How long until we see a VBnews.com?

[dilettante]

As the .Net juggernaut absorbs more supplicants we're starting to see a quickening pace toward VB-abandonment at some of the forum sites.

Posts are down, projects are down, and Microsoft itself seems to be slowly chipping away at online documentation. Classic ASP still rolls along, but I suspect its days are numbered since it is no longer mainstream technology either.

Some people just like retro-tech for whatever reasons. It seems like VB may be gaining this sort of patina.

While your hard core QB-head probably can't conceive of it, sometime soon kids are going to want to polish the fenders of "good ol' VB" just as the previous generation did QB. So far I haven't seen any sites taking this tack: supporting VB as VB in spite of its status. "No .Net allowed" sign on the door, "Win32 forever" banners hung high, etc.

Seems inevitable though. I wonder why it hasn't begun yet? Are we awaiting 2008 and official non-support?

[na_th_an]

VBNews was started some time ago but it was taken down... I think that it was not very supported or whatever, I dunno.

[aetherfox]

Fling created it a long time ago, we're talking maybe 2/3 years, and I was one of the admins...it looked similar to qbasicnews, that was the idea. Unfortunately it didn't catch on. Vb programmers are the community whores that qb ones are.

[dilettante]

Maybe VB just doesn't have that "old school smell" to it yet?

[na_th_an]

I dunno, maybe it doesn't have such a kind of community around. VB is more "professional", just as QB was around 1990. Plus you have lots of resources on internet, for example the forums at http://www.codeguru.com which may have an answer for anything.

QB 4.5 was released 18 years ago, VB6 just 7

[dilettante]

I agree.

My original post was more of a reaction to the changes I'm seeing. These places are all gradually "turning Japanese" on us. Who sang that song? The Vapors or somebody? ... er, turning .Net on us.

Churning CLR, I Think I'm Churning CLR
I really think so
Churning CLR, I Think I'm Churning CLR
I really think so

Sad, hmm? :wink:

[zshzn]

Yeah the thing with VB, is it is professionals using it, and lots of them. Yet if you're using QB, you're one of few, plus there's something comedical, and yet psychologically fucked going on in your mind. :bounce:

[dilettante]

I can't speak for anybody else's state of mind, but I recall gazing over a cornfield next to my elementary school playground decades ago and wondering if I'd been left behind by aliens or something.

I think I've figured part of this puzzle out though: QBasic was "free" and VB never was.

Puzzling further I've come to the conclusion that VBScript was once the "QBasic" of Win32 OSs, as it was the only free programming tool provided after about Win95.

Since the guts of .Net are free to download (Framework and SDK), as long as you don't need an IDE maybe .Net is the VBScript of the future.

All this leaves VB behind, unless you count the free VB5CCE which was always a handy thing in itself. VB5CCE is still a handy tool for extending WSH and HTA VBScripting - dialogs, API calls, etc.

[na_th_an]

Compilers, commercial software, not free: BASCOM -> QB -> PDS -> VB
Interpreters, free software: GWBASIC -> QBasic -> VBScript.

GWBASIC/QBasic/VBScript are there to be used as shell extensions. MSDOS shell is so limited, so GWBASIC and later QBasic were thrown into the MSDOS distro to expand its capabilities. On Windows 95, they released the WSH which accepts VBScript as the scripting language following the same policy.

You are comparing the (free) QBasic with the (non free) VB, and you shouldn't. QB has to be compared with VB, and QB wasn't free either.

QBasic could be compared as well with VB2primer or VB4primer, non-compiling VB versions that were released to catch adepts.

[dilettante]

Good points.

Now I wonder how many legit copies of QB in its various forms are out there in use. :wink: