Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
youtube.com
Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#2The '90s were full of ballyhoo about object orientation and "soon we'll be bolting together software with off-the-shelf components."
Thanks to the failure to standardize C++ ABIs (among other reasons) that didn't happen... except for VBXs. You really could throw together a CRUD app pretty quickly with off-the-shelf VBX controls.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#3My favorite part about Visual Basic was the help files. They were absolutely great for someone learning to code. From what I remember, there was a snippet of example code for basically everything.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#4This shows me that coding hasn't evolved at all over the last 30 years.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#5This shows me that coding hasn't evolved at all over the last 30 years.
Visual Basic was one of the first languages I learned, and I was able to quickly make complex graphical applications.
I feel like we have regressed in a lot of ways.
Contrast building a GUI app in 1990 vs 2020.
Compare Visual Basic to something like React Native.
How much code would you have to write for some basic business application, like having a few screens that share a state, and interface with a database? How big would the executable be?
Visual Basic had some big flaws, but you could work around those flaws. And I can also explain the logic of a Visual Basic program fairly easily to someone inexperienced. And there is just so much less cognitive load involved. I feel like 90% of the actual code that I wrote was for actually processing data. Sure, asynchronous stuff could get difficult in VB, but that was the exception. And I wish that VB had had reducers.
I am certain that virtualizing the x86 Visual Basic 6 runtime in Javascript would easier to develop for and outperform many modern GUI frameworks today.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#6I absolutely love Visual Basic and am trying to make a Javascript version at appshare.co
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#7This shows me that coding hasn't evolved at all over the last 30 years.
Visual Basic was one of the first languages I learned, and I was able to quickly make complex graphical applications. I feel like we have regressed in a lot of ways. Contrast building a GUI app in 1990 vs 2020. Compare Visual Basic to something like React Native. How much code would you have to write for some basic business application, like having a few screens that share a state, and interface with a database? How…
I do quite a bit of work in vb6 still. It is fast and easy to use. I really wish Microsoft would make vb7.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#8My favorite part about Visual Basic was the help files. They were absolutely great for someone learning to code. From what I remember, there was a snippet of example code for basically everything.
This is how I learned to code. Ot was excellent. Its been very hard over the course of my career to learn other non basic languages, and I attribute it largely to those help files being so good that it became my first and main language.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#9This shows me that coding hasn't evolved at all over the last 30 years.
Visual Basic was one of the first languages I learned, and I was able to quickly make complex graphical applications. I feel like we have regressed in a lot of ways. Contrast building a GUI app in 1990 vs 2020. Compare Visual Basic to something like React Native. How much code would you have to write for some basic business application, like having a few screens that share a state, and interface with a database? How…
this is the comment that hits the nail on the head. Cognitive load.
I know well there are many good reasons to be on modern languages, but vb did make things easy.
Re: Bill Gates demonstrates Visual Basic (1991)
#10This video is pretty lengthy but well worth a watch; the oral history of Alan Cooper, the 'father of Visual Basic'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wtGFgaKYI0
EDIT: One highlight is where Alan Cooper gets a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft for calling himself 'The Father of Visual Basic'...