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Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

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Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#151

Post by makmanalp »

rd07 wrote: post #81
makmanalp wrote: post #12

Oh my GOD I have to comment. This is how I learned to program as a kid. I found a copy of "Write Your Own Adventure Programs" (1983 - Usborne: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%... ) as a kid in my primary school's bookshelf. I remember the code was written in BASIC and my family didn't really own a computer back then. Fast forward a few years later I saw this "Visual Basic" thing and though…

We have similar experience with VB6, though I was the opposite. Instead of reading a book about BASIC, I was reading a book about VB.NET. My first interaction with Visual Basic was through VBA in MS Word. The first time I opened it, I know that it was a place to code, but I don't know what kind of code I have to type. I don't know any programming language at that time. And then sometimes later, I found a VB.NET book…

When .NET finally came out and I started learning about it (I had signed up for a course at this point) I remember it feeling much more complicated - I didn't understand why I needed objects and I also recall not understanding access modifiers like protected / private - who am I protecting my code from? The book I got for the course was like an encyclopedia. I failed the microsoft certification exam, not surprisingly. I was just finishing middle school and starting high school so it didn't really matter.

I think there's probably some lesson in there about microsoft misunderstanding the strength of VB as a RAD tool for mom and pop shops and non-software firms who have a single tinkerer, rather than an Enterprise Language. It died a slow death in favor of C# at that point. Embrace, extend, extinguish, perhaps.

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#152

Post by arresin »

philiplu wrote: post #76
calimoro78 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I want my kids to do the same but are really unclear as to how this is done today without BASIC. I am not psyched about tools that help you merely build platformers with WYSIWYG. Any ideas?

My kid (15 yo) keeps producing games in Python on his iPhone using Pythonista. Latest one is a Tetris clone with load/save game, music, animations on removing a line. I offer to help if he runs into problems but he prefers to hack away and learn on his own. Proud dad here :-)

Damn great parenting!

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#153

Post by dr_kiszonka »

philiplu wrote: post #76
calimoro78 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I want my kids to do the same but are really unclear as to how this is done today without BASIC. I am not psyched about tools that help you merely build platformers with WYSIWYG. Any ideas?

My kid (15 yo) keeps producing games in Python on his iPhone using Pythonista. Latest one is a Tetris clone with load/save game, music, animations on removing a line. I offer to help if he runs into problems but he prefers to hack away and learn on his own. Proud dad here :-)

How did you get your child to start programming? I had some success with Scratch, but it is not something my 9 year old would do for fun. (He likes 3D printing, but it is mostly just dragging stuff around.)

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#154

Post by tonyedgecombe »

wiseowise wrote: post #92
qingcharles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every version of Visual Studio since this has the same builder. I use this builder every day to build little apps for myself. It is practically 100% identical in the new version of Visual Studio 2022 that came out yesterday. In fact, it's better now because it's easier to line things up and change their properties etc, but the interface is the same. It has literally not changed in 25 years. Here, I booted VS2022 and…

That’s Windows only.

In general tools written for a single platform are better than their cross platform alternatives.

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#155

Post by eternityforest »

wiseowise wrote: post #2

Still don't understand how we went from this to modern GUI toolkits. It looks and works so intuitively.

HTML/CSS is still amazing if you aren't using one of the flat frameworks. Modern UIs are really nice for actual function, it's just the obsession with flatness that's the problem.

But with CSS you can get this kind of look, and then go even further, adding rounding and textures and all the things that are natural and obvious extensions on a high res screen.

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#156

Post by Kwpolska »

liontwist wrote: post #148
Kwpolska wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old toolkits make it much easier to set the text color of some label to #444, which looks fine on a light background, but is very hard to read on a black background. Setting it to some well-defined MutedText color requires more effort, and it requires the toolkit vendor to have thought about named colors in the first place (and if there are named colors, they might not be meaningful like Muted or Success, but instead…

You can change background and button colors too. Other point is noted. But let’s compare the alternative: 1. Fiddle with a config file for each app for a week. Distro includes this in dark mode set. 2. Each app writes custom code to listen for and adapt to dark mode events.

Let me restate the problem: I set my system-wide window background to black and text color to white. An app developer sets a label to dark gray text and default/transparent background. The end result is that I cannot read the label. Or the developer uses black icons on the toolbar — and I cannot use the toolbar, because I can’t see anything.

macOS introduced system-wide dark mode a few years ago, but app developers had to recompile and opt into it. This was done so that they could adjust their artwork and overridden colors to it. Windows 10 added dark mode, but only for "modern"/UWP apps. Classic Win32 apps need to implement their own dark mode with custom themes/controls (like Explorer does).

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#157

Post by vrighter »

makmanalp wrote: post #12

Oh my GOD I have to comment. This is how I learned to program as a kid. I found a copy of "Write Your Own Adventure Programs" (1983 - Usborne: https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Write%... ) as a kid in my primary school's bookshelf. I remember the code was written in BASIC and my family didn't really own a computer back then. Fast forward a few years later I saw this "Visual Basic" thing and though…

I have that book too! It taught me a lot back in my qbasic days

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#158

Post by alkonaut »

Kwpolska wrote: post #156
liontwist wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can change background and button colors too. Other point is noted. But let’s compare the alternative: 1. Fiddle with a config file for each app for a week. Distro includes this in dark mode set. 2. Each app writes custom code to listen for and adapt to dark mode events.

Let me restate the problem: I set my system-wide window background to black and text color to white. An app developer sets a label to dark gray text and default/transparent background. The end result is that I cannot read the label. Or the developer uses black icons on the toolbar — and I cannot use the toolbar, because I can’t see anything. macOS introduced system-wide dark mode a few years ago, but app developers h…

Black-on-black is a big problem. You can't make an app use a dark mode unless it's painstakingly crafted to support it. Only trivial apps would work by changing some system-wide palette. Also, if there is any artwork (button icons etc) then that has to be done in two or more sets, for varying backgrounds. Few icons would work well on both a light and dark background.

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#159

Post by 1oooqooq »

wvenable wrote: post #138
1oooqooq wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why all those products keep backwards compatibility with vb6?!? it's this a niche for some industry? or all those products are aimed at people's nostalgia of running their old programs?

VB6 is arguably the most popular and influential version of Basic it only makes sense to keep backwards compatibility with it. Why would anyone not want that from their Visual Basic clone?

because that's immensely backwards! what if vb3-6 had the same syntax as msbasic and same ascii text based UIs? it wouldn't have been as popular.

these tools could be the modern vb6, having modern UX paradigms such as responsive design etc... yet it is just producing something one would use only for nostalgia or explicitly support for a niche market still needing actual vb6... which i didn't know existed till now.

Re: Visual Basic 6 IDE recreated in C#

#160

Post by philiplu »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #153
philiplu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid (15 yo) keeps producing games in Python on his iPhone using Pythonista. Latest one is a Tetris clone with load/save game, music, animations on removing a line. I offer to help if he runs into problems but he prefers to hack away and learn on his own. Proud dad here :-)

How did you get your child to start programming? I had some success with Scratch, but it is not something my 9 year old would do for fun. (He likes 3D printing, but it is mostly just dragging stuff around.)

I mostly stayed hands-off and let him explore where he would. He really only got into programming more seriously the past couple years, so age 13 on, after we got him a gaming PC. He was playing various Roblox games, and decided he could write his own, so that got him started. He has his phone on bus rides to/from school, so he decided to play around in Python to pass the time. He's currently playing Space Engineers with some friends online, and they've all apparently decided the most fun for now is to learn C# for the internal scripting functionality that game provides.
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