Re: What bothers me...

From: Herbert Sitz (hsitz_at_nwlink.com)
Date: 08/07/04 

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 15:00:19 -0700

"Dan Barclay" <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote in message
news:4113d8cd@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
>
> > Microsoft seems to have a marketing problem with VB.NET, since some
people
> > still think it's a "second sister" language like VB 6,
>
> There is no "marketing" problem with VB.Net. There is a language/product
> problem. You cannot expect people to continue to follow a language in
which
> your code assets are trashed every few years. MS doesn't seem to "get"
this
> even today. Look for more code breaking language changes. I've posted
this
> link before, so appologies to those who've already seen it, but I don't
want
> to repeat all that stuff here:
> http://www.mvps.org/vb/tips/stability.htm
>
> You can consider VB6 (let's lump 5/6 into "VBClassic" as opposed to .Net)
a
> "second sister". There are a lot of what many would call "hobbiest"
> programmers (whatever those are). Still, there are a lot of "real"
> programers. I'll match my business and products against anybody's, and I
> 'd do the same with a lot of my friends' work. You'll find good, very
good,
> bad, and very bad everywhere.
>
> The thing is, there are so *many* VB programmers, maybe you'd be surprised
> to learn that the fairly small percentage of those being "real
programmers"
> would still number higher than most languages. Pick, say, 25% of the VB
> developer population as being "serious" and run the numbers.
>

Dan -- Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. I basically agree with
everything you say.

Before Delphi my development was largely with VBA in MSAccess/SQL Server
apps. In the right hands "Classic VB" is certainly powerful enough to do
most any business database application you want, faster and more easily than
in most other languages. You can certainly write an elegant application in
VB, it's just that most VB programmers aren't likely to do that.

Also, I agree with your criticism regarding MS's failure to provide Classic
VB programmers with a future development path. That's one of main reasons
I've moved to Delphi, though I expect I would have moved even if future
development of Classic VB was on the horizon. Delphi simply provides a
better development environment, in my opinion. Not that Classic VB is that
terrible; but Delphi seems clearly superior.

Regards,

Herbert Sitz

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