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Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

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Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#91

Post by brokencode »

sedatk wrote: post #79
brokencode wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I like C# the language, I honestly think that it and .NET are fundamentally flawed when it comes to performance. Native Windows apps just never seem load that fast or work that great. It’s kind of crazy how much better the basic OS apps feel in macOS compared to Windows. I wish Microsoft would have gone in a direction more similar to Apple, with an AOT compilation and reference counting. JIT and garbage co…

.NET supports native AOT for a while now.

I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but that’s mainly because there’s no way to compile my company’s application with Native AOT. At least not without a significant amount of work.

This is because there are many limitations in what can be compiled this way, and most C# applications and libraries were never built with such limitations in mind.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#92

Post by robocat »

unscaled wrote: post #46
chii wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was magical that dropping a telephony component into a form enabled the form to make phone calls the magic of COM[0]! But when it crashed it crashed hard. And the underlying programming model (beyond just using premade ones) are a bit hard to grok and fraught with footguns that shoot not only yourself, but the OS as well. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model

And COM/OLE/ActiveX components (whatever Microsoft fancied calling them that year) could have been used just as easily from Delphi. And you don't even need COM. You could do the same things today with RAD components in, say, Java. But it's just no longer a fad. Programmers nowadays don't think that dragging a component that makes phone calls and linking it to a button. Nowadays, they would just write "npm install tel…

> And COM/OLE/ActiveX components [] could have been used just as easily from Delphi

I wanted to use Excel from within Delphi - I wasted more than a few weeks and ultimately failed. I always suspected that the COM/OLE integration had problems with some of the advanced features I was trying to use (I was trying to do something rather complicated). Plus the documentation and support was lacking for Delphi - Microsoft best supports Microsoft tools. I did use Delphi and COM successfully in many other situations but that one failure really soured me towards COM and Delphi together. I am typically capable of making complex integrations work, so I was surprised to fail.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#93

Post by Zardoz84 »

jeswin wrote: post #37
ryukoposting wrote: post #27

I think VB is totally fine. It's a pragmatic solution to a real problem, and the ugliest things about it today are all a product of hindsight. On the other hand, this rubs me the wrong way: > So, wouldn’t it be logical to conclude: If such an application can be written in VB6 then VB6 cannot be that bad after all? Yes, it absolutely could be bad. Our industry consists, in no small part, of turd polishing. Plenty of g…

> Plenty of good software is written in bad (or ill-fitted) languages, and vice versa. That's because you mention VB6 as a language. VB6 is not about the language, but about the platform and vertical integration; from the IDE to the app to the distribution. It was magical that dropping a telephony component into a form enabled the form to make phone calls. Or you could drag-drop a Web Browser component, and have a br…

Have you tried Gambas, or the current version of Delphi ?

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#94

Post by sgt »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #81
qwertox wrote: post #49

> No multi-threading. A pity. But for a file manager not that important. It's honestly blazingly fast in comparison to Windows Explorer on Windows 11.

If you haven't tried the File Explorer in W11 24H2 it turned into a complete joke overnight now. Slow as a dog and will often not render after all, compared to how it would act for decades up until less than a year ago. It's a new defect in relation to the video drivers, badly incompatible with the default Microsoft Standard Display Driver, so what can you say? I would expect that's an indication that XYplorer is a m…

Microsoft in 2024: why would you even need to manage your files?

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#95

Post by Kwpolska »

unscaled wrote: post #40
ryukoposting wrote: post #27

I think VB is totally fine. It's a pragmatic solution to a real problem, and the ugliest things about it today are all a product of hindsight. On the other hand, this rubs me the wrong way: > So, wouldn’t it be logical to conclude: If such an application can be written in VB6 then VB6 cannot be that bad after all? Yes, it absolutely could be bad. Our industry consists, in no small part, of turd polishing. Plenty of g…

I agree with your conclusion, but when you say "VB is totally fine" do you mean VB6? I can get Modern iterations of Visual Basic such as VB.Net. The syntax and semantics hurt my eye and my brain, but if that's your thing, yeah the language is very serviceable. It's a modern language with modern features and a lot of legacy baggage. It's not worse than PHP or maybe even JavaScript (though I would much prefer JavaScrip…

Microsoft considers VB.NET legacy as well. Most notably, ASP.NET Core applications cannot be written in VB6 due to missing language features.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#96

Post by trinix912 »

alexvitkov wrote: post #84
silisili wrote: post #13

VB3 was my first real intro to programming. Well, I started with C++ but abandoned it as an impatient child as describing a window in code wasn't fun. I wish we had a new drag and drop WYSIWYG to get people interested. Put Python or Go or even Basic behind it. QT maybe? Heck make it Electron. I'm not sure I would be where I am today without VB having existed, and it's a shame kids today don't have the same tools avai…

We've forgotten how to do it - the idea of dragging a button offends our modern sensibilities. You can't just drag a button, what about the layout?! What about responsive design, how will it look on a 300x200 screen and a 8k one? What about scaling? Reactivity?

Yes, and most of these problems can be very well mitigated by just implementing some sort of a layout constraint system. Xcode does it (AutoLayout), however, it's not nearly as pleasant and straightforward to use as the old VB form designer.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#97

Post by throwaway06544 »

silisili wrote: post #13

VB3 was my first real intro to programming. Well, I started with C++ but abandoned it as an impatient child as describing a window in code wasn't fun. I wish we had a new drag and drop WYSIWYG to get people interested. Put Python or Go or even Basic behind it. QT maybe? Heck make it Electron. I'm not sure I would be where I am today without VB having existed, and it's a shame kids today don't have the same tools avai…

Lazarus has been around for years, but people don't know about it.

https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

"What is Lazarus? Lazarus is a cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) that lets you create visual (GUI) and non-visual Object Pascal programs, and uses the Free Pascal compiler to generate your executable. Its aim is write once, compile anywhere: you should be able to just recompile your program source code with Lazarus running on another operating system (or a cross compiler) and get a program that runs on that operating system."

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#98

Post by robocat »

unscaled wrote: post #36
pyeri wrote: post #8

Both VB6 and FreePascal/Delphi are highly capable tools even in today's context, they just need more marketing.

FreePascal/Delphi and VB6 are entirely different beasts. For one, FreePascal and Delphi are still under development. Delphi had the following language features added since 1998 (this is just a small selection): Extension methods/properties ("class helpers"), generics, enum types, for..in loops, static methods, closures, smart pointers, value types ("records"[1]), attributes, variables can be declared anywhere (removi…

Delphi pricing is USD1400 for the developer edition and they are corporately mercenary chasing their payment. In 1996 Delphi 2 was released at USD500 for the cheapest Desktop version (which is ==USD1000 accounting CPI). Edit: I converted from NZD to get the USD1400 figure - the actual USD cost will be less in USD without our GST/VAT.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#99

Post by Kwpolska »

brokencode wrote: post #63
qwertox wrote: post #49

> No multi-threading. A pity. But for a file manager not that important. It's honestly blazingly fast in comparison to Windows Explorer on Windows 11.

As much as I like C# the language, I honestly think that it and .NET are fundamentally flawed when it comes to performance. Native Windows apps just never seem load that fast or work that great. It’s kind of crazy how much better the basic OS apps feel in macOS compared to Windows. I wish Microsoft would have gone in a direction more similar to Apple, with an AOT compilation and reference counting. JIT and garbage co…

Most applications that ship with Windows are not written in C#/.NET. Microsoft tried to rewrite everything this way around Vista, but they failed hard due to stability and performance issues. In Windows 11/Server 2025, the only things written in .NET are administrative tools, like most MMC snap-ins (e.g. Event Viewer), Virtual Machine Connection, or Server Manager.

Re: Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

#100

Post by trinix912 »

ianhawes wrote: post #14
pyeri wrote: post #8

Both VB6 and FreePascal/Delphi are highly capable tools even in today's context, they just need more marketing.

> VB6 highly capable > VB6 only available in 32-bit

I really don't see how this invalidates the statement, regarding that VB's primary domain is rapid CRUD application development. Those applications usually don't use >2GBs of RAM, at least from what I've seen working on several old ones written in VB6, Delphi, PowerBuilder... Is a 64-bit Electron CRUD app that much more capable/better in getting the job done than a 32-bit VB6 equivalent? Both are merely an SQL client in the end.
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