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I've heard the same punchline in a long involved joke about a man who was taught to mediate in a hidden monastery in the Himalayas and who unscrewed his navel, but I wasn't expecting it here!
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It seems I got reported for alluding to the joke, now I've actually posted it I expect imminent arrest.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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Well, as long as it's gentle I don't mind.
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Mmm, very true, a friend of mine is contracting for an Energy Trading company that uses VB6 code to update the traders info feed, there is now apparently one guy in the UK office who has any idea of the system and has VB6 installed to update it. So I ask "why don't they upgrade the system" the 'traders' wont let them and being the Rock Stars of the company they are listened to more than the IT guys...
Does anybody see a problem/opportunity when these systems finally seize up they are going to need people to sort them out!
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The problem they're describing isn't due to the use of VB6.
The problem is their (big companies) inadequate evaluation of what "good enough" is. Problems as I see them:
0) Their complete lack of interest in retaining key personnel - the guys with tribal knowledge of complex systems, especially those who originate those systems.
1) Their lack of willingness to completely document a given system in the event that they lose key personnel.
2) Their lack of willingness to recognize that maintenance costs can be decreased if a given system is allowed to be completely re-imagined and/or refactored after five years of life. Refactoring is a great way to get newer people more familiar with the system because they had a hand in building it from the ground up.
3) The desire to offshore/outsource seemingly mundane tasks, such as Q/A simply because it costs less money. People who have no subject matter knowledge and no familiarity with a given system should NOT be writing test cases for that system without constant and studied supervision.
4) Adherence to a poor design (both the system and the test cases, regardless of how obvious the flaws are.
5) Not providing enough time for testing. This is and always will be the most egregious flaw.
6) Not performing a complete SDLC for a given system.
7) Not planning/designing for future upgrades/updates to the system.
8) "Minimum viable product" planning/design. This is such a waste of time that it's difficult to put my disdain for the phrase into words that can be used in mixed company. I've been told that it'll be okay if we have to throw away everything we did the last time and start from scratch in the next iteration of a system.
I could go on, but I think you see my point. The systems don't fail because of the tools used to create that system. The system fails because its improperly maintained and supported, even though the guys in charge KNOW that the tools that were used are a) no longer supported and b) rapidly falling out of common use. Look at COBOL as a great example of this. When it comes time to maintain a COBOL system, the talent is so rarely found that the price to hire them often exceeds what the cost would have been for the change-over you should have performed years ago.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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I charge a dead language fee for vb6 work. Unfortunately, no one will pay it. Seems the upper bar for fixing vb6 is lower than the lower bar for any other language, pay wise.
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Didn't you previously state that your VB6 surcharge was deliberately set high enough that you didn't expect anyone to ever say yes?
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Yes.
But the point remains, I still haven't seen a VB6 rate that I would consider if I really liked the language. You would think people would pay to get out of the mess but they are more interested in continued digging. I have pitched many companies on a 6 month plan to rebuild that is cheaper than their 5 year plan of keep doing and they all scoff. Good luck when they can't find a disk drive for the install. (At least I can actually pen and paper VB6 [actually I do so the summer before last])
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I'm doing quite well on it at the moment 
Believe it or not I'm also converting VB3 code to VB6 ... not by choice I hasten to add!! A senior manager read somewhere that there was a free program that could be downloaded to convert 3 to 6 and decided that was the way forward 
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They failed to mention one critical point. Constantly changing requirements lead to less than ideal code... 
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
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I don't understand a thing about this, but it seems like an achievement, and involves CP.
Well done, then ! ![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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Congratulations, Marc !
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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I don't like the idea that the administrator can view user files/documents. Do you think the current windows user management should be changed?
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That's the whole idea of an administrator: he is supposed to be able to see things - otherwise he can't fix them for you when you have a problem...
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But Griff, he's got some very important pr0n on the machine that just crashed, and now he doesn't want the admin to find out WHY it crashed!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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Garry Glitter round 2! 
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OriginalGriff wrote: That's the whole idea of an administrator: he is supposed to be able to see things - otherwise he can't fix them for you when you have a problem...
Sounds like:
That's the whole idea of the NSA: they are supposed to be able to see things - otherwise they can't fix them for you when you have a problem...
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Don't knock them. I've got rid of all my cloud backups - I figure I can just get it back from then when I need to.
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OriginalGriff wrote: he is supposed to be able to see things
Bad argument; he doesn't need to be able to read each word-document to determine whether the last updates are installed.
OT: The admin is the owner. It's that simple.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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What does administrator has to do to fix issues?
cheers,
Super
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Too much of good is bad,mix some evil in it
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Simple: create a super-admin role.
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Eventually, we'll have the amazing-stupendous-iron-man-super-admin role!
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