Anybody code recreationally?

[Terry Olsen]

VB.NET doesn't seem to go over very well with the recreational users out in
inet land. I've got a few "free" programs that I put out for people to use,
and I get emails like "it'd be a nice utility if it wasn't written in a
child's language", or "no way I'm installing the .NET Framework on my PC',
"Why don't you use a REAL compiler like GCC, LCC, or Pelles C?". Seems like
the attitude is that "REAL" programmers only write programs where the
executable is "stand-alone" and doesn't require a runtime...and people that
use Microsoft development languages are akin to Trailer Park Trash.

I like to write code. I get a certain amount of satisfaction when people
find something I've done useful. Comments like the above make me not want
to share...

 

[Jon]

I code both for work and fun. Just ignore it. Those types of people are
too immature to bother listening to.

 

[Matthew.Gertz]

I code for fun in VB, but admittedly I'm biased . For example, I recently built a rather large Euchre game in VB .NET, with pretty good AI, sound, speech, etc., and it turned out pretty darn good quality. In theory, I built it to test out the product as see what bugs I could find, but in reality I just like to play Euchre a lot.

While not dismissing the importance of the enterprise and professional spaces (around which we do a lot of planning), I really would like us here on the VB team to dig in even deeper to the hobbyist space -- "programming for fun," if you will. We've done some good work there (VB Express, for example), but I'm guessing there's a lot more we could do that was specifically hobbyist targeted. Many of us have spent a lot of time thinking about that.

When I first joined the VB compiler lead as the editor lead a few years back, one of the first things I did (in order to better understand the product) was port one of my favorite "widgets" from C++ to VB -- just a small fun application that I used to translate between ASCII/DBCS/Unicode/UTF-8 for various code pages, displaying the characters in various fonts as well. I had been expecting to lose some power while doing this, and was pleasantly surprised that the opposite was true; the widget was actually more powerful and far easier to code. Put to the test, of course C++ could have presented just as powerful a result, but the difference was that I would have had to work harder to get there. I added a whole gamut of useful features which would have taken a long time to drill out in C++ (and I assure you that I'd been programming in C/C++ for many, many years). The only tricky bit in VB was "faking" unsigned types, but with the recent introduction of unsigned types in VB, even this went away.

Like I say, I'm hardly impartial, but I do enjoy coding in VB for fun, and I hope that some of the directions we've taken (and will take in the future) will make it an even more enjoyable experience.

--Matt Gertz--*
VB Compiler Dev Lead

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon
Posted At: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 11:27 AM
Posted To: microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb
Conversation: Anybody code recreationally?
Subject: Re: Anybody code recreationally?


I code both for work and fun. Just ignore it. Those types of people are
too immature to bother listening to.

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Terry,

I agree completely with Jon's fine short answer.

However, in fact is it that the .Net programs need no runtimer, it needs an
extra OS layer; The framework.

Until now I have not heard of any compiler for an Intel type of
microprocessor that don't needs a runtimer. Mostly it is packed with the
program itself and therefore duplicated many times. (what is not needed with
a Net program or for Java for which the runtimer is delivered seperately).
This with the exception of very low level programs as drivers and thing like
that which can be writen direct in machine code.

An end user program directly in machine code would be normally much to huge
and to slow.

As Jon wrote already, you are probably dealing with immature people.

Just AFAIK,

Cor

 

[CMM]

This has been going on since the beginning of time... at least as far back
as I remember when the VB3 runtime was a single file and only 300KB... and
people complained about that!!!!

When VB4 came out with it's HUGE (800KB or something like that) multi-file /
COM registration dependant runtime people's head started blowing up.

Who cares? VC++ programmers have been cheathing forever by statically
compiling (embedding) the MFC DLL into their exe's thus turning a 10KB exe
into 975KB exe in an instant.

But, until .NET becomes truly part of the OS "sharewhare" and "freeware"
apps built on top of it will not be as widepsread as it should be.

 

[Ray Cassick \(Home\)]

The heck with them. They don't need the app you write then

Let them find a better one.

You will probably better off in the long run. If they are mindless enough to
complain about this then they would probably be cry babies.

Oh, and remind them that C# and managed C++ apps need the same runtime, it's
not just VBers anymore.

 

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Ray,

Net is not a runtime. Embedded in that is a runtime.

Just before somebody get wrong idea's

Cor

 

[Vayse]

Sadly, people love to whine. About 3 years ago, I wrote an app in VB6 for
people who play the Magic the Gathering card game. Just for fun.
You could copy and paste from the online official database, and tell you
whom you beat and who was your "nemesis".
A good few people found it enjoyable, and one day I put a link to it on a
magic forum.
The first reply I got was:
"Don't use this program. This guy is trying to steal your id."

Sigh. I replied that I wasn't, and that anyone could view the source code.
The poster replied that he was in college and thus too busy to look at any
code. There was no point in saying any more, once something has the taint,
no one is going to use it.

All you can do is ignore him, after all most of this fun coding is for
yourself at the end of the day.

 

[Guest]

One advantage of the .net platform is that you code will run on Windows 98,
Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows ME, (maybe linux as well) and most probably
all future versions of the Windows platform and it should run with a lot less
compatibility problems that code compiled for a specific platform. The ones
complaining are not necessairly immature, just DUMB!

 

[Michael D. Ober]

I occasionally code recreationally, the last one being SetiDriver, which I
coded in C++ 6.0/MFC 4.2. It appears that you are getting blasted by linux
users who want nothing to do with anything Microsoft. The three biggest
issues for recreational coding are size of the distribution, ease of
installation, and minimal impact on the system. SETI Driver can be
downloaded as a zip file, extracted, and run with no installation. It
doesn't modify the Windows registry. VB.Net (2005) requires the .Net
runtime be downloaded and installed before you can run your application.
Although this is a one-time process, the runtime weighs in at 20+ Mb. As
more systems get it installed, this won't be an issue, but it is one for
now. Also, VB 2005 applications (I can't speak for VB 2002/3 as I have no
experience with them) require that you digitally sign your application or
they simply won't run unless the user has installed the .NET SDK and
modified their security settings. The tool to modify the .NET security
settings isn't part of the runtime distribution.

As for the comments about a "REAL" compiler, GCC, LCC, and Pelles C are all
Linux compilers. Your target must be Windows users as no version of VB runs
well on Linux and VB.Net probably won't run on Linux at all. I don't
believe the .NET runtime runs in the Windows emulator "wine". The "toy"
language claim is used by people who either don't know any better or by "C
snobs". VB 6 and VB.Net definitely are not "toy" languages.

Mike Ober.

 

[Greg Burns]

Also, VB 2005 applications (I can't speak for VB 2002/3 as I have no
experience with them) require that you digitally sign your application or
they simply won't run unless the user has installed the .NET SDK and
modified their security settings. The tool to modify the .NET security
settings isn't part of the runtime distribution.

Huh? I thought you only had to modify the security settings if you wanted
to run the .exe from a network drive. I didn't think you had to do anything
special if you "installed" (or XCOPY'd) the application locally. Are we
talking about Click-Once deployments? I have no experience with an .exe
downloaded from the Net. Surely, it doesn't behave any different than one
just copied to a local drive. ???

Can you elaborate?

Greg

 

[Michael D. Ober]

Unless I sign my code, I can't XCOPY the executables to another system and
have it run. Maybe someone knows how to work around this issue.

Mike.

 

[Guest]

I don't know about vb.net 2005 but using 2003 I can certainly copy the bin
directory containing the application exe and any dll files that I use to
other computers which have .net 1.1 framework and they run fine. This
includes even the company laptop which has all sorts of company security
hacks to prevent installing exe and dll's using an install program. I'd be
very surprised if VB.Net 2005 didin't allow this.