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Re: java developers

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On 12/5/2011 4:31 AM, Silvio Bierman wrote:
> On 12/05/2011 04:28 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 12/3/2011 4:51 AM, Silvio Bierman wrote:
>>> Luckily I have almost always been in a position where I could work with
>>> my language of choice. In the remaining cases I have been forced to use
>>> languages like Visual Basic (I disagree with other posters that it is
>>> the right tool for anything except for further messing up an existing VB
>>> program),
>>
>> VB was actually a very good language for what it was intended
>> to be used for.
>>
>
> I personally disagree strongly. At the time I was forced to use VB6 I
> was an experienced Win API programmer using C++ with extensive knowledge
> about the internals of DLLs, ODBC, COM, MTS and who remembers what else.

Which makes it a waste to have you do VB.

> First I had to use MFC where MS had done a very poor job of mapping the
> already crummy Win API to C++. But knowing what was under the hood made
> it somewhat manageable.
>
> Then I had to use VB6. I will hand it to you that making a very basic
> GUI is easy using VB. But anything beyond a toy application becomes a
> challenge. To develop something like a custom control or GUI building
> block and reuse that, possibly multiple times in the same application is
> impossible to do at the language level only. Perhaps it could be done
> with ActiveX but having done that in C++ and knowing what hassle and
> overhead it would introduce I never bothered with it in VB.
> Suddenly it became clear to me why the existing application I had to
> work on contained so much duplicate code.

There is a gazillion GUI's out there that does not need custom
controls, GUI building blocks etc. - they just need a form and to
execute a few lines when a button is clicked.

And there are millions of developers out there that can do that,
but would never be able to work with C++, MFC etc..

>> Java, C#, C++ etc. can do a lot of more sophisticated
>> stuff.
>>
>> But the typical business app GUI does not need sophisticated
>> stuff.
>>
>
> That depends on what you call sophisticated. The absence of object
> oriented language mechanisms makes programming an event driven GUI
> (which basically screams for an OO approach) kind of clumsy. I think you
> only get away with that if the business app is small. In my case it
> consisted of about 120K lines VB source.

Sure it becomes clumsy.

But if the VB guys is done with the app before the real
programmer has decided on the class hierarchy, then ...

>> Developers with good programming skills and lousy business
>> understanding tend to bad mouth VB - Mort etc., but ...
>>
>
> I have been running my own business for 17 years now so I suspect there
> are others who bad mouth VB, as you put it.

Never heard of Mort????

>                                          I think that there are two
> prominent reasons organizations use(d) VB on a new project: either the
> developers don't know any better (or put differently: there are no
> developers available who can work with different tools) or the project
> is (or at least starts out) very small. Both might apply. The projects
> that start small but then grow big are the ones where VB starts smelling
> bad.

It was often the fastest and cheapest way to get things done.

>> There are probably many reasons behind the Win8 WinRT change of
>> direction at MS.
>>
>> But I strongly suspect that one of the reasons is that MS has
>> realized that C# (and VB.NET) is not a good replacement for
>> VB for simple GUI's, so now they are trying with HTML, CSS and
>> JavaScript.
>
> I suspect this has little to do with deliberations about programing
> languages, they are an afterthought for them. MS has probably realized
> that their desktop oriented strategy is doomed in the not so long run
> and they need to move on towards mobile and cloud enabled apps etc.

So they create a new platform for desktop development, because they
think desktop development is doomed?

That does not make sense to me!

Arne

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java developers curixinfotech <curixinfotech.540mfz@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> - 2011-11-30 07:14 -0500
  Re: java developers Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-11-30 07:55 -0500
    Re: java developers Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-11-30 06:32 -0800
      Re: java developers Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-11-30 09:41 -0800
      Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-02 17:03 -0500
        Re: java developers Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2011-12-02 14:30 -0800
          Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-02 18:40 -0500
            Re: java developers Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-03 14:42 +0000
              Re: java developers Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-12-03 10:09 -0500
                Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-04 22:17 -0500
              Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-04 22:11 -0500
    Re: java developers curixinfotech <curixinfotech.54dibz@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> - 2011-12-07 05:56 -0500
  Re: java developers Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-02 01:48 -0800
  Re: java developers Rajiv Gupta <rajiv@invalid.com> - 2011-12-02 22:16 +1100
    Re: java developers David Segall <david@address.invalid> - 2011-12-02 23:17 +1100
      Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-02 16:29 -0500
        Re: java developers David Segall <david@address.invalid> - 2011-12-03 15:15 +1100
    Re: java developers Henk van Voorthuijsen <voorth@xs4all.nl> - 2011-12-02 03:39 -0800
    Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-02 14:43 +0100
    Re: java developers Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-12-02 07:32 -0800
    Re: java developers Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2011-12-02 18:18 +0100
      Re: java developers Rajiv Gupta <rajiv@invalid.com> - 2011-12-04 10:50 +1100
        Re: java developers Wojtek <nowhere@a.com> - 2011-12-03 19:43 -0800
        Re: java developers Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-04 10:56 +0000
        Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-05 11:00 +0100
          Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-05 22:38 -0500
            Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-06 10:33 +0100
          Re: java developers Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-06 21:17 +0000
            Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-07 15:09 +0100
  Re: java developers dsnitelex@gmail.com - 2011-12-02 21:51 -0800
    Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-03 10:51 +0100
      Re: java developers Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-03 11:41 -0400
      Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-04 22:28 -0500
        Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-05 10:31 +0100
          Re: java developers Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-05 22:35 -0500
            Re: java developers Silvio Bierman <silvio@moc.com> - 2011-12-06 10:25 +0100
        Re: java developers Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-06 21:10 +0000
    Re: java developers BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2011-12-05 22:52 -0800
      Re: java developers Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-06 06:49 -0400

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