
the complexities of the .Net language and platforms (compared with that of
Visual Basic 6) means less RAD and more time spent learning programming that
takes away from the PTPs main job (which, in most cases, was NOT that of
programming).

Fewer people are taking up programming in college and fewer applications are
being developed by the masses for the masses. Just look around.....where
are all of the new apps? When VB6 development and support stopped, so did
the innovation and application development of MILLIONS of VB devotees (part
time and professional) as well as the 3rd party component market. If the VB
developers aren't there, there's not much profit in providing RAD components
for them, is there?

Less RAD means fewer developers, which means fewer components being
developed for the language, which means fewer new programmers, which means
fewer new component development, which means........you get the picture.

This massive ejection of brain power from the Microsoft machine will be its
ultimate downfall - IF another OS developer can see where Microsoft has
dropped 6 MILLION balls and start picking them up.

Along with the reduced innovation and application development comes a
reduced perceived value in Windows as a platform. If the pool of apps dries
up (except for the very expensive large company-owned apps) small businesses
and consumers have less reason to buy into Windows as a platform (especially
since most Linux apps are free). Add to that the increased difficulty of
developing and securely distributing their own applications and the value
falls even farther.

If I am right, why aren't people leaving the Windows OS in droves? Why is
the Microsoft OS still the most popular one in the world by far? Five
reasons......

0) Fear. Most businesses use Windows apps like MS Office to communicate
and they are afraid that using anything else will make them less competitive
if it cannot read/write the MS Office files. This is fading, but only #4
will make it disappear.

1) Comfort. People don't like change. Remember the fuss the VB
programmers made over the .Net change? Need I say more?

2) The apps that were created with VB still work. Most small businesses
(and quite a few large ones) will ride these apps until they MUST change
them. There are MANY businesses that haven't even adopted XP yet. They
don't get paid to run the latest software. They get paid to keep costs down
as much as possible. A lot of small businesses will abandon their VB apps
only when they no longer work. And, this will only happen when Microsoft
intentionally leaves out support for the VB6 runtimes in its OS. IMHO, this
will happen sooner than you think.

3) This death is a rapid one, but will not happen overnight. As long as
the VB6 apps still work.....people will continue the death march to the sea.

4) Linux leaders are blind. This is the real reason for Microsoft's
continued success and Linux's failure on the desktop. The leaders of
today's Linux distros are blind to the impact that a simple, useful
programming language can have on the adoption of Linux as a desktop and
business platform. They can't see VB for what it was to Microsoft (or
simply refuse to believe that Microsoft has ANYTHING to teach them - which
is foolish). And, they are stuck in a rut of Microsoft-chasing by wasting
time and resources developing MONO.

Their illusive dream of interoperability is so easily broken by Microsoft's
"fire and run" strategy that it would be comical if it weren't so damned
sad.

Linux must give developers a way to profit from their hard work and code.
Open source is a dead end in business models. And, if businesses can't
profit from it, they won't develop for it. So, MONO is a dead end.

That leads us to another Linux Achilles heel - the multiple and varied
distros that have no common core. If businesses can't be sure their apps
will run on the OS, they won't code for it. Linux MUST have a common core
that remains from distro to distro.

I have to admit, I've never really understood the Open Source model. Your
company makes money only when someone calls you for help with the
software....so, wouldn't that make poorly written, complex apps (with a
really good marketing campaign) more profitable than well written ones in
which customers rarely need to call customer support?

Geoff Pearlman (President of REALbasic) has a good candidate for Linux's VB.
It's called REALbasic. The syntax is even VB-like and it can help you port
your VB6 apps (unlike VB.Net - which mostly requires you rewrite your VB6
apps). It can create executables for MAC, Windows and Linux from a single
set of source code and the executables don't require a 23+MB runtime
(mostly they are a single EXE file - but you can write external modules if
you like).

Of all of the stated reasons, Microsoft leaders should get on their knees
every night and pray that #4 is he last one to fall. It is primarily #4
that prevents a Linux OS from smashing Windows down to its bare frame.

Jim Hubbard
 
Dude!

Your logic is impeccadillo.

First, you assert that Microsoft has made a mistake (of course, it couldn't
be you who is mistaken, it must be Microsoft). Second, you ask rhetorically
why, if Microsoft has made this mistake, they aren't losing business? Third,
you create a series of contrived reasons which would account for this
"anomaly" somehow. These arguments are purely conjecture, with no data to
back them up whatsoever, *except* for your assertion that Microsoft has made
a mistake. Therefore, the idea that Microsoft has made a mistake is the
basis for the arguments that support the idea that Microsoft has made a
mistake. A perfect circle.

Where have all the VB developers gone? Why, most of them are now using
VB.Net or C#. Some have perhaps gone over to "the other side of the fence"
(Java) where the grass always seems greener from whatever side you happen to
be on. The rest have (wisely) decided to pursue some other less stressful
occupation than programming, which is, even for those of us who love it, a
pretty darned difficult profession to stay abreast of.

You may as well ask where the dinosaurs have gone. Those who didn't evolve
into birds and smaller reptiles are in the Natural History Museums of the
world. But take heart: There will always be room in those museums for one
more exhibit. As for me, I do a bit of bleeding on the bleeding edge, but
what a view!

--
Surf's up,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Professional Numbskull

Show me your certification without works,
and I'll show my certification
*by* my works.
 
Hi Jim,

Whew ! That's a long one for a post ! Ever thought of writing your own
blog ?

Personally, I just love .NET !

Regards,

Cerebrus.
 
Jim,

As you asked last time to keep my thoughts to myself about your previous
post.

Maybe you can avoid that and not spent everybodys time by not sending this
kind of messages, they are a little bit a 2002 discussion.

Thanks in advance.

Cor
 
I'm sorry, Cor. I thought discussions about .Net (and the problems that
brought it about) were relevant here.

I am certainly glad that we all have you as the self-appointed newsgroup
police to keep all of this stuff straight.

Keep up the good (and much needed) work! (perhaps it'll keep you from
giving some poor soul the wrong programming solution to their problems)

JH
 
Jim,

Let me ask it you in another way. What is the sense for sending your
messages if you don't want comment on them. Is it showing your wisdom to the
world

I just gave you the same reply as you do to others in these cases if the
reply does not fit you.

If you call this policework, than you are the one who learned us that.

Cor
 
Cor,

Its not that I don't want comments, it's that I don't want your comments.

You chastise people for behavior that YOU deem inappropriate in an OPEN,
PUBLIC forum. You reply with comments that add nothing to the discussion
(like one of your recent posts that basically told the poster to check
Goggle). And your comments are frequently off-topic.

IMHO, you are nothing more than a troll that tries to impose his will upon
others.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I sure wish you'd either add something
RELEVANT to the discussions that you reply to or simply keep quiet. We
don't need you to police the newsgroups, telling everyone what is and is not
to be done in posting to the newsgroups.

If you want to reply.....
......please stick to the topic of the original poster
......please don't assign yourself the newsgroup moderator (we're mostly
adults here and can handle open discussions)
.......and when you feel the need to reply please ask yourself if your
response answers a posters' question with real pertinent answers (not
"Google it"), asks an on-topic question of your own or effectively counters
a posters' points while staying on-topic. If not, kindly refrain from
posting.

JH
 
Jim,

the troll here is you. I guess you are just one of that poor VB6
developers who are too conservative to adopt .NET. Saying VB6 is superior to
VB.NET without any real argument (oh yes, your argument is that MS has done
an infinite mistake) is nothing more than trolling.

QBASIC is by far the best RAD tool. VB3 sux, VB4 sux, VB5 sux, VB6 sux,
VB.NET sux, VB8 sux, and VB9 will suck!!
 
You are ignorant concerning my qualifications to speak on this subject.

I have taught programming for Apple & Windows computers in many different
languages. I have developed in VB professionally since VB 3.

I implemented VB.Net solutions used by companies like Qwest Communications
while .Net was still in the first beta of 1.0 and have implemented the
technology at 2 additional national companies since then - being the senior
architect in charge of implementing .Net in the enterprise and the senior
application architect at both locales.

I am well versed in the application of .Net technologies and their
advantages (yes there are a few) and disadvantages (there are many) when
being compared to VB6.

It is my professional opinion (realized after being immersed in both
technologies) that .Net was implemented for Microsoft to patch core problems
of the OS (mainly that of buffer overflows which still plague Microsoft's
products and OS) , to force their programmers to use good coding practices
and to further their goal of software as a service.

..Net was not written with the average business applications developer in
mind.

This move of Microsoft's was a mistake. Plain and simple. A mistake we
will all pay for....

Fewer apps are being written for the Windows platform (in comparison to the
same adoption and time frame of VB6's release and adoption). This causes a
reduction in the perceived value of adopting the platform and makes other
alternatives (like MAC and Linux) seem like more viable alternatives.

It's simple. Apps make the value of the OS. And, anything that can be done
to increase the quality of an OS's apps, the number of apps written for and
OS or the ability to write custom apps on an OS increases the true and
perceived values of the OS.

Any OS company CEO/CIO that doesn't see this and adjust the company's
resources accordingly should be fired and sued for the wages s/he has been
paid.

You must be related to Cor.

JH
 
You seem to be at least three times older than I, so please let me apologize
for being rude in my last post.

You are saying that .NET initiative of Microsoft is causing fewer apps to be
written for Windows?
VB6 programmers are not allowed to write their code in VB6 anymore?
Hobbyists (they are who have written most of the billions of lines ever
written in pre-.NET VB.) should absolutely not care about any reason you can
think of why they should not code in VB6.

And "average business application developers"? If they are that much
"average" that they are not able to comply with the need of the market, they
are not worth being developers. Average developers are writing average code.
And lots of average code is not what any platform needs, so if the fact that
fewer code is written for windows was by any chance caused by adoption of
..NET, it would be good - less bad (average code by average developers is
bad) code, more competent developers in result.
 
It seems that Microsoft is valiantly trying to undo the harm it has done to
itself by destroying VB6 in favor of the more bloated, less-RAD, less-user
friendly, less-productive VB.Net.
Click to expand...

So many disagreements in one sentence. For brevity, I'll use parentheses.

"It seems that Microsoft is valiantly trying to undo the harm it has done
(not undoing, no harm done) to itself by destroying (no) VB6 in favor of the
more bloated, less-RAD (no, the opposite for me, and I think for others too,
caveat with spin up issue below), less-user friendly (no), less-productive
(big no) VB.Net."

You may have a point about bloated. I am inclined to disagree, but it is
debatable. I'd rather drop it since a big off-topic digression may follow.

Having had experience with earlier versions of VB, I found spinning up to
VB6 to be very easy, whereas .NET took some real effort. I'm guessing it
was/is the same for you. Now, I'm well spun up with .NET, and IMO, .NET is
much superior to VB6.

So, my only knock against .NET is that it is relatively hard to learn. For
me, that is a minor knock, for some, it is a very serious knock. Your RAD
complaint applies when not spun up, but it does not apply thereafter. To me,
RAD means rapid app development, and it does not include spin up time. If
for you, RAD includes spin up time, then I withdraw my RAD disagreement.
 
Jim Hubbard said:
I understand that all things must evolve. They must grow....become better
and stronger or they die. And, usually they do.

Unfortunately, this (discarding VB6 for VB.Net) is one instance where a
company just made a mistake. And, this is the problem with a company like
Microsoft. They CANNOT admit their mistakes.
Click to expand...

Sure, they could admit. However, there are so many other ways to choose for
Microsoft which wouldn't mean they admit that they made a huge mistake.
Microsoft could easily continue supporting VB6/VBA and/or create an exact
..NET-based copy of it. But I fear Microsoft doesn't even feel that they
have made a mistake. Although VB6 was a first class product once, Microsoft
makes the big money with other products.
Instead, they bull forward - taking YEARS to try and recover what they
simply tossed in the trash - a simple development language that (although
imperfect like all other programming languages) allowed for massive
application innovation by the masses in a simple, RAD environment. And,
five years later, it's still not back. They've gotten closer.......but
they've also lost the faith of the VB community in the process - ergo the
free VB.Net books and free Express versions of .Net.
Click to expand...

They have gotten closer by spending the VB IDE more Office-like toolbar
icons and visual styles? I feel sorry, but I cannot see VB.NET becoming as
simple and easy to use as VB6/VBA was. The typical office guy doesn't need
object-orientation, it's simply oversized. Those people do neither need
VSTO nor server-side Office.

Maybe the whole mistake is caused by Microsoft's misconception that
/everything/ will be connected. ".NET" could be interpreted as standing for
"network" and technologies like Web services etc. clearly go into the
direction of a world where things are connected everywhere. However, in the
real world, only a few parts are connected, only in a part of the scenarios
client/server technology is used. A secretary automating Word to make her
everyday's work easier doesn't even need to know what a server is.

To make a conclusion: Microsoft now tries to fake VB6 on the basis of
VB.NET, which will never succeed. There is still a huge gap between VB6 on
the one hand and VB.NET and C# on the other hand. Note that I do not think
that this gap exists between VB6/COM and .NET as a whole. COM was an
implementation detail of VB6 and .NET could be the basis for a 100 %
code-compatible programming language.
I don't know why Linux hasn't caught on.......God knows I've screamed it
loud enough. Visual Basic (pre-VB.Net) was THE reason for he success of
the Windows platform. Why?

VB allowed part-time programmers (non-professional programmers) as well as
professional programmers to innovate on the Windows platform in a way that
no other programming environment or language ever has (or - God forbid -
ever will).
Click to expand...

There's much truth in your words!
Like the fact that the VB community has all but vanished. It is a shell
of its former self. Microsoft has taken so long to even start replacing
the RAD environment that the part-time programmers simply lost interest.
And, the complexities of the .Net language and platforms (compared with
that of Visual Basic 6) means less RAD and more time spent learning
programming that takes away from the PTPs main job (which, in most cases,
was NOT that of programming).
Click to expand...

I disagree that .NET is more complex than Win32 and COM were. VB6 provided
a pretty good but unfortunately incomplete wrapper around some of the Win32
and COM stuff. "Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll" shows us that it's pretty simple
to provide almost code-compatible libraries which are internally based on
the .NET Framework. Microsoft often mentioned that .NET was important to
support interoperability between different programming languages, but
miserably failed to upgrade VB6 to make use of it.
 
IMHO, you are nothing more than a troll that tries to impose his will upon
Well... I certainly learnt something today !

The meaning of "Troll" :

1. A supernatural creature of Scandinavian folklore, variously
portrayed as a friendly or mischievous dwarf or as a giant, that lives
in caves, in the hills, or under bridges.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language.

2. An electronic mail message, Usenet posting or other (electronic)
communication which is intentionally incorrect,
but not overtly controversial (compare flame bait), or the act of
sending such a message. Trolling aims to elicit an
emotional reaction from those with a hair-trigger on the reply key.
****A really subtle troll makes some people lose their
minds.**** (Edit: Careful folks !)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2005 Denis
Howe

Regards,

Cerebrus.
 
Lebesgue said:
the troll here is you. I guess you are just one of that poor VB6
developers who are too conservative to adopt .NET. Saying VB6 is superior
to VB.NET without any real argument (oh yes, your argument is that MS has
done an infinite mistake) is nothing more than trolling.
Click to expand...

It's pretty obvious who is trolling here.
 
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