Visual Basic on GNU/Linux 383
jeevesbond writes "The Mono Project announced that it has developed a Visual Basic compiler that will enable software developers who use Microsoft Visual Basic to run their applications on any platform that supports Mono, such as Linux, without any code modifications."
OS X Intel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not even sure why someone would want to run VB under Linux. C# is a fantastic language, and well suited for any O/S. VB (and VB.NET) is far more Microsoft-specific, and any developers using it run the risk of future Mono compilers not supporting its features after Microsoft has it removed.
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At least, I hope so, in order to believe that there's still some sanity in this world.
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because the application is already written and the vendor doesn't want to port it? After all, being able to operate with a single code base is generally a nice incentive to avoid creating ports.
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Re:OS X Intel? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is, of course, the reason hundreds of thousands flocked to it when it was created. Right? Heck, they weren't even forced into it. Microsoft simply made the tools available.
I've seen environmentalists view a heavily-trafficked road and declare that building it was completely unnecessary. This seems like some of the same attitude.
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I think it's turned out to be a nice syntax for writing easily maintinable / clear code that people are broadly happy with. It nice not having to deal with wildly differnt syntax when changing languages.
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Informative)
The road analogy is poor though. Programming languages don't have a "capacity" for the number of users.
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LOL!
The fact that thousands of developers flocked to it was because Microsoft had killed off the original Java by not distributing a compliant runtime.
It's more like taking a highly trafficked road, blowing it up and then building an identical one.
"Look at all the people using the new road! Bet people are really glad we built that!"
(Except of course the new road only support Ford cars, but that's another story)
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So yes, it's entirely up to *Microsoft* to decide whether or not to distribute a Sun compatible Java or an in-compatible Java clone like
Originally Microsoft went with a Sun compatible Java, but then as Java started to become popular they tried to break the Sun licensing terms by making an incompatible version of Java that would lock people into using Windows.
When the court ruled against Microsoft they decided to drop Java s
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> Heck, they weren't even forced into it. Microsoft simply made the tools available.
Well, the WHY is a different can of worms entirely and has much more to do with the choices available to an enterprise developer than with any best-of-breed issues. Most enterprises adopt a single software development platform, and that often is Microsoft. Given only Microsoft choices, would you rather develop in VB6, MFC or
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:4, Insightful)
PS2 -> XBox
Java -> C# &
Palm Pilot -> PocketPC
iPod -> Zune
It's like Microsoft feels that they need to be the market leader in every single market that includes a computer chip or software in the product. Instead of real innovation, they just reimplement whats already out there.
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It was Microsoft's way of telling Java developers, "Hey, we've got an easy to use language with C-style formatting!" In the grand scheme of things, there was no need to create it.
Microsoft and Sun seem to have different aims for their particular languages. Sun tends to be very conservative about adding new features to Java, and so Java is a comparatively basic language with a very limited feature-set. Microsoft seem to be taking a slightly different approach, adding in any feature that looks like it could be useful. This makes C# a relatively more complex and faster evolving language, and has already diverged fairly far from Java.
Now if only either language had a half-decent type s
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me count the ways...
I'm not claiming Java's type system completely sucks, it just hasn't incorporated any features from the last 20 years or so of programming languages.
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's pretty good for a static typesystem..
For instance, take the following Java code snippet: And the equivalent in Haskell: Both Haskell and Java are statically typed, and both functions have equivalent typing, yet there is a clear difference between their respective type systems.
Not only is the Java hugely more verbose, as it lacks any sort of type inference, the type system also fails to catch null values. In Haskell, there is no equivalent of the infamous NullPointerException.
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only point of VB.NET was to be able to lie to VB6 developers and promise them that VB would be in
This in the grand scheme of things was completely pointless. Great, I can take my 70K lines of VB6 code, and... wait, no, it's not compatible, so even if I switch to VB.NET I'll have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch anyway. This is definitely not what was on anybody's mind when VB in
Since VB.NET is completely useless migration-wise, and C# was going to get done anyway, VB.NET is just a rotten bone tossed to the VB6 developers to get them to shut up. But I guess we deserve it, that's the reward you get for becoming dependent on a single vendor.
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Just out of curiosity, what is the harm in Microsoft "discontinuing" VB? Granted, no new versions of the language will be released, nor patches for compilers, etc., but that doesn't suddenly make current tools stop working.
No, they won't suddenly stop working but customers who use your VB6 applications expect to keep moving forward technologically. So when they install Vista, or SQL Server 2005 or whatever, and suddenly your VB6 application doesn't work as expected, you could be in real troublem since Microsoft may not fix it. Also companies may not even buy your product any more, knowing that Microsoft will not be supporting or enhancing the language you have used.
Why is their discontinuation of VB so terrible for companies that use the language?
Well aside from the possible failure of VB6 librar
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Funny)
Most apropos typo ever.
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Any
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Informative)
So, yes, both C++ and Fortran share the x86 VM. Also, C# shares the x86 VM because CLI bytecode is never executed, only x86 code. It just delays the compile to x86 til runtime.
Re:OS X Intel? (Score:4, Informative)
Oddly enough, the move is to make more and more x86 instructions single ops again to try and free up pipeline slots. They're still using the CISC to RISC approach in both camps, but the decoding is becoming more 1-1 then anything else.
Tom
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there are 15
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Re:OS X Intel? (Score:5, Informative)
Our compiler and runtime are written entirely in portable CIL code that later gets translated into native code on each platform by the Mono JIT.
I believe you are referring to Microsoft's Visual Basic for applications (which is what Office uses) and which is an older version of the language which they are unable to port on its current shape (their stuff was an older version of the compiler that predated the CIL bytecodes).
Miguel
Uuuhh.. sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
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VB (up to 6) and VB.NET are completely different animals. Mono is .NET basically for the rest of us.
Now, there are good reasons why VB6 code can't be migrated to .NET, but in most cases, where the environment allows, move the code over. Outside of WINE, I don't think you'll ever really get legacy VB to work on Linux in any meaningful way.
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www.mono-project.com/WinForms [mono-project.com]
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More Choice (Score:3, Insightful)
I love it. The list of choices is growing and growing. The fact that Mono can do this, and after having struggled with WINE, this is a massive leap.
This will get more .NET developers over to Linux. Then, it will get more .NET developers too look a other ways of doing things.
There are those will decry this as bad, but think about the possibilities.
Re:More Choice (Score:4, Insightful)
> Then, it will get more
If they need VB on Mono on Linux to look around then it's already too late.
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No one is dumb enough to choose a Microsoft technology without assuming it almost certainly means lock-in [msversus.org]. Today they're simply lucky some of their apps
In reality... (Score:2)
applications written in it, without any easier route to get to something other than Windows
with, it is a bar to migration to MacOS, Solaris, or Linux. IF they've done it right and
haven't ran afoul of something MS has patented, this would be one less reason (And one of
the biggies, really) for many businesses to stay with Microsoft with their latest upgrade
cycle. It depends all on how many OCX components they've mixed into
Re:More Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I doubt that. I have this feeling this'll make linux more accessible for .NET developers, but the developer will only use it for testing his application while still remaining on his windows machine. There's a guy who's being paid to make VB.NET software, he's not going to look at ruby/python/perl/C#/C++. The fact that he's using VB means that :
Don't get me wrong, I think this is positive in a "Oh that's neat" kind of way, but I think we're a long way from bringing all the .NET developers into the linux flock, and a very long way from having them (and their managers) look at other ways of doing things.
Most Developers in house (Score:5, Interesting)
TONS of this software has been written in VB over the years. Either in house processing forms (for specialized data entry people, some is now web based, some is not). Or screwy niche verticals. My mother has a computer that runs some goofy program for running a small therapists office. It looks like garbage, is CLEARLY a VB app, but it's the only application designed for a single therapist that is inexpensive and runs her office.
She wanted to buy an iMac a few years ago, because she thought that they looked cool, but she wanted to run this application, so she needed Windows.
VB -> VB.Net migrations aren't trivial, but they kind of are... anyone actively maintaining VB code has probably migrated by now, with the painful process and all, or will shortly. Once they are on VB.Net, this makes the transition easy.
We're not talking about general applications, but think about the possibilities.
Small office has a custom VB application for 2 data-entry personnel. All they do is read/send email, put things in this application. Now one of the developers sees this thing on Slashdot, downloads it, and converts their VB application to run under Linux. All of a sudden, the next time these people get their computer trashed by viruses, when the IT guy is bitching about rebuilding their machines again, he mentions that he ported their application to Linux. All of a sudden, these special purpose desktops are Linux.
The Excel Power User WILL NOT switch to Linux... hell, I sometimes fire-up Windows via Parallels to run Excel under Windows because Excel for Mac isn't as strong, but you might get the entry level desktops to Linux... and that's a HUGE start.
If you got most businesses to only buy Windows for the executive suite, you'd cut Microsoft's marketshare from 95% to 50% or 60%, and all of a sudden cross-platform becomes a requirement, not a nice to have feature.
Patents (Score:5, Informative)
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So, no, there should not be any problems with the distribution of it.
The only obstacle now, is a good Linux IDE for writing the code.
Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there were a VB6 compiler for Linux, that would be much more interesting to me.
-uso.
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Re:Um... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is nice because you can get your VB6 application running and still use the ActiveX controls you need, but then start migrating the functionality that the ActiveX controls provide over to native RealBasic controls. Even if you have one or two particular DLL/OCX's that you can't immediately part with, you can still get the rest of the app cross platform.
For example, I have an app that has mostly OS X/Tiger clients, but there is a image scanner that the client has to use, and said scanner can only be accessed by calling a particular ActiveX control. Since RB supports conditional compilation, the application has one code base, but still has a window object that calls the ActiveX scanning control if the app is running on a Windows client. So my client has one Windows XP box to access the scanner, while all of the other users run the app on OS X 10.4. I've tested the client on Ubuntu Edgy Eft as well, though no one uses this build currently.
I also made a video training application that used QuickTime on OS9/OS X, but used Windows Media Player on 98/2000/XP to play back the training videos (they were mpegs), allowing the app to be used on Windows without the (at the time) hassle of trying to get QuickTime for Windows to function. I called WMP using COM through RB, but again, only one Win clients thanks to conditional compilation.
Once you're able to migrate away from all of the ActiveX functionality , you can have access to all the gooey, cross-platform goodness. And even if you can't get rid of that one Active X control, you have the ability to sandbox it and have the rest of the app still be cross-platform.
It should be noted that many functions provided by ActiveX controls and DLLs can be replaced using RealBasic plugins, the most exceptional plugin being Christian Schmitz's MBS Real Basic Plugin [monkeybreadsoftware.de].
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For an encore performance, we could implement Delphi on top of Java/SWT.
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For an encore performance, we could implement Delphi on top of Java/SWT.
Well, yes, doing it that way would be kinda silly. The point is the summary claimed "Visual Basic on GNU/Linux", and that's not really true. Visual Basic evolved from the original MS Basic for the Altair. VB.Net is just a
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Yes it is. Microsoft calls VB.NET Visual Basic. When I want to create a new VB.NET project in Visual Studio, I select the "Visual Basic" widget. Yes, you're right, VB.NET and VB6 are different languages, but if the company that developed both of them refers to both of them as Visual Basic, then it is perfectly legal to refer to either of them as Visual Basic.
By your same reasoning, it wouldn't be valid to refer to Wi
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M$ likes to create confusion in market place. Similar story was with their recent "C++" which turned out to be "C++/CLI".
And Mono folks are obviously already deep inside of M$ [censored] and of course are confused as much as anybody else who deals with M$ on regular basis.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
But there were a few problems, ASP.NET for example would requite a compiler on the host to compile VB.NET-based ASP.NET pages. ASP.NET works by translating special commands and tags into your language and mixing your code with the resulting output with a technology called "CodeDOM".
So this particular scenario (ASP.NET with VB) was not supported due to the lack of a compiler.
This also allows Windows developers to do their work on Linux directly without having to use two machines to develop.
Miguel.
Terrific (Score:5, Insightful)
A) Most VB applications are tightly linked to OS and application-specific libraries.
B) Most applications that do not require those libraries are not written in VB.
C) Anyone versed enough in languages to be using MONO is probably not married to any language--and certainly not VB
So, other than being novel, what's the point?
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I took a C# application (http://www.perfectreign.com/stuff/lacrr/era_20071 207.jpg) we've just put into production and tried to compile on my SUSE laptop using Mono. Most did work, except for the assemblies which - gasp - are tied into 3rd party COM components.
Ooops!
Funny - when I read "Visual Basic on Linux" I first thought of VB6 and almost dropped my Monster Blue. Now THAT would be cool. Oddly enough, I'm still having to go in and fix VB programs. I don't even have any VB progr
Not Perfect but better. (Score:2)
B. Many apps are written in VB including ones that don't need those
Re:Terrific (Score:5, Interesting)
From the remaining 50%:
25% would require a week or so to port (replacing Windows library calls with Linux calls)
25% would require a month of so to work, and a Linux expert in house
25% would require a strong commitment to support Linux, and many months of work.
25% is not even worth attempting.
Miguel.
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Are the submitted applications a non-biased sampling ?
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We still have a _lot_ of customers (like 30-40%) asking us to develop on VB.Net, since they have maintainers who are well-versed in VB. Microsoft has effectively marketed VB.Net as being easier to swallow for VB Programmers. This is true, since VB.Net has constructs which allow the same inefficient VB style coding. But if proper OO practices are being followed, VB.Net is just C# without case-sensitivity.
Mono supporting VB.Net allows these people to target Linux. Mono's C# compiler,
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I have one data-entry application written in VB that runs on about 8 dedicated machines throughout my organization. It's light on resource requirements so runs on older machines, but of course requires some version of Windows. For a while I've been thinking of porting the app to Linux in one way or another, without resorting to making it web-based (or re-learning Java), but have concluded it's just not worth the effort currently.
If this mono VB compiler works, I believe that I could port the whole
Awesome example (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an awesome example, I have a similar one. One of my old Interns wrote a program in Cocoa for Mac, because he was a Mac fan and it was a prototype. One of my guys thought that it would be fun to learn Cocoa, so adapted and rewrote the application over several revisions. It doesn't do THAT much, the heavy logic is server side, but it's a pile of code and the developer that wrote it isn't with us any more.
Well, I had 8 people using that program, so what the hell, rather than re-writing/porting, we bought 8 Mac Minis and used those as desktops. Nothing they ran (besides this in-house orphaned program) required OS X, but Apple and OS X got the sales for that reason. Had it been written by the guy who was playing with Qt at the time, who knows, we might have Linux machines there.
Most Slashdot whiners have NO CLUE how computers get used, because they think that their home use of computers is at ALL indicative, or they work in an IT company or school... they don't understand how a few legacy applications may have multiple people (with their computers) can have the oddest software requirements if their job is built around an old legacy code base.
I just toured a potential partner's warehouse, his whole system is manual. The accounting is Quickbooks, the shipping is Fedex's software, and their "integration" is some only shopping cart solution where he can download the information into Quickbooks and Fedex... There is no glue code for managing the warehouse... But he has several people whose job revolve around these applications, and the computers and OS's are purchased to run these apps.
Re:Terrific (Score:4, Informative)
There goes that idea... (Score:2, Funny)
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VB? VB?!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:VB? VB?!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Visual Basic 8.0 only! (Score:2)
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I for one don't like this idea a bit (Score:4, Insightful)
"Novell Inc. sponsors Mono, which is an open-source development platform that aims to be compatible with Microsoft's
I'm not a fan of bringing Microsoft technology to the Free Software realm, not for purist reasons (although they are at least pertinent) but because, with this Novell-MS agreement in practice, it would not take a lot of effort for Microsoft to find a way to either forbid any non-Novell distros to use the technology or to wait and sue distros that include it (in case there is some patented technology included, mistakenly or purposely, and people know that, at least on U.S., everything is patentable, even the double click).
Furthermore, with Java becoming free as in free will, I don't see how free software benefits by having VB,
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In the "free software realm" why does this not have it's place as well? For that matter, I'd rather not bring Open Office into the free software realm because Microsoft is obviously going to sue everybody for using a quasi-MS-Office clone...
Please tell me how this isn't acceptable, but kaffe [kaffe.org] is? By virtue of your reasoning the entire Mono project is moot since they're obviously in cahoots with Microsoft to forbid non-Novell distros to use their open source system.
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Furthermore, with Java becoming free as in free will, I don't see how free software benefits by having VB, .Net or any other Microsoft born encumbrance.
Maybe I'm the only one who's seen this, but the Java VM on any platform I've seen is dead slow. The GUI is unresponsive and sluggish, and the damned thing leaks like a sieve - not to mention is a memory monster for any app larger than a small utility. .NET (2.0 at least) has been fast and relatively small in-memory. The only crappy thing about it is the
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Because Java is being increasingly inefficient as a programming language these days. Meanwhile C# has some very forward looking language designers. At a time when statically typed languages are under attack from the more expressive dynamic languages (and rightly so), continuous innovation is the only way to stay relevant.
One of the ways for doing so is to in
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2) Thread a = new Thread() {
public void run() {
}
}
a.start();
Yup, no anonymous classes in Java. While I do agree anonymous functi
Gambas (Score:2, Informative)
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Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe now we'll see some real development on Linux!
Hooray! (Score:5, Funny)
Wow... saying that actually made me vomit a little in the back of my mouth...
Worrying trend... (Score:2, Interesting)
So Microsoft actually provided consulting resources to Novell to make this happen.
Does this not worry anyone? What happens when I compile VB code on Linux via Mono on a non-Microsoft (i.e., non-Novell) supported GNU/Linux platform?
Re:Worrying trend... (Score:5, Informative)
The runtime was developed entirely by Mainsoft, with some help from us in a few areas. Microsoft was not involved in this process, am sorry for the miss-understanding.
The runtime and compiler were pretty much done before I was aware of any discussions between Novell and Microsoft. The major change since September has been that the compiler became self-hosting on Linux (compiles itself, and compiles its own runtime) and that we have had a chance to go from a research project to a product (of course, we will keep improving it)
Miguel.
Why? (Score:2)
Finally... (Score:3, Funny)
But seriously, I thought everyone hated VB?
What about Qbasic? (Score:2)
Or just use RealBasic (Score:2)
But, you know, whatever.
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This is a big deal, and should be thought about (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/69/ [lugradio.org]
Basically, the argument goes like this. If you look at what's locking people in to windows now, it's not so much the big stuff -- office apps, browsers, email programs, etc. We have all of that stuff, and most of what we have is pretty terrific.
The stuff that locks people in is small and narrow -- software to do some odd, specific, business related thing. Some app that's tweaked to run scheduling in a dental office, or whatever. My mom has a travel agency, and she uses an app that manages all of her customers, and that's windows specific. I have a friend who installs burglar alarm systems, and he has software that programs alarms, and which only runs under windows.
There isn't one big thing that's locking people in -- it's thousands and thousands of small things. Everyone has something different, but almost everyone has *something*. And a giant chunk of those little things, now, are running under
The Mono guys have been using an automated tool that looks at what libraries
On top of that, they've been working with
The point that's getting lost in a lot of the fights over Mono and the infamous deal (about which I personally have many misgivings) is that Novell is mounting an incredibly audacious attack on the Desktop, and this sort of thing is a big part of it. They're not satisfied with servers.
I don't know if it will work, and again, every time I read something about Ballmer talking smack about linux, I get nervous about that deal. But at the same time, I sort of love the bigness of what Novell is doing, the audacity of it.
For whatever reason, Novell is doing an incredibly bad job of explaining all of this to us. Which is why I really encourage everyone to grab that podcast episode, linked above, and listen to what Miguel says about mono.
Next week. . . (Score:4, Funny)
Figures don't lie...but... (Score:2)
Though often disparaged by developers, Visual Basic remains one of the world's most commonly used programming languages. According to Forrester Research, 37 percent of enterprises use Microsoft Visual Basic.NET for development and maintenance of their in-house applications. What's more, among
according to what research? (Score:2)
Say what? I've never worked in a place where VB was used, let alone the norm.
It may be used in a lot of
LANGUAGE WARS!
VB.NET or VB (Score:2)
Does it allow you to run Visual Studio yet? What about code from microsoft such as Office2007?
While its nice that you can *compile* something that is crossplatform ( though can do that now if you choose other languages ) the real trick is running existing
I prefer VB over C# (Score:5, Insightful)
But I honestly do prefer VB over C# because I find it easier to read. I have never *liked* the "C syntax". 15 years ago, I switched from Borland C++ to Borland Pascal (I honestly did!) because I enjoyed Pascal's verbosity. I used Delphi for a long time, until
It's not like I can't read C-style syntax or write it; I can. I do a lot of JavaScript programming, I extensively use both PHP and C# at work, but when it comes to personal projects, VB(.NET) all the way.
I guess it's just a matter of preference. Some people like && || !, some like And Or Not. Some like curly braces, some like Begin..End blocks. And with
That said, some things in VB irritate me. The stupid typecasting via CType(var, type) is something I wish would just die in favour of C-style (type)var. Multiline strings as well, and the root namespace is something I always forget to destroy when starting a new project...
Anyway, congratulations to the Mono team. When I get rid of Windows soon, in favour of Linux, I will be glad to know that my pet language is going to be usable for ASP.NET apps!
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They have nothing to do with liking programming as such.
Now what would you say if I told you I preferred Motorola-style x86 syntax in Free Pascal under DOS over straight Intel-style x86 assembler? Do I like programming, or not? If I have written code for the 16C84, 68000, 8052 and 80x86, and preferred the 68000, do I like programming, or not?
You cannot judge a person based on his/her choice of programming language. The same for natural languages; I absolute
Re:I prefer VB.NET over C# (Score:4, Interesting)
I come originally from a hardcore x86 assembler, C background. I used to work in commercial video game development.
When I got out of that (ridiculous work ethic) and got properly into the web, I first started using Java, then PHP and finally VB6 + old "classic" ASP. Both of those latter two are wretched.
When I moved to ASP.NET in VB.NET it was a whole new world of difference. It was like the clouds had lifted.
I've coded some enormous web applications in VB.NET. I've also coded some incredibly low-level wire stuff like SMPP servers.
As per the parent's comments: VB.NET is far easier to code and read than C#. C# is so damned pedantic, just like its cousins C and C++. C# just gets in the way and slows down your development. The Visual Studio VB.NET IDE formats your code in a really nice way as you go along, and the layout of VB.NET code makes it far easier to see what is going on, and there is no chance of accidently leaving a semi-colon in the wrong place, forcing lots of debugging.
Parent is right that CType (or DirectCast) is a bit annoying, but I find use of that method pretty rare anyway. And it's nit-picking an otherwise excellent language.
I consider VB.NET the best language I've ever used, and I've used pretty much everything sane you can think of in my 20+ years of coding.
Great news that Mono now supports this. It'll make it much easier to port over my web projects to run on Linux.
thanks, but no thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Why...? (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no "real programming?" Why don't you first define what "real programming" is? If in your case, you were defining pieces of code to connect the objects, you were behaving like a newbie - no offense to you.
On the other hand, I have developed more than 22 serious projects using VB and the forms you might have used. I agree VB was not a "wise" platform in many cases, but that was due to my employer's environment.
These projects/systems included cargo handling, hospital management, roster/scheduling in the hospitality world, schools and traffic management environments.
Let me tell you this: To a Joe User VB kicks ass big time as compared to anything in the Linux world. You can decide to be very simple and do forms as you might have done, or you can do some serious work like some of us have done.
The meme is "buttonpushers" (Score:3, Insightful)
A classic example are Outlook/Exchange admins. They consider themselves IT professionals, but very few of them whom I've met actually understand how the network infrastructure really works. They are, however, convinced that they do. :)
I know of one such guy who is supposedly a name in the Microsoft world, t
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*cough*XCode/Interface Builder/Objective-C*cough*
cross platform IDE .. (Score:2)
http://www.widestudio.org/ [widestudio.org]
http://www.netbeans.org/ [netbeans.org]
http://www.netcomputing.de/html/main.html [netcomputing.de]
was: how about...(Score:1)