The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#1

Post by radmuzom » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)
forestmoon.com

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#2

Post by jimmaswell » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:25 PM UTC

vb.net is an odd language. Pretty much useless in a way because it's just a less powerful, oddly-syntaxed C#, after using it for a year at one point. Not a bad language but offers very little that C# doesn't, and is missing some. Handles statement was very nice though.

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#3

Post by benguild » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:32 PM UTC

I hella coded VB5/6. Before that, QBASIC4LIFE

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#4

Post by Retric » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:32 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #2

vb.net is an odd language. Pretty much useless in a way because it's just a less powerful, oddly-syntaxed C#, after using it for a year at one point. Not a bad language but offers very little that C# doesn't, and is missing some. Handles statement was very nice though.

Dim has some nice syntactic sugar that is not part of C#. Granted, I like most people prefer C#, but there not quite equivalent.

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#5

Post by vblord » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:41 PM UTC

Very cool. I learned to program on VB6. I was a really amazing product for it's time.

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#6

Post by adwf » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #2

vb.net is an odd language. Pretty much useless in a way because it's just a less powerful, oddly-syntaxed C#, after using it for a year at one point. Not a bad language but offers very little that C# doesn't, and is missing some. Handles statement was very nice though.

Yeah, VB.net is mostly there so that people can upgrade legacy VB6 programs.

Of which there are a lot. Or were, I hope that's changed a little now.

It scares me just how much of the finance sector is still running on some hacked together VB script tied to an excel spreadsheet...

But for anything new, you might as well use C#.

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#7

Post by gaius » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 7:08 PM UTC

Interesting that the name Ruby was already claimed (like Go). I guess no one in Ruby On Rails thought to check.

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#8

Post by Spearchucker » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #2

vb.net is an odd language. Pretty much useless in a way because it's just a less powerful, oddly-syntaxed C#, after using it for a year at one point. Not a bad language but offers very little that C# doesn't, and is missing some. Handles statement was very nice though.

"...it's just a less powerful... ...c#..."

How so? I use both (my largest C# project was Nokia Maps, largest VB.Net project is my own database + sync engine, at ~110kloc, spread across Windows Desktop, Windows Phone and WCF sync engine). I've not come across any shortcomings in comparison to C#. Granted I'm using the free editions of Visual Studio, and avoid any third-party components or code. What am I missing?

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#9

Post by jasode » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 7:34 PM UTC

It's an interesting story but it's told as a "person A did this, Person B did that, and Person C had this idea, etc." Maybe it's a consequence how my brain works but any time I read that type of recap, I forget everyone's name and the other trivia 5 minutes after I'm done reading it.

When revisiting technology history, what tends to stick in my mind is the context and industry forces prevalent at the time and the story doesn't have that.

So my recollection of context in 1990 would include...

1st: The prevailing method of writing Windows programs in 1990 (the Windows v3.0 & v3.1 era) was the raw Win32 API. That meant the 'C' Language WndProc(), giant switch case statements to handle WM_PAINT messages. Basically, all the stuff taught in the thick Charles Petzold book.[1] This was very tedious and complex type of programming. It was not friendly to corporate aka "enterprise apps" aka LOB "line of business" type of programming. (Java would arrive on the scene 5 years later but I didn't see a lot of corporate adoption until v1.3 which was year 2000.)

2nd: You had a large base of old-style DOS text mode developers for line-of-business apps using programming languages such as dBASE III, Clipper, FoxPro, and other 4GL tools, etc. The typical skillset of those programmers did not include the C Language.

In 1990, Windows 3.0 was becoming popular as a platform for corporate desktops and businesses wanted to write apps for it.

Visual Basic v1.0 hit that perfect sweet spot for a bunch of refugees from the DOS text mode 4GL languages to write Windows programs. They didn't have to learn the low-level C language or mess around for months with the Petzold book. Visual Basic had this ingenious abstraction called "forms" that hid the WndProc() monster and its messy switch case statements. It was a huge transformation. It was phenomenal how VB "democratized" the programming of Windows apps. A bunch of ISVs sprung up that built their business around Visual Basic.

The recent parallels to VB as an "inviting tool for newcomers" might be PHP replacing a lot of CGI+PERL and maybe JQuery eliminating a lot of low-level Javascript getelementbyid(). Today, when I look at the iOS and Android landscape, I still haven't seen anything (Titanium? Xamarin?) that grabs mindshare the way VB did back in 1990.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows-3-1-Charles-Petzol...

Re: The Birth of Visual Basic (2006)

#10

Post by ropman76 » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

jimmaswell wrote: post #2

vb.net is an odd language. Pretty much useless in a way because it's just a less powerful, oddly-syntaxed C#, after using it for a year at one point. Not a bad language but offers very little that C# doesn't, and is missing some. Handles statement was very nice though.

In what way is it less powerful? I use both in my day job. Sometimes I think C# has more elegant syntax (personal opinion) but I have not been able to not do anything I need to do in VB.