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Why are people derisive towards Visual Basic?   [Edit]

Survey period: 19 Jan 2004 to 25 Jan 2004

VB has received a lot of flak over the years. Why? (Sent in by FruitBatInShades)

OptionVotes% 
Because it's horrible39726.97
Because they have never used it16611.28
Because people are programming snobs36124.52
Because they need to grow up1177.95
Because it's not a real programming language!43129.28



 
GeneralIf u are a good programmer,no language..... Pin
Allen_198181331-Jan-04 17:54
Allen_198181331-Jan-04 17:54 
GeneralRe: If u are a good programmer,no language..... Pin
Anonymous2-Jul-05 1:14
Anonymous2-Jul-05 1:14 
GeneralAre we talking VB3 or something here... Pin
stano25-Jan-04 16:29
stano25-Jan-04 16:29 
GeneralRe: Are we talking VB3 or something here... Pin
ERV28-Jan-04 9:38
ERV28-Jan-04 9:38 
GeneralRe: Are we talking VB3 or something here... Pin
stano28-Jan-04 14:31
stano28-Jan-04 14:31 
GeneralRe: Are we talking VB3 or something here... Pin
ERV28-Jan-04 20:07
ERV28-Jan-04 20:07 
GeneralVB suxx Pin
Artem Moroz25-Jan-04 6:00
Artem Moroz25-Jan-04 6:00 
GeneralSomeone has to say it Pin
Andrew Torrance25-Jan-04 2:22
Andrew Torrance25-Jan-04 2:22 
GeneralRe: Someone has to say it Pin
Anonymous25-Jan-04 5:05
Anonymous25-Jan-04 5:05 
GeneralRe: Someone has to say it Pin
Jonadab the Unsightly One31-Jan-04 4:15
Jonadab the Unsightly One31-Jan-04 4:15 
> VB is only popular today because Bill Gates
> has promoted it as Microsofts RAD tool.

VB is popular (in certain circles) because it is
easy to slap together a dialog box and a window
form quickly, so that your app *looks* like
something, which gives people the warm fuzzies.

> That is not to deny it is useful

No, it's useful alright. I had access to VB for
a couple of years in college, and it makes a nice
macro toolkit for Windows, I can tell you. I was
never able to justify that in my budget when I
left school, but that's because I keep a tight
budget.

> the fact that it is a syntactic mess

Syntax is not VB's problem. It's the semantics.
The whole event-oriented paradigm is essentially
a big pain. Tcl suffers from the same problem.
So does Lingo.

> when C# exists with a clean, well designed,

And here I was thinking that C# was based on C++
that was based on C, which itself was based on
earlier languages. "clean design"? What does
that mean, anyway? All serious modern computer
languages are based on earlier languages. Most
of them are based on C and/or lisp. (As a rule,
the ones based on C are more efficient with the
computer's resources, and the ones based on lisp
are more efficient with programmer time, but
those are gross overgeneralizations and should
not be taken too seriously.)

> Logic will win through , C# will become
> the language of choice

I doubt it. As RAM and CPU time get to be less
of an issue, languages that make the programmer's
job easier are beginning to take over. Except
for C#, all the hot new languages people are
getting excited about these days are VHLLs. Most
of them have garbage collection (which formerly
was viewed with disdain by everyone but lisp
programmers, due to efficiency issues). We're
now seeing languages with C-like syntax
(semicolons separating statements, unlike the
nested parentheses and such used by languages
based on lisp) getting garbage collection left
and right. Garbage collection itself is just
a symptom of a general trend, though -- a trend
toward languages that provide a higher level
of abstraction, taking more lowlevel details
out of the hands of the programmer. Dynamic
typing, string interpolation, lists as a builtin
data type, anonymous subroutines, implicit type
casting (e.g., automatically promoting an int
to a long and then to a bignum or whatever so
that there is no such thing as overflow),
strings that are dynamic in length so that
buffer overruns are a total non-issue, lazy
evaluation on demand, and all manner of other
niceties. There is not an MS Visual language
in this category yet as far as I am aware, but
there will be, soon.
GeneralIs VB portable like C/C++?? Pin
Prakash Nadar24-Jan-04 16:41
Prakash Nadar24-Jan-04 16:41 
GeneralRe: Is VB portable like C/C++?? Pin
WillemM25-Jan-04 1:47
WillemM25-Jan-04 1:47 
GeneralRe: Is VB portable like C/C++?? Pin
Jonadab the Unsightly One31-Jan-04 4:32
Jonadab the Unsightly One31-Jan-04 4:32 
GeneralRe: Is VB portable like C/C++?? Pin
zero.sg1-Feb-04 21:05
zero.sg1-Feb-04 21:05 
GeneralVB Pin
Anonymous23-Jan-04 3:06
Anonymous23-Jan-04 3:06 
GeneralRe: VB Pin
Anonymous23-Jan-04 8:10
Anonymous23-Jan-04 8:10 
GeneralRe: VB Pin
Jeremy Falcon23-Jan-04 17:10
professionalJeremy Falcon23-Jan-04 17:10 
GeneralI think we just found god! Pin
Fortner23-Jan-04 23:34
Fortner23-Jan-04 23:34 
GeneralRe: I think we just found god! Pin
Ellery_Familia24-Jan-04 2:08
Ellery_Familia24-Jan-04 2:08 
GeneralRe: I think we just found god! Pin
Anthony_Yio25-Jan-04 15:53
Anthony_Yio25-Jan-04 15:53 
GeneralRe: I think we just found an idiot! Pin
Jeremy Falcon24-Jan-04 4:14
professionalJeremy Falcon24-Jan-04 4:14 
GeneralIs that god speaking again? Pin
Fortner24-Jan-04 7:56
Fortner24-Jan-04 7:56 
GeneralRe: Is that god speaking again? Pin
Jeremy Falcon24-Jan-04 8:14
professionalJeremy Falcon24-Jan-04 8:14 
GeneralRe: I think we just found god! Pin
WillemM25-Jan-04 1:48
WillemM25-Jan-04 1:48 
GeneralRe: VB Pin
zero.sg25-Jan-04 5:42
zero.sg25-Jan-04 5:42 

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