Does this make sense to any programmer types?

[64bitloopy]

frost,

I have no idea what caused you to lash out at me. If you had any idea what I was talking about, you would have known what I meant. The compiler base and added in features are bloated over previous releases. Microsoft has implemented very little real change within the vb platform, and mostly has thrown enhancement on top of enhancement, thereby bloating the compiler environment. You can endorse pcode all you want and tell me how great it is, but your attack is petty.
I made no comment about the code generated, just the state of the compiler.
Sorry that I did not seperate c and c++ as seperate languages. Intelligent people can usually understand what '/' means, (example ac/dc) both are types of electric current, but not the same type.

Maybe if you were more mature, you might learn something.

Just because you had to settle for vb does not mean that others do. I program for both pc and palm platform, and implement vbce solutions also. I'm not going to argue qualifacations, though.

My post was my opinion, and does not bind in the court of law.

 

[kranky]

poor trmiv, his thread got way hijacked into a religious war.

As to the original post, I would guess they did this because they got a bright idea that you have to teach both VB and Java, didn't want to add more required courses, had to figure out a way to do it in a hurry, then came up with the lame idea of combining them into a single class. I'd bet they don't have classes that combine SQL with assembly language, which would make as much sense to me.

Perhaps that approach would work OK with experienced programmers who are mostly concerned with syntax and development environments as opposed to learning programming fundamentals, but it's going to be tough on students.

Regarding the language wars, put me in Frost's camp. Use the right tool for the right job. I have little patience for language snobs, it's just another form of "my favorite band is cooler since no one ever heard of them."

and LOL @ Frost's reference to the Obfuscated C/Perl contest - I was just checking out the winners for the Perl version on the Perl site last week!

 

[nd]

<< Any program you can Do in C++, Java or whatever language, I can do it just as well in VB/VBSCript, and in half the time (yes i said ANY program) And in the business world, time is money, they choose VB programmer because they can solve a 6 month C++ solution in 2 months >>


Train,

Ok, how about a multi-threaded web server that can scale to hundreds of simultaneous users? How about a first person shooter a la Quake 3? How about a real-time data acquisition system? How about any low-level task that's speed critical? Visual Basic can't do it. All of these scenarios are examples where other programming languages are much more suitable. Like Frost says, use the right tool for the job.

 

<< Any program you can Do in C++, Java or whatever language, I can do it just as well in VB/VBSCript, and in half the time (yes i said ANY program) And in the business world, time is money, they choose VB programmer because they can solve a 6 month C++ solution in 2 months. >>


Bollocks. Write me a device driver in VB. Write me a decent game in VB. Write me just about any low-level system in VB without using components. Heck, write me a half-decent quicksort method or hashtable implementation in VB and I will bench it against my sloppiest C++/Java version (again, no components allowed).

VB is great for quickly slapping together systems. You do eventually hit the law of diminishing returns with VB. As soon as your source tree reaches &quot;X&quot; amount of lines of code the system becomes burdensome to maintain. VB.NET will solve a lot of these problems by grafting on OO techniques, but I see it as more of a Band-Aid than a solution. Like I said before, C# is looking like the light at the end of the tunnel for frustrated VB programmers.

 

[BoberFett]

LOL Kranky, doesn't every thread in this forum turn religious?

64bitloopy

I'm confused. You're talking about pcode and the compiler. In VB 5 &amp; 6, there's two steps to compiling a VB program. The first compiles it into a pre-compiled format that is the same as the pre-compiled format used in MSVC. Then the second step is identical to the second step used when MSVC compiles to the executable. There are different types and levels of optimisation, but a VB program is very similar to a C++ program.

 

[64bitloopy]

Now. But have you ever looked at a vb6 exe?

 

[nd]

I do not think that VB compiles from Basic->Assembly like C compilers. It was interpreted before, or used a run-time library or virtual machine, and was later on made to be &quot;more&quot; native somehow -- but I don't ever think it reached the equivilency of C/C++/Delphi.

 

[Descartes]

BoberFett: you beat me to it

64bitloopy: No offense, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about

I respect the opinions of everyone else that has replied, just not yours. The proverbial statement, &quot;<insert name here> is bloated&quot; is tired... get over it.

Perhaps I'm too quick to refute ignorant statements, but I can't help myself. I've personally worked w/ some of the best C++ programmers out there whilst at MCI WorldCom, and while they don't always agree w/ my statements about VB, they respect my position.

My job is as a senior developer. I'm not a &quot;C++ programmer&quot;, nor a &quot;VB programmer.&quot; My job is to present solutions... and C++ isn't always the right one (nor VB, nor Java, etc.). I even maintain old PowerBuilder frontends simply because the previous development team felt the costs associated w/ a C++ frontend was absurd.


I also completely disagree w/ the recent statement, &quot;I can do everything in VB/VBScript that you can do in C++, but faster.&quot; This is absolutely false, and perhaps these kinds of comments are where the negative feelings towards VB have stemmed.

 

[Descartes]

nd: C++ initially generated C. In the strictest sense, all languages are interpreted... it just depends on what level.

 

[64bitloopy]

nd, be careful how you implement / or frost will think you're implying that c, c++, and delphi are the same thing.

Frost, you can think what you want.

Show me how the native code that vb compiles is quicker, better, and more efficent then other platforms.

Oh, and remind me to never purchase anything you develop.

 

[BoberFett]

loopy

You're exactly the kind of purist that I have little respect for as a programmer. You're insistent that if it's VB, it's crap. Well then, there are thousands upon thousands of judges and attorneys that find my &quot;crap&quot; quite useful, and use my &quot;crap&quot; to assist them in arguing and deciding cases every day.

 

[Descartes]

64bitfloppy: Are you truly this myopic??

I think everyone will concur, I have done nothing to promote VB as a solution over C++ when speed is of the upmost importance.

*sigh*

 

[64bitloopy]

I have never said if it's vb it's crap.
Never.
I use VB on occasion, as stated before, for CE and Palm development.
Please re-read my post.
I just feel that Microsoft, instead of trying to make the compiler better, has forced enhancement on top of enhancement, and bogged down the environment. I have stated that from the front. I never said that Vb was crap, and if you do vb you're crap.

(Personally, I would rather work in vb for the palm platform then deal with c++) - ease of use is nice sometimes.

Nor have I personally attacked anyone without provocation.
If you don't want opinion, don't ask for it.

If you recall, my original post was that from an educational standpoint, it's probably better to start with pascal and move to c or c++ and move on, and I should have stated, take rad and database dev. classes later on, after you grasp the concepts of programming.

 

[Descartes]

64bitfloppy: Gotcha...

I can't disagree with the fact that VB has certain bloated aspects of the language, but the same can be set for almost all environments.

Each to their own.

 

[BoberFett]

loopy

OK, I guess there was just a misunderstanding. I do actually agree with your last statement. I don't think VB should be the first language learned. I think every programmer should start with ANSI C to learn the basic programming concepts, looping, ifs, functions, etc. Then move to higher level/platform specific languages later.

 

[64bitloopy]

But I still like Delphi more.

I'm just a borland/inprise brat, I guess.

 

[StageLeft]

I think it all comes down to development time, requirements, and speed of how fast something needs to run. If you want something created quickly, easily, and has only to excecute at a reasonable speed then VB could be great. If you don't care about development time as much but speed of execution is top of your list then VB is not what you want.

Or in another sense: take a small group of semi-experienced programmers and give them a program to make. Now give this same project to a small group of semi-experieneced C++ programmers.

You'll find that the VB guys are done much sooner (assuming that VB can do all you need it to). You'll also find that when the C++ guys are done its probabaly faster.

Most languages have some benefits to them - except for Qbasic of course. I used vbscript for asp and VB to write COM objects, because development time is fast, the code is easy to read after, and functionally its quite acceptable. If I was writing pages to a major world-class site running a bank online I really don't think these would be what I'd use

Remember, 10 hours to a newbie in VB and you'll get a graphical interface for, say, a calculator and it works. 10 hours training to a newbie in C++ and you might have a couple of lines that say &quot;Hi&quot; and perhaps add a number together! Of course hell will burn over before VB is ever used a language by idsoftware for their next 3d engine.

 

[BoberFett]

I tried Delphi, I even went and bought it thinking I could drop VB way back in the 16bit days. I just didn't like the environment as much as VB, and I really hate Pascal. There wasn't enough benefit to Delphi to switch.

 

[64bitloopy]

Have you tried 5? Well, i guess if you don't like pascal or object pascal then it's probably not worth it.

Oh come on, you know if Id could do it in VB, and make it work well, I bet they would.

 

The problem with VB is that it is a product rather than a language. There is no consortium behind VB. Basically, no one is stopping Microsoft from kludging &quot;X&quot; into VB whenever it has the whim to do so.

I think Java is a better language to start with than ANSI C. All that printf() garbage is so outdated it's not even funny. Java excels due to the fact that naming and style conventions are standard throughout the language. C and C++ are so muddled different naming and style conventions that it totally can scare off a newbie coder.

 

[64bitloopy]

dwell,

i think for a begining programmer, though, it's not as important to learn the specific language, but more so the basic concepts behind programming.
i know that's probably retarded, cause you would imagine that everyone coming out of high school that is interested has a basic grasp of programming, but you'd be surprised.
maybe that is the education systems fundamental weakness. There should be more emphasis on placement in cs classes and degree plans.
Some people learn quicker than others, thats a fact. From an educational standpoint, it would probably be better to bring everyone up to speed then have those that aren't suffer for the intelligence of the others.
I don't think java should be taught first. pascal and c++ are great places to begin, always have been. You'll learn faster if you begin in a more complicated langauge, but you have to beat the learning curve first.
Teaching RAD first, however, is a travesty.

 

[Descartes]

dwell: Last I was aware, Java was the product of the company who put the '.' in .com? What standards committee is behind Java?

64bit: I completely agree. Some of the worst programmers I've ever worked with know VB only, and even write poor applications in it. I think this boils down to the instant gratification of our generation, and the &quot;if it works, what's the problem&quot; mentality. I could write the same applications I write in VB in straight C w/ the win32 api, but it would take me at least 2x as long, and would probably have more bugs (at least initially ). I think using VB in this instance would be appropriate, but not as much so when people write only in VB because they refuse to learn about the internals.

 

<< dwell: Last I was aware, Java was the product of the company who put the '.' in .com? What standards committee is behind Java? >>


Even though Sun owns Java, everything they add to the platform is put before public review before it is added. There are Java implementations for every platform that matters. Can you say that about VB? I didn't think so.

 

[64bitloopy]

RAD has it's moments.

Guys, I don't think this is a fair pissing contest, you really can't compare java against vb.

 

[denali]

<< Any program you can Do in C++, Java or whatever language, I can do it just as well in VB/VBSCript, and in half the time (yes i said ANY program) And in the business world, time is money, they choose VB programmer because they can solve a 6 month C++ solution in 2 months. >>



Then write a program that runs under any flavor of unix. If you are only concerned about running on MS platforms then VB might be the answer. However take a look at Tcl/Tk for a portable solution.