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I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

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Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#81

Post by queenkjuul »

hnlmorg wrote: post #69
hnlmorg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using AI to generate an image isn’t any different to embedding a generated meme or grabbing a stock photo. Plus the image isn’t even part of the article content. It’s ostensibly just a front cover to it. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” ;)

To the people who downvoted me, care to explain what was factually incorrect? I get there’s a lot of hysteria around Gen ai but as someone who’s worked in publishing I can tell you I’m not in the wrong here.

Stock photos are (generally) made by professionals, memes impart some social context. Can't say either about an AI image. So i absolutely hold an AI image in less esteem, especially when someone clearly just used the first draft spit out by the model where all of the text is wrong and the image doesn't even resemble what it purports to illustrate.

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#82

Post by queenkjuul »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
booleandilemma wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get used to it. This is the future we've created for ourselves. It's only going to get worse as people everywhere try to use AI to distinguish themselves. Expect everyone to be an artist, everyone to be an author, everyone to be a programmer. Slop. It's what's for dinner.

This is just lazy AI use as a replacement for lazy stock image use. The details of exactly how it sucks at its job while providing something that fills a checkbox for someone who has no concern for quality are somewhat different, but the basic failure is the same.

Generic but professional stock image >>>> AI slop with gibberish text, every single time

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#83

Post by queenkjuul »

DonHopkins wrote: post #49
ahkkkdududj wrote: post #35

AI slop.

What's insufferably low effort banal human slop is your post, in stark contrast to the other posts written by actual human beings who cared enough to conscientiously put in the work to precisely and humorously criticize exactly what was lazy and careless and telling about that horrible illustration. Next time you feel the urge to post "AI slop", why don't you take the trivial time and minuscule effort of actually cop…

You're wasting an awful lot of words talking about AI slop

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#84

Post by Someone »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #80

Oh man... Completely ignores Tiny Basic, Dr. Dobbs, Li-Chen Wang, Dennis Allison, Copyleft, All Wrongs Reversed, etc. There are some decent histories of BASIC through the Dartmouth era, so I can understand why they may want to de-emphasize that. My suspicion is, however, that BASIC became the 8-bit lingua franca not only because of Gates, Allen & Davidoff's work on the Altair but because of Wang and Pittman's work on…

> The Apple ][ shipped initially with a Tiny BASIC inspired interpreter (Integer BASIC)

Citation needed. Wikipedia doesn’t mention this influence, for example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC), and Woz didn’t mention it as an influence in 2014 (https://gizmodo.com/how-steve-wozniak-wrote-basic-for-the-or...).

> ascribed to Woz.

I think it’s accepted that Woz wrote that basic interpreter. “Ascribed” makes it look as if there is some doubt about that.

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#85

Post by OhMeadhbh »

Someone wrote: post #84
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #80

Oh man... Completely ignores Tiny Basic, Dr. Dobbs, Li-Chen Wang, Dennis Allison, Copyleft, All Wrongs Reversed, etc. There are some decent histories of BASIC through the Dartmouth era, so I can understand why they may want to de-emphasize that. My suspicion is, however, that BASIC became the 8-bit lingua franca not only because of Gates, Allen & Davidoff's work on the Altair but because of Wang and Pittman's work on…

> The Apple ][ shipped initially with a Tiny BASIC inspired interpreter (Integer BASIC) Citation needed. Wikipedia doesn’t mention this influence, for example ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC ), and Woz didn’t mention it as an influence in 2014 ( https://gizmodo.com/how-steve-wozniak-wrote-basic-for-the-or... ). > ascribed to Woz. I think it’s accepted that Woz wrote that basic interpreter. “Ascribed” ma…

I think I meant to say both tiny basic and game basic were inspired by the similar non-msft basics, not that game/integer BASIC was inspired by Li-Chen Wang or Dennis Allison's work.

Modified the text to be clearer.

As for your interpretation of the word "ascribed," I can't help you there. I could go "attributed" or "alleged," but neither really helps. "Credited" is probably better, but it sounds like you're reacting with incredulity to the idea there are people who don't know Woz wrote Game BASIC. The use of "ascribed" here is to point out there were people other than Gates/Allen/Davidoff who wrote BASIC interpreters in the 70s.

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#86

Post by MBCook »

dave8088 wrote: post #74
MBCook wrote: post #18

This sounds great but I’m genuinely unable to figure out how to get to part one. Not the thumbnail. Not the pink text “A History of Visusl Basic”. Not the number one on the list of chapters. Not the chapter ousted at the very bottom. The next button is for a different article. How am I supposed to navigate to the thing the article is advertising to me? It’s a very strange decision not to make it really easy with a st…

It’s like this site is competing for a prize that rewards the best visuals and the worst user experience. There are lessons be learned here.

I would argue against best visuals myself.

Any site that needs an immediate pop-up telling me how to disable effects is tacitly admitting they have a bad design. Especially by needing multiple font choices.

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#87

Post by greatquux »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #23

Any time VB comes up I repeat my same wishlist item. I would love for Microsoft to open source it, in any way, shape or form. I would love for the community to take a crack at adding things to VB6 like bugfixes, any missing features (my understanding is they don't own everything about VB6) and just overall general improvements, imagine VB6 with threading. I know its ancient, but it can still produce a native GUI appl…

twinBASIC and radbasic are two projects trying to clone it. But it's definitely harder to do than either anticipated. I still support VB6 apps (some of which are bumping up against the limit of the EXE size!) and I'd love a replacement, but it's slow going!

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#88

Post by SilentM68 »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #61
SilentM68 wrote: post #17

Excellent Idea :) VB was practical and useful at the time, especially as a learning tool in school. I enjoyed testing the competitors that arose to emulate its abilities, including RapidQ Basic, Envelope Basic (a.k.a Phoenix Object Basic), some of which are documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC I think it would be cool to see a Documentary on programming languages, e.g. their history, rivalries, succes…

I think you mean "Envelop" (note the lack of trailing "e"). That was a neat tool, and community, back in the day. Too bad it didn't get anywhere.

You are correct! I goofEd. It's hard to assimilate a human language on the fly. See that proves I am not an AI :)

It's also worth mentioning Sharpdevelop.net which also gave you the choice of VB.Net or C# and another language, can't recall what it was.

There were so many options available. So many books were written, sold and then became obsolete. I know because I bought tons of them at the now defunct Fry's Electronics and later donated them to the local public library.

But with AI advancing, focusing on programming and earning a CS degree as a future investment does not hold the same appeal that it once did. Of course, this is just my opinion.

Sol Roth: The Downvoted Man :)

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#89

Post by hnlmorg »

queenkjuul wrote: post #81
hnlmorg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the people who downvoted me, care to explain what was factually incorrect? I get there’s a lot of hysteria around Gen ai but as someone who’s worked in publishing I can tell you I’m not in the wrong here.

Stock photos are (generally) made by professionals, memes impart some social context. Can't say either about an AI image. So i absolutely hold an AI image in less esteem, especially when someone clearly just used the first draft spit out by the model where all of the text is wrong and the image doesn't even resemble what it purports to illustrate.

> Stock photos are (generally) made by professionals

GenAI models are made by professionals. But in both our cases, it’s a different set of professionals to the ones who chose which images to use in their articles.

> memes impart some social context

The “social context” here is just regurgitating an unrelated viral joke. I’d hardly say that requires more respect of the readers than a purpose generated image that is intended specifically for context of that article.

Plus you can use GenAI to generate a meme too if you really wanted.

> Can't say either about an AI image

I literally just did ;)

> So i absolutely hold an AI image in less esteem, especially when someone clearly just used the first draft spit out by the model where all of the text is wrong and the image doesn't even resemble what it purports to illustrate.

And this is exactly why I said “The problem isn’t the use of AI. It’s the lack of editorial effort to use AI well.”

What you’re complaining about isn’t how the image came to be, it’s the shoddy workmanship. And that’s a different problem.

Lazy people will choose images lazily regardless of the tech. The problem here isn’t the use of AI, it’s the lack of editorial care.

Or to put it another way, if the author used a bad stock photo or offensive meme, then we wouldnt be blaming the tech. But when they use GenAI to produce the same shoddy output we do blame the tech. That screams like our own biases affecting who we blame the for crappy image rather than an inherent problem with the technology.

And if we then acknowledge that the problem isn’t inherent in the tech, then we are back to agreeing with my original point.

Re: I'm writing a history of Visual Basic, Chapter 1 is up

#90

Post by pjmlp »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #23

Any time VB comes up I repeat my same wishlist item. I would love for Microsoft to open source it, in any way, shape or form. I would love for the community to take a crack at adding things to VB6 like bugfixes, any missing features (my understanding is they don't own everything about VB6) and just overall general improvements, imagine VB6 with threading. I know its ancient, but it can still produce a native GUI appl…

VB.NET is open source, supports AOT, and there is little else that VB 6 does better, other than COM integration, which .NET was always a bit lower level

https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn

Now I bet what you mean is the graphical part, and yes that is only partial open source.

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