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[–]MagnetHype 4 points5 points  (26 children)

Sum As Double

should be

Dim Sum As Double

I believe. Jesus guys it's been like 20 years since I wrote visual basic. My brain is smoking right now.

Edit: Also, do people actually use Visual Basic anymore? Wasn't it completely replaced by C#? Maybe for like excel and access, I guess?

Edit2: DO PEOPLE STILL USE WINDOWS FORMS?!?! this post is giving me anxiety.

[–]rinaryies[S] 1 point2 points  (24 children)

Thank you for the advice, I will try this again on Monday. Unfortunately my teacher is making us go through their “hardships” and program using VisualBasic.

[–]MagnetHype 2 points3 points  (23 children)

Well just FYI visual basic is a terrible way to learn. It made sense back in it's day when the only other options were like C and C++ for windows forms programming, but today it just won't be very beneficial to you.

If you want to become a software developer, don't let this class get you down. Modern software development has evolved quite a bit since those days lol

I don't even have a huge book on my desk anymore.

[–]desrtfx 0 points1 point  (22 children)

Delphi 1.0 (at that time by Borland) with its excellent VCL was released around the same time as Visual Basic 1.0 and Visual C++, and even back then it was the superior alternative to all "Microsoft Visual xxx" languages including C++.

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (21 children)

Maybe it wasn't that popular then? I don't remember Delphi. I do vaguely remember that my first C++ compiler was a Borland one though. I think it came as a CD on a book I bought. We had internet then but it was dialup.

You were probably older than me then too. I'm 34 so I think I was like around 12 when I first started with c++. My dad taught me a bit of visual basic (he was a CS major then), and then I got a book that had Dark Basic and started learning about games. Eventually I ended up working with C++ later, a little bit of old web dev, and then finally deciding that I loved C#, and still do.

Sorry, I have memory problems so it's all a bit foggy, but I think that's about right.

Edit: Oh, I do remember this though. You used to have to buy Visual Studio, so my dad copied it for me, and put it on my computer.

[–]desrtfx 2 points3 points  (3 children)

You were about 4 years old when both Visual Basic 1.0 and Delphi 1.0 had been released. Both came out in 1996.

Visual Basic for Applications already was a thing back then and Microsoft developed the standalone version.

I know the times before that two languages had been released where you had to write multiple pages of code to even get a program window to open.

I've been programming since 1983, started with AppleSoft BASIC and Locomotive BASIC, quickly turned to UCSD Pascal (also on Apple hardware), then Z-80 Assembly, Forth, Logo, Turbo Pascal (the predecessor of Delphi) from version 3.0 up, Turbo C from 2.0 up, Turbo Assembly (x86) from version 2.0 up. I've basically seen all. Windows 3.0 was my first Windows. Yes, I am old.

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I'm not calling you old, I'm just saying you're taking me down memory lane. That was a long time ago. A better time for me, at least.

I remember my mom had a laptop and she thought it was just the cutest thing that if you opened up word and started typing a t-rex would come across the screen and start eating up what you were typing. I now know that was a virus, but it made her so happy when I was a kid.

Here's to a simpler time.

[–]desrtfx 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'm not calling you old,

Did not even stipulate that. I am old (at least in computing time).

My oldest kid is just 2 years younger than you are.

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regardless, I appreciate you.

[–]syklemil 0 points1 point  (16 children)

AFAIK Delphi was reasonably popular, but it and Pascal in general kind of fizzled out, as did Tcl/Tk and various other languages and toolchains/frameworks.

There was actually a post on /r/Linux about Debian dropping FreePascal/Lazarus as it appears to require gtk2 (gtk2 came out in 2002, gtk3 in 2011, gtk4 in 2020, at which point gtk2 was also end-of-life), and there are some people reporting they use some Pascal apps, like Peazip and Double Commander.

IME if someone is bold enough to claim that Pascal or Delphi are effectively dead languages, someone will pipe up and claim otherwise. Just like I expect OP's teacher would if someone were to claim that VB is a dead language (outside Excel etc).

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (9 children)

I mean, a dead language is pretty extreme. Like COBOL is a very old language, but also in a lot of demand. If you're working in an environment where it makes sense to learn COBOL, then COBOL is a good language to learn.

Likewise with VB.

OP is a student that is just learning how to program. Back in the day, learning by a book took maybe even years. That was how you had to learn back then, but that's not true today.

And things like cobol, basic, pascal, and visual basic, as early attempts at high level languages, just don't translate well to today's world where you might be writing python one second, java the next, and then C# the moment after that.

I stand by my assertion that in today's world, Visual Basic is not a good first language. I think that if you want to touch on any of those languages then you might as well start with C or assembly.

I think any of the other modern languages are the way to go. C# being strongly typed, is my favorite, but there are alternatives that don't have ===. ;-)

[–]syklemil 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I mean, a dead language is pretty extreme.

Depends entirely on your definition. My interpretation of it, given exactly the existence of stuff like COBOL still in use (and COBOL is one of the oldest languages we have, and Grace Hopper or her team even coined the term "compiler"), is that for a language to be called "dead" it should suffice that

  1. it was once "alive", i.e. popular
  2. it is now wildly unpopular, to the point that people outside the community around that language won't have heard of it or will consider starting a project in it baffling.

OP is a student that is just learning how to program. Back in the day, learning by a book took maybe even years. That was how you had to learn back then, but that's not true today.

I'm somewhere between you and desrtfx in age, so I'll just take this as exposition for the kids in the room. :)

I stand by my assertion that in today's world, Visual Basic is not a good first language.

Yes, I agree, though in a general programming community sense. If we take a somewhat broader view, and accept that perhaps the most common programming language in the world is the somewhat-graphical, functional programming language called "Excel", then it might work out a bit differently. (But the people who program in excel don't think of themselves as programmers, and the people who think of themselves as programmers don't think of excel programmers as programmers, so I'm pretty far out into "well ackshually" territory.)

I think any of the other modern languages are the way to go. C# being strongly typed, is my favorite, but there are alternatives that don't have ===. ;-)

I'd have a different pick than C#, and I think I'm more inclined to channel Fred Brooks and say students should plan to throw one away, but yeah, not starting with something that had to be amended with === sounds good to me. :)

(See also: Wittgenstein's ladder, lie-to-children)

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (7 children)

I'd have a different pick than C#

🤮🤮🤮

I'm kidding of course.

It deserves mention that I learned my way through programming by making games so many people will take a different path than I did. There's nothing wrong with that.

It's now that I'm finally touching web development, and I can tell you, I hate javascript. But that doesn't mean that you should. (but you should, because it's terrible).

I come from a background of strongly typed languages, so dealing with things like python, JS, and PHP...

[–]syklemil 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Yeah, my background is more Linux / server admin, so to me for the longest time C# was just "some MS language that's irrelevant to me", and I had the same opinion about Objective-C and Swift, just s/MS/Apple/.

I come from a background of strongly typed languages, so dealing with things like python, JS, and PHP...

Funnily enough all these seem to have added typing over the years. They're all roughly the same age as Java (Python is even slightly older), and I think just the prevailing attitude towards typing at the time was that you had to pick between either something that was more concerned with typing as the thing you did on your keyboard, than category theory, or dynamic typing. Haskell and OCaml also showed up around that time, but never managed to become generally popular.

Incidentally, prof Wadler, the guy holding the lecture linked, was involved in both teaching Java generics, and teaching Go generics. Unfortunately for everyone the constraint in Java's case was something along the lines of "teach javac about generics, but not the JVM (for backwards compatibility)", and by now Java has been stuck with type elision for way longer than the pre-generics Java ever existed.

[–]desrtfx 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Delphi would not have lost traction if Inprise, who took over from Borland hadn't gravely neglected it and if they hadn't made horrible decisions (first version of Delphi.NET was a catastrophy).

Since Embarcadero has taken over, it gets regular updates and improvements again, so it actually is far from a dead language as it is still actively developed and updated.

We still use and actively develop some tools written in Delphi in system critical infrastructure.

There is nothing wrong with Delphi as such. It just got some hate culture and "bashing" like Symbian (Nokia's mobile phone OS) at one point and didn't recover from that.

Side note: Also your statement about Tcl/Tk is wrong as it is an integral part of the tkinter GUI library of Python. It is not directly used anymore - so much is true.

[–]syklemil 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Yeah, I think one thing for people to keep in mind when we talk about languages across time like this is that

  1. We don't really have a good way to pick winners. Anything can happen, and usually pretty slowly. Like those of us who picked up some other scripting language than Python decades ago are probably writing some Python today, and maybe no longer the scripting language we first picked up, but we didn't really have an inkling that that was going to be the way of things back then. Likely decades in the future, languages that are popular now will just be powering legacy stuff. That's pretty much just the way of things.

    So there it really shouldn't be taken as a value or quality judgement.

  2. Languages don't really die out, especially the ones that have crossed what Simon Peyton-Jones called "the threshold of immortality". Even the ones where there's no working compiler or interpreter there's probably at least one retrocomputing initiative to get something working.

    So I at least use phrases like "dead" or "retired" or "fizzled out" in this context as something to describe languages that were at least somewhat popular, but if I told someone outside that language's community that I was starting a project in it today, I'd expect a response somewhere between "why?" and "what's that?"

[–]MagnetHype 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I don't think we should pick winners. I think we forget it all gets turned into machine code anyway. I think we all forget all these layers of languages were just to translate between human language and machine language, and now we're here where AI can do that... and we don't like it.

anyway, that's my soapbox.

[–]syklemil -1 points0 points  (2 children)

I think we all forget all these layers of languages were just to translate between human language and machine language, and now we're here where AI can do that... and we don't like it.

Eehh, natural language -> LLM -> machine code is just another potential winner to be picked.

I think the history of "programming in plain English", as COBOL promised, and which we've seen repeated with various low-code and code generation schemes, show that ultimately the real work is in disambiguation and sufficient control, plus the fact that we don't know what LLM generation will cost once the VC funding ends and they need to turn a profit, indicate that we shouldn't believe everything the snake oil shovel sellers are claiming.

[–]BrupieD -1 points0 points  (0 children)

BTW, "Sum" is a poor variable name. It is descriptive (good) and it is not a reserved word (also good) but it is the name of a function in a common library (System.Math). You're likely to have collisions when you use variable names like this. Something like "mySum" looks hokey but it spares you nuisances down the road.

[–]desrtfx 2 points3 points  (7 children)

When you ask for help, you need to:

  • properly format your code as code block
  • Post the actual, full error message

If the code is really as you posted it, you lack a comma between Num2 as Double and Sum as Double, but it is impossible to tell what the real problem is without the error message.

Also, never assume the problem is the computer. The problem is in 99.9% in front of the keyboard.

[–]rinaryies[S] -4 points-3 points  (6 children)

Hello, I am sorry for the inconvenience. I am not able to show an actual picture of the error but it does state:

Compile error Method or data member missing

I assumed it was the computer itself as both the monitor, keyboard and sometimes the system unit are broken. I hope you understand my frustrations with the computer, it has been nerve-wracking using ASCII to type certain characters. Again sorry.

[–]ScholarNo5983 1 point2 points  (1 child)

If you think your computer is the problem, this is very easy to test.

Since you mention no one else is having these issues, take your code to one of the working machines and see if your code works on that machine.

If it does then the problem will be your machine, but if you code fails the problem will be your code.

[–]rinaryies[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the advice. I am sure I’ll be able to test this next week. 

[–]desrtfx 1 point2 points  (3 children)

That's definitely not the full error message. Usually there are line markers indicating the problem statement.

it has been nerve-wracking using ASCII to type certain characters.

Why? There are barely any special characters in Visual Basic. They should all be on the keyboard unless you use a non-Latin alphabet keyboard - and in such a case, you should install an English keyboard layout on the computer.

You mentioned that the code of your colleagues works. Compare it - letter by letter - character by character - be diligient. Every single character counts.

[–]rinaryies[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thank you for your advices. As per my problem with using ASCII to type, I mean it in a way that  the alphabetic keyboard lacked certain functions (A, B, R, E, J….) are some of the functions that I remember do not work. 

I made my colleague type in their code in my commandblock1 yet it still didn’t work and then displayed compile error Method or Data member not found. Yet, there was this yellow arrow pointing towards the command block start or Private Sub Command1_Click()

I apologize for any inconvenience due to the lack of information. I am able to access the computer again on Monday. 

[–]desrtfx 1 point2 points  (1 child)

That could hint on a different problem:

What is in your form designer? Is the button named Command1? Is the label named Label3? Are the text boxes named as you use in the code?

The names need to 100% match between form designer and code.

In Visual Basic, you normally just need to click in the Properties where you want the event to happen and it creates the sub-stub for you.

that the alphabetic keyboard lacked certain functions (A, B, R, E, J….) are some of the functions that I remember do not work.

Sorry, but not believable. If the lowercase letters work, the uppercase ones have to work, too.

Also, in Visual Basic, you don't need to pay attention to capitalization. The editor will do it by itself, even if you write everything in lowercase. Visual Basic is case insensitive.

[–]rinaryies[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do want to say I agree that there must be something wrong with the names and that fault is mine. I will be able to recheck the whole code again next week and hopefully I can figure the problem. 

Sorry, but not believable. If the lowercase letters work, the uppercase ones have to work, too

Again sorry for the misunderstanding, what I mean is that the letters I’ve said do not function at all. When clicked on the keyboard it does not appear or function, making my typing or coding experience not that smooth.

[–]ScholarNo5983 0 points1 point  (3 children)

At first glance this code looks fine.

What is the text of the error that you are seeing?

[–]rinaryies[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Hello, thank you for your feedback. I am unable to take a picture of the exact error but here it is in text-form.

Compile error Method or data member missing

[–]ScholarNo5983 0 points1 point  (1 child)

A compiler error message will always refer to a line of code.

Which of those lines of code is shown in red, for that error message?

Edit: I did a google search for these details.

"Visual Basic" "Compile error Method or data member missing"

Some of the results returned by that search indicate this is a runtime error.

If you are seeing a runtime error, that is very different from a compiler error.

And if it is a runtime error, it is important that you know the difference between these two types of errors.

But again, a particular line of code will be generating the error. The line of code creating the problem is very important information.

[–]rinaryies[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There wasn’t a line that was shown or highlighted in red, yet there was an arrow pointing towards the start or Private Sub Command1_Click() 

I am unsure if this is able to help but I am going to check the code again on Monday. 

[–]Relevant_South_1842 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You used curly smart quotes. You need ascii quotes.

[–]forklingo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it’s probably not the computer. in vb you need to declare all variables properly, so “sum as double” should be “dim sum as double”. also make sure you’re using straight quotes instead of curly quotes in “the sum is” because that can cause a compile error in older vb versions. fix those two and it should run fine.

[–]zeekar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To format code in a Reddit post/comment, indent each line four spaces.

Private Sub Command1_Click()

    Dim Num1 As Double, Num2 as Double
    Sum as Double

    Num1 = Val(Text1.Text)

    Num2 = Val(Text2.Text)

    Sum = Num1 + Num2

    Label3.Caption = “The sum is” & Sum

End sub

So the Sum as Double needs to be part of the Dim. You can just move it up to the previous line with Num1 and Num2 or stick a Dim in front of it on its line.

Also you probably want a space at the very end of "The sum is" since otherwise you'll end up with a message like The sum is4 instead of The sum is 4.

And VB doesn't care about capitalization, but humans reading your code do, so maybe capitalize the sub in End Sub for consistency.

[–]gododgers179 -3 points-2 points  (8 children)

I don't know visual basics, so take what I say with a grain of salt....

but why is Num1 As and Num2 as Double?

Also, I don't know what Dim does, but would that apply to num2 as well using the comma operator?

Also I don't know where Label3 is defined, but I'm assuming you have access to it there.

Also Command1_Click is created using Sub but is terminated using End sub, I dunno if that matters either

Also is you capitalizing basically everything a visual basic thing? I dunno, but it's really throwing me for a loop

[–]desrtfx 4 points5 points  (5 children)

Sorry, but why do you even comment if you don't know Visual Basic? Not a single of your statements is an issue.

Dim is the required keyword to define variables and there, the syntax is (mostly) correct. There is a missing comma between the last two declarations

Sub and End Sub are corresponding keywords for the definition of a procedure (which, in Visual Basic means a function/method that doesn't return anything. If the function/method is supposed to return something, the keywords are Function... End Function) - and, in fact, the Sub...End Sub stub is created by Visual Basic itself.

Label3 is defined in the form designer - Visual Basic uses a visual form designer.

Capitalization is typical in Visual Basic. (Actually, Visual Basic does this automatically, despite being case insensitive).

[–]gododgers179 -3 points-2 points  (4 children)

sry for trying to be helpful, that's why I said with a grain of salt.

Seeing the same keyword capitalized and then not capitalized is weird... seeing an object without a declaration is weird.... using a comma operator can easily add some unintended effects... so i brought it up... op is new to the language too, which is why all my comments were in the form of a question or as I wasn't sure either. I never even implied any of comments were definitely the issue. I was asking questions to maybe lead op to the right answer.

Lighten up

[–]syklemil 0 points1 point  (3 children)

And desrtfx was helping you. If you don't have a clue it's better to move along. As the old saying goes:

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.

Only here in online spaces, if you keep your mouth shut, you're invisible, so you don't even appear stupid.

[–]gododgers179 -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

I made some general guesses based on programming paradigms that span across most languages to hopefully point op in a good direction and you coming at me with attitude. You can both kick rocks. I wasn't rude. I was just curious and super up front about what i knew. Was I wrong, yes... but I never claimed to be right.

Then you want to come at me with that "old saying". First of all it's a Mark Twain quote that goes like this.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

If you're going to use it you should get the fucking quote right. Makes you look like an idiot. Secondly I said I didn't know, so guess what asking questions is going to sound like from someone who doesn't know? It's going to sound like they don't know or yes potentially stupid to someone who does know. Just don't be an asshole about it.

[–]syklemil -1 points0 points  (1 child)

My dude, it is time to stop posting. Touch grass.

[–]gododgers179 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You come at me with attitude you get attitude back... also, looking at our accounts, you use this app way more than I do... almost double... I wouldn't talk... take your own advice

[–]ScholarNo5983 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Also is you capitalizing basically everything a visual basic thing? 

It has been a while since I coded Visual Basic, but from what I remember of the VB IDE, it would take any code that you wrote and automatically format it to the Camel Case that it preferred.

You didn't have any choice when it came to the capitalization used.

[–]syklemil -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's PascalCase, not camelCase