The real reason VB6 was destroyed was that Microsoft management wanted to be able to “justify” the price of the Enterprise Edition of their visual studio, and it was easier with more languages. They had become so big and so lost in their corporate-think and wealth-blindness that they didn’t (and let’s face it, never really have) care what their customers wanted, need or thought.

Microsoft is the poster child of what’s bad about Big Business. And yes, just as did the kings and emperors and czars of old, someday they too will fall before the serfs they currently abuse and ignore.

VB6 produces programs that can do plenty of useful things. Whether it’s a “real programming language” or not, doesn’t matter. What matters is that Microsoft chose what was good for themselves over what was good for their customers, and that violates the primary rule of business: don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

For those of you who claim “real programmers just deal”, I pity you. The BS you guys an gals put up with in every direction (from MS, from each other and from employers and customers) is why I ended up not getting a degree in programming. But taking up the flag of the enemy isn’t going to help you. It just perpetuates the BS that’s making you get ulcers and lose your hair faster.

If you want a real programming language, learn and use Assembler. VB was never supposed to be a “professional” programming language. MS made it one because the market responded by hiring people who didn’t know programming otherwise to code cheaper than someone who knew C++, for instance. Now that VB had been “brought up to professional standards”, what’s the point? It’s not as good as almost any other Visual Studio language. And what are we, who write programs for personal use, left with?

I learned VB as a hobby in my spare time a long time ago. Now I run a business, and if you think I have time to learn a new language, you’re sadly mistaken. But learn I must, and I have decided to learn a cross compiler that runs on Linux and compiles for Linux, Windows and Mac.

Microsoft can kiss my butt. Watch what happens to them between 2016 and 2019. They’ll get theirs. You’re never too big to suffer when you bite the hand that feeds you. Business 101.

Yes I agree, there is a lot of legacy code out there. There will always be legacy code, look at COBOL.

Those legacy programs (if built well) will continue to serve well.

Legacy programs will continue to work even without Microsoft’s official support. So I don’t see the issue. Its a natural progression, the old will co-exist with the new until the old die out.

So I’m not ignoring this concern (as it does exist as you have rightly pointed out), I feel that its not much of an issue.

VB6 will never die. There are a trillion lines of VB6 code in the world. Someone is going to need to maintain that. The Terminals at Person International Airport are run on PASCAL and the half dozen programmers that still know that language are paid extremely well.

VB.not was a bad idea. It took the single largest programming language in the world and destroyed it. Period.

I’ve work commercially in VB.NET and C# (I’m fluent in both), and I’m learning Haskell & F#, among others.

I can personally say that Microsoft has done the right thing, looking back, I can chart my personal growth as a developer.

If your are not willing to learn, and learn constantly then you are simply not a real programmer or programming is not for you.

I do not mean to offend any one, but you need to stop and think really hard for a moment.

Even though .NET might be better addressing some programming issues compared to VB6, it would have killed many supports for it; due to the fact that many will be afraid of such betrayal in the future.
As a result, lots of people are now switching from Microsoft’s to an Open Source’s. This is too dangerous for Microsoft.

My conclusion is that even though you invest in a proprietary platform, ensure you work along with an open-source as compliments to your investment, so that your loss will not be too much when the proprietor fails.

that is why to me windows is a dead company.

bing, vista, office., and .NET are just some of the things microsoft has screwed up with radical changes and dumbass alterations. and now, they just threw vista underneath the bus.

what about all the people with vista that DOESN’T WORK that think they should get a refund?

when i first got my vista pc, windows EXPLORER crashed on a daily basis. and even after all the problems in it have been “fixed” it still crashes. sometimes all i can do is reboot until it works again. my antivirus program says nothing is wrong (norton internet security 2010) so it must be this failed example of too much change too fast

if vista would’ve had the visual changes as an OPTION along with XP *AND* CLASSIC, more people would have liked it.

but, having this OS as long as i have, i see a giant thats about to fall.

after all the bigger you are, the harder you fall. and windows is falling HARD to linux and mac.