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"It wants to be the true VB7 that never existed. And the compiler and runtime libraries will be open source."
Unicorn, Unicorn, Unicorn
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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I missed the bit were it also makes breakfast and rubs your back. 
TTFN - Kent
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Good for him. I reckon a lot of people (including people in corporate environments with some money to spend) will be pleased to see this.
I can see the same sort of thing being needed for VB(.NET) soon too. In a way it already is.
VB.NET is already falling behind C# features due to Microsoft's odd dislike of and disinterest in VB. One feature are local routines which C# has but VB does not. Why doesn't VB have them? Apparently because they aren't seen as useful in VB by the Microsofties in charge. What a bizarre idea. If they are using in C# then they'd be useful in VB.
I've mooted trying to write a VB-to-C# convertor. This is not as difficult as it sounds, especially as the C# and VB compilers are open source now. It wouldn't be compiling VB direct to IL but the parser code would be useful as a base to be able to reliably parse VB (including LINQ and XML literals). Outputting C# is really not difficult from what I can see.
This would also give the software the ability to add new features to this new-VB in an upwardly compatible manner to more closely match some of C#'s recent additions.
The biggest effort would not be the VB-to-C# transpiler itself but would be building a VS addon to support editing the new-VB from within VS and automating new-VB-to-C#-to-IL transpile/compile process, as well as debugging.
Economic sustainability is the question. Would there be a paying market for it? Carles Royan thinks so with RAD Basic and he has designed what looks to me like a sustainable licensing scheme with open source entry points.
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markrlondon wrote: VB.NET is already falling behind C# features due to Microsoft's odd dislike of and disinterest in VB
It's not odd in the sense that VB is heavily maligned by masses of MS-centric developers and others. So Microsoft is probably reacting to that, to an extent. Didn't they recently say it was the end of the road for VB or something?
Personally, although I prefer C#, I've also done a lot of both VB Classic and .NET. I don't really get the hate. There's much worse stuff out there!
Kevin
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For better or for worse, this project is on track to fail to meet it's funding goal by massive 72%:
RAD Basic: a 100% compatible Visual Basic 6 solution by Carles Royan :: Kicktraq
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing 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
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Founder says the infinityQube operates at room temperature and can integrate with existing high-performance computers. Good news for sales people?
Because I hear that the death of a salesman is a sad thing
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IT decision-makers are embracing Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE, to simplify and centralize the entire process of managing both networking and security while saving money. Self-Addressed Stamped Envelopes?
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Like so many other companies, Google is getting ready to welcome thousands of employees back to the office, while trying to figure out how to make the office a safer, more functional, more collaborative environment for a hybrid future. How about bouncy castles?
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There are plenty of times in my career when I’ve stored a boolean and later wished I’d had a timestamp. There are zero times when I’ve stored a timestamp and regretted that decision. Is it time?
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Echoing an earlier report on the popularity of ASP.NET in the .NET/C# tech stack, a new survey from the .NET Foundation finds the web framework dominates the ranking of app models used by respondents. That web thing might just stick around
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Why are even experienced software engineers drawn to shiny new technology like moths to a flame? A personal account of learning the hard way: You have to balance your curiosity with your business’s goals. All at once, and only when the project is already late?
Or is that just my managers?
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From a graphic in the article: Trough of disillusionment
My new catchphrase!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Oh Great Ghu, yes!
My personal trough of disillusionment with a new technology was achieved in the very early 2000's. I thought Windows COM sounded like a great way to construct a plug-in architecture for our application. I got it working - finally. This was despite piss-poor documentation and non-functional samples from Microsoft. No one building COM applications used the same vocabulary, or even defined terms in the same way. I still don't know what the ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) a COM moniker is for. Often there were three ways to do a particular thing, and it was only the fifth method you tried that actually worked. If I'm being honest, I believe I spent an order of magnitude more time developing the COM plug-in mechanism than if I'd used something based on DLL's and well-known entry points.
This application is still being maintained today, and is still using the plug-in architecture. I've refactored the code sufficiently that the plug-ins are fairly consistent. Creating a new one means copying an existing one and changing some GUID's in a header file and identifiers in the source files. Yes, it sounds like copy-paste programming. It's not done out of ignorance, but out of the knowledge that this method guarantees that all of the COM bits and bobs are in the right place and pointed in the correct direction.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Quote: piss-poor documentation and non-functional samples from Microsoft
True! Good for you! I'm not sure if I'd have the gumption to tackle something like that. I kind of miss the days of assembly programming using the old 68HC11 from Motorola, great documentation, good examples.  The good 'ol days.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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jeron1 wrote: I'm not sure if I'd have the gumption to tackle something like that
In hindsight is wasn't gumption so much as foolish pride. Early in the project I decided this was A Good Idea, despite other folks being skeptical. I had to prove them wrong, you see. It was also written in C++ using MFC, which meant COM was a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult than in the nascent VB or C# world.
I learned my lesson, however. A new product started in 2008 has a similar plug-in approach. This one was implemented in C#/.NET using a tiny bit of reflection during startup to enumerate plug-ins. Vastly simpler and far fewer problems outside the application.
One of the benefits of becoming A Wise Old Head is learning when to cut your losses, admit your mistakes, and try something else.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: One of the benefits of becoming A Wise Old Head is learning when to cut your losses, admit your mistakes, and try something else.
Wise words indeed. 
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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There is only one right way - let someone else go for it and then read about their horror stories. 
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 The correct answer 
TTFN - Kent
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i see dead javascript code...everywhere...
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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“The reality is that Google has fundamentally sucked most of the oxygen out of the opportunities for people who create content to actually earn a living through advertising,” said Smith, who is Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer. In this crazy, topsy-turvy world, it's nice to know that some things will never change
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Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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Facebook is also ramping up internal developer support for Rust after targeting infrastructure written in C++. Looks like we have ourselves a bandwagon. Everyone aboard!
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Didn't they say the same about D a couple of years ago. I thought that Facebook was a commonly-quoted example of where D is (was) being used in the real world.
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markrlondon wrote: Didn't they say the same about D a couple of years ago.
Yes, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have gotten much traction. Wiki mentions Facebook, eBay and Netflix as prominent users. But there's no mention of D in that article.
So Rust now has most of the biggest of Big Tech behind it - Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook. Just Apple who are missing.
I've been learning Rust in the past few weeks. There was another thread last week I think. Apart from the systems programming space it looks like it may have a sweet spot in WebAssembly where you can script high-perf and memory-safe components (say ML) from JavaScript or TypeScript.
It has a tough learning curve though. In rewriting one of my own programs from C# to Rust I was stuck for several days at one point trying to get it to compile! I got there in the end but it's just the first version I could get working, probably nowhere near idiomatic or even in the form I tried to get it into. But you have to walk before you can run. I did some timings (on a small ML example based on a book):
Python - 22s
C# - 1s
Rust Debug - 12s
Rust Release - 0.36s
At first I was horrified by the Rust Debug time then read:
"A release build typically runs much faster than a debug build. 10-100x speedups over debug builds are common!"
I guess I ought to do a C++ version but I haven't done any for over a decade and I don't currently have it installed.
Kevin
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I believe that there are two main reasons software engineers don’t write documentation. Tools play their part but they are a hugely distant third. Present company not included. (I hope)
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