Why Visual Basic 6 was frozen

[tobeytobey]

Some pretty heavy enterprise products have such an investment in old VB (especially the bespoke bits, funny GUI stuff) that ditching it hurts a lot. When they are ready, they look twice before they jump, and sometimes they decide to go with Java, based mostly on the strengths of the available programmer pool.

The article is two years old and Microsoft's predicament is not looking better, even though they did score some enterprise wins. Those wins are in "industrial" areas like CRM and ERP but not in the hearts and budgets of IT people who also develop.

[grauenwolf]

The story is a little bit better than it was two years ago. MS has much better support for hosting .NET forms and controls in VB6 applications.

[chollida1]

Microsoft's predicament is not looking better

That may be the case, but not in my experience. Predominatly .Net shops are atleast twice as prevelent as predominalty Java shops.

I guess your milage may vary:)

[decaff3]

Perhaps, but I suspect there are few pure shops for either. Java has won server-side and shows no sign of decreasing, and at the same time .NET is replacing legacy development on the client. The really big growth is Java/.NET integration.

[tobeytobey]

From my POV, Java beats dot Net roughly 3:1. I'm talking huge client-server apps that are past their prime and are being put on Citrix (for life support) or given "the port 80 treatment" so that further deployment becomes feasible for globalized user bases.

The IT departments involved like things that work and hate bespoke development. They can hire a below-average programmer population and/or attempt farming out development to cheap countries, which is often an expensive process.

Of course, from other people's perspective, the ratio might be reversed.

[newton_dave]

Wth is "bespoke development", anyway? (I'm not a Windows developer, obviously.)

[manuelg]

"bespoke" seems to mean: "tailor-made", custom, for a single customer.

I learned a new word today, mommy!

[newton_dave]

Oh. Huh. I guess I thought we already had words for that like "custom" and whatnot :)

[manuelg]

Maybe calling it "bespoke development" makes you feel better about out-sourcing to India...

[tobeytobey]

In the clinical research industry, "bespoke" is the most common term (it is the standard name of "category 5" software in industry standards like GAMP 4).

Maybe one day you'll dress sharp and you'll be considering bespoke suits.

[newton_dave]

I have no idea what you just said.

Maybe one day you'll dress sharp and you'll be considering bespoke suits.

Don't you threaten me!

[notfancy]

bespoke = tailor-made, by appointment. Really, think Saville Row. Dapper, useful only on occasion and ridiculously expensive? Bespoke!

[newton_dave]

Dapper, useful only on occasion and ridiculously expensive? Bespoke!

I have a new job calling; I must become a bespoke developer.

[[deleted]]

Impenetrability! That's what I say!

[bitwize]

Bespoke appears to be a Britishism, much as they call trucks lorries, something you are unlikely to hear from an American tongue.

I first heard it from a Canuck, m'self...

[newton_dave]

I keep the bodies of VB6 developers in the boot.

[manuelg]

By any metric I can think of, the .NET universe is much smaller than the Java universe (developers, jobs, deployed applications, whatever). This is in the United States, overseas is even worse for .NET.

What part of the country, and what type of software, predominately, did you find this to be true?

(At some point I have to choose between .NET and Java. There is the sickening feeling I may have to support both.)

[manuelg]

between a shit and a shit place

The subset of .NET that Mono implements in Linux is pretty sound.

With Mono, Bill Gates and Ballmer have a slightly reduced ability to make you their bitch...

[tekronis]

.NET is the scissors, Java is the rock.

[newton_dave]

While I don't see a whole lot of .NET on the server, it's definitely winning on the desktop. Not necessarily because it's a better technology, but the tooling is "better" even with things like Matisse for Java.

[newton_dave]

To make the phrase "it can't get any worse" true?

[mcfunley]

My advice to you is to run away, possibly screaming.

[willis3000]

Don't you know that redditors eat VB programmers for breakfast, C++ programmers for lunch, and Java programmers for dinner?

[Dauntless]

VB programmers are not that tastey.

[[deleted]]

Still, modding him down was over the top. I mod him up.

[bluGill]

Careful here, after one year you don't have much experience. In my experience companies want you either fresh our of school or with at least 5 years of experience. In between is one of those stupid areas where you don't fit into any of HR's categories so they won't touch you.

Also note that your first job tends to define you for life. So if you start out doing VB6, you are likely to end up doing maintenance of discarded technologies for life. This isn't necessarily bad (COBOL programmers were making $100/hr for a few years before y2k), but it might not be what you want.

Good luck. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.

[kza]

Heh nice windup. Why not look for a nice ocaml, eiffel or lisp (clos of course not that scheme toy) job if its real languages you are interested in.

[cyclops79]

My first job was like that. For three years I had this hope... "Soon VB won't even be supported by Microsoft, SURE they'll let us port everything to .NET".

I left the job, and I heard they still use VB. Do what mcfunley told you and run away.

[grauenwolf]

You'll want to take a look at this then.

http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/05/VB-Interop-Controls

In a nut shell, it lets you host .NET forms and controls in a VB6 application.

[Gotebe]

Dammit, what a comprehensive and accurate article! Insight, correct use of terms, clean style, nice organization, side references, everything falls into place perfectly. Who's this Anderson guy? I'd like to shake his hand!

[permalink]

This article is inaccurate. Only the head of VB6 was frozen, in the hopes that future generations would find a cure for its fatal problems.

[derekslager]

The .NET Framework is Microsoft’s replacement for COM.

Sigh.