Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LePaul on April 08, 2002, 02:39:40 PM
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I like programming in MS Visual Basic, have had VB6 Professional for a while, had 5 before. Now, .Net is out and I thought I'd check the pricing to upgrade.
Well, there is no VB.Net Upgrade, just Visual Studio .Net
And, its $580 with a nice mail in coupon for registered users to mail in and save $300.
Here's a corny idea....if the customer is registered, leggit and pondering upgrading, why not cut the price upon purchase?
Does there .Net software not have the ability to verify a registration? :D
Seems they are taking lessons from Borland....price it out of sight :) The beauty of VB and other programs from MS was they were quite affordable to get into. That seems to have changed.
Anyone else in shell shock too?
I kinda need Professional to get my VB6 code working in it (Standard is heavily stripped down from what i've read. More like a "learning edition").
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Ah, I enjoy the beauty of my company buying MSDN subscriptions for me...
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I hate you!
:D
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They gave VB away for so long that they destroyed the other development companies. Now they dont have to give it away anymore cause there is no competition. It is still not going to cost what it costs them to develop it. It will still be subsidised by OS sales and Office sales.
My company is recomending no new certifications in VB. They want as many as possible of us to switch to Java.
I am on a big VB project that will be a good revenue creater for quite a while so I doubt I will have to decide for a while.
I still prefer Delphi though
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Come to the darkside, choose java.
Besides IDEs like Visual Studio are for wimps, real men use EMACS!
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Originally posted by Pei
Come to the darkside, choose java.
Besides IDEs like Visual Studio are for wimps, real men use EMACS!
Now that is sheer blasphemy -- real men use Vim and C/C++ (well, ok, Java isn't that bad, at least when compared to Delphi :D)!
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EMACs, that's too easy, use VI.
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anyone got a minute to explain in laymans terms ? what all these do ? sounds faicinating but i got no thread to hold on to . all all these programs for one thing writing any kind of program ?or som specific kind of program ? thanks if you have the time .
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you can get just vb in .net for only like $100... it's the .net that comes with all the languages that costs a ton..
ka
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Originally posted by lord dolf vader
anyone got a minute to explain in laymans terms ? what all these do ? sounds faicinating but i got no thread to hold on to . all all these programs for one thing writing any kind of program ?or som specific kind of program ? thanks if you have the time .
VB stands for Visual Basic and it is a programming language developed by Microsoft. .Net is Microsofts new extension of Visual Basic that allows easier development of software for the internet and networking. Delphi, C/C++, and Java are all other programming languages. Vi and EMACS are text based editors for UNIX and IMO are useless compared to IDE's (except CodeWarrior. CodeWarrior really blows). IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment and it is a more graphical, and many times easier, way to write programs.
If you have any more questions just ask :)
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:D <--------------------- Gets FREE Development Tools from Microsoft.
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thanks :) cant think of any decent questions right now but im shure some will come.
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Originally posted by 8ball
Vi and EMACS are text based editors for UNIX and IMO are useless compared to IDE's (except CodeWarrior.
Well why would you compare an editor to an IDE? (Though Emacs is apparently good for much more than just editing -- it probably does quite much everything except make coffee, and who knows if that too has been recently implemented)
One has a developement environment in a *NIX all right, it just isn't integrated into one. Vi or Emacs are just one part of it. And hey, Real Operating Systems (he he) usually come with developement tools included unlike some other rather popular operating systems floating around ;)
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EMACS (*) have been able to make coffee since a long time :)
LISP (**) powa !
I've seen a lot of strange thingh implemented with Emacs lisp ...
from a minesweeper to chess game (complete with IA)
(*) "Eventually `malloc()'s All Computer Storage"
but I prefer this one : "EMACS Makes A Computer Slow"
(**) "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses" ;)
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Sitting here at work with VS.NET Enterprise Architect Edition - what a pile of crap. Doing the REAL work in C++, Perl or Java, using THE EDITOR, Emacs.
M-x praise-emacs
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Been programming for 20+ years and am still shocked at the way MS gets away with the pricing of the dev tools.
Took a brief look at .NET. No thanks. No way can I justify moving from VC6.0 to .NET.
It is pretty disgusting when the UNIX environment has always had the tools to do development work. By the time you buy all the manuals and software for dev work in MS, you end up with an outlay well over 2 grand. Simply disgusting.
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I mostly do Java and C/C++ these days (with the odd bit of PERL thrown in for good measure - somebody once paraphrased Clarke as " Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from a PERL script").
Now real men code C++ (and masochists code Ada - been there and done that as well) but that's a big leap from VB. I do more Java work these days as I do enterprise software consulting and thats mostly Java or .NET (I was doing ASP.NET and C# last month). IMHO Java's main advantages are it's simplicity (it's a fully fledged OO language unlike VB, but it's much easier to deal with than C++), it's vast array of standard libraries and extensions and it's portability. Of course you pay for it in performance (at least in comparison with fully compiled languages like C++, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was a few years ago) but in most of my projects system performance is dominated by factors other than CPU utilization and memory footprint so it doesn't really matter that much. It I was developing system software (or games!) I'd definitely use C++.
With IDEs I find it's just quicker an easier to do it the old fashioned way. I also think they are severely limiting: IDEs become a crutch; an excuse not to learn what's really going on or make decisions for yourself. That's OK if you've already learn it the "hard way" and you actually know what you are doing but I find too many developers out there who have never gone outside they're IDE and have no real conept of compilation, linking etc. and cannot distinugish between their IDE and their development language at all.
I can live with vi but I find it counter-intuitive and I love the flexibility I get with EMACS (if you take the time to learn a little eLISP you can go a long way). So when it comes to the vi-EMACS holy war I'm definitely on the side of EMACS and freedom rather than the vi-infidels.
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VC++ makes sense for games, but VB can do it too. I really liked what MS did with the BASIC language, but I'm not convinced .NET is the way to go. MS seems convinced that the Internet is of primary concern, and I don't think that's necessarily a valid premise.
There's a lot to be said for VFP, too.
I went by the local Barnes & Noble yesterday and saw they have Sam's 'Teach yourself VB6 - the Complete Training Kit' priced at just $20. Since, it comes with something 'like' the learning version (haven't seen it used yet) that's a great price, even though outdated now.
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Originally posted by SageFIN
(well, ok, Java isn't that bad
Where you dropped as a child? Java is that bad. It's C++'s reatrded brother ;)
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I forgot to say, heh, that Assembler was always my favorite. The inline stuff today is great, but isn't Microsoft's straight assembler/linker program still free today? You would pull your hair out and start mumbling things to yourself if you tried to write Windows programs with it, but it IS free (I think).
I wrote my first game with MASM (an ASCII graphic version of Trek), and used QBasic (I think) to generate a quadrant database for it. That would still work today, but gamers have outgrown the concept.
Hmm, maybe I should toy with that old program some more. :D
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Yea, I decided to give it a shot
I bought the Deluxe Learning kit...I like Michael Halvorson's books (Microsoft Press) so I bought the bundle that included his Visual Basic .Net Step-by-Step and VB .Net Standard.
After installing IIS, Frontpage extensions and such, THEN the install of VB .Net began. 45 minutes and 1.8GB later, its all in.
Its ugly, so far...but we're thumbing through Halvorson's guide and shaking my head at how much I'll have to shell out to do some of the things I'd like to do via VS .Net Professional
Free toys? How do you guys get so lucky! :)
My WISE InstallBuilder upgrade is another impressive pricetag...sigh!
At least I'm having a ball with my 3D Game Studio Software, and those updates are free!
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Originally posted by Voss
I forgot to say, heh, that Assembler was always my favorite. The inline stuff today is great, but isn't Microsoft's straight assembler/linker program still free today? You would pull your hair out and start mumbling things to yourself if you tried to write Windows programs with it, but it IS free (I think).
I wrote my first game with MASM (an ASCII graphic version of Trek), and used QBasic (I think) to generate a quadrant database for it. That would still work today, but gamers have outgrown the concept.
Hmm, maybe I should toy with that old program some more. :D
Text Trek?
hehe, check out the Tradewars game on my BBS sometime!
Telnet to bbs.checksix.net ;)
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It helps to have graduated from the Seattle area. More then a dozen of my Senior Class work at Microsoft. Two of them are in the 'instant millionare' club. My best friend from school is the coordinator for the 'end-to-end server builds.' They outsource all of the work to various vendors and they are ALWAYS building on their servers, non-stop. He can't afford to send me anything, but the 'nerd' I took my first computer class with (in the days of punch cards and IBM 360's) can. She's beautiful, too!:D
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whatever happened to Turbo Prolog...
btw some legal firm over here (NZ) is sueing MS over its Software Assurance plan (you know, pass for two years in advance for something we might not even release).
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Screen Shot
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Oh my Voss. I had forgotten about a Trek program I did many years ago.
Similar in concept, except it was multi-player (16 players) and turn based. I even had a ship builder where you could design your own ship. It was written in C for UNIX.
My first functional program was a game based on pong. Except instead of a straight line moving up and down on the screen, it moved in a circle and you had to bounce the ball in the center of the screen. Wrote that one in Basic circa 1979 or so on a TRS-80 Model I.
I can't even begin to count the number of progams/utilities I have created in the last 20 years or so. One of my very early works was a HD reformatter that would safely change the disk sector interleave while preserving the data on the drive. I did this as computers were getting fast enough to handle a sector interleave less than 8, which was the default for the ST-506/ESDI interface drives of the day. It was a combination of assembly and C.
Those were fun and frustrating days. Talking directly to the hardware to see what you could squeeze out of it was a blast.
Switching to UNIX took some time. Trusting the operating system was the most work. I got to where I could count on UNIX. I wish I could say the same for a MS operating system. The only thing I can count on with MS, is it will break.
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Yeah, there's been a string of changes over the last twenty years.
I realize the legacy of Microsoft's 'foundation' causes problems, but I also realize that the latest development systems MS has created are truly wondrous. I don't have to create a folder full of notes on component design anymore. Rather, I can sit down and start creating a program. I don't know if UNIX has the same thing, I imagine if they don't it's just a matter of time, but this is a truly wonderful approach. Much better then the old hunt-and-peck assembler approach.
Do you remember CHASM (cheap assembler)?
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You bet I remember it Voss. Hehe,.. you know we are showing our age here :).
You can get a full suite of graphical tools for UNIX today. Heck, there is even a VSS module for UNIX. You have to buy these tools, but they are pretty cheap compared to the ripoff MS pricing. At least the UNIX compilers (GNU) generate 32 bit instructions. VC6 still generates a lot of 16 bit instructions even when you tell it to compile for Pentium.
Did you ever get to use the ASM from Tandy? It had a full interactive debugger and development environment much like VC. I am talking about the one for the Models II/16/6000 series. Leather bound, with about 4 8" floppies in the package. It was very nice and way ahead of its time. The programmer that created that got killed in a car wreck about a month after he completed the project. After that it just sort of went away.
Most people are not aware of the giant step backwards the industry took when IBM introduced its original PC. Heck, we had full blown multi-processor systems sitting on desktops before IBM came into the fray.
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When you said VC6, I immediately thought back of my VIC-20, and later, C-64 :)
I recently sold off my old TRS-80 Model III. It was still working great! Just no room for it no more.
I still have a Tandy 1000 TX and two other mint Tandy's...ones a 386 SX 25, the other a 486 SX 25. Don't know why I keep em, asides that they are in mint shape, run DOS 6.22 and I can play Wolfenstein and Dark Forces on them ;)
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lisp... hehe.
my programming languages class programming assignments were kinda based on it. We had to write an interpreter in C (I don't think C++) that'd handle a subset of the Scheme language (Scheme is "a statically scoped and properly tail-recursive dialect of the Lisp programming language invented by Guy Lewis Steele Jr. and Gerald Jay Sussman. It was designed to have an exceptionally clear and simple semantics and few different ways to form expressions. A wide variety of programming paradigms, including imperative, functional, and message passing styles, find convenient expression in Scheme.")
Now I'm a web admin and quite bored off my butt. I'd rather program, but I'm just too lazy to move. ;)
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I remember it, but I don't recall ever using it (ASM). There's been a lot of assemblers named ASM over the years. I seem to recall seeing this right next to the CB's in the late 70's (Rat Shack)?
I'm trying to figure out how to break VB right now. It's too easy to give up and use VC++ for a lot of things that I know VB SHOULD do, but I'm stubborn.:D