4 ms·

I learned Visual Basic 6 from a cousin when I was 8 years old. It was such a joy to use, and made me fall in love with programming. It was so intuitive to use a

I learned Visual Basic 6 from a cousin when I was 8 years old. It was such a joy to use, and made me fall in love with programming. It was so intuitive to use as an 8 year-old. And while Dijkstra might disapprove, the Basic language of VB6 was really simple and easy to grasp as a kid. The coolest part was distribution. Under the File menu, you had an option to build a .exe file. I would build it and put the .exe file on 1.44 MB floppy disk, and share my little VB6 programs with friends. Such wonderful memories!

badsectoracula 8y ago
Dijkstra had issues with the older BASICs where the only way to control flow was with GOTOs and people flinging them all over the place. Visual Basic 6 (and QBasic before it) has Algol-like structures like subs, functions, while/repeat loops, etc so it would satisfy the issues Dijkstra had with older BASICs (if he'd dislike it for other reasons is another matter though). Most people just repeat Dijkstra's headlines without having even read his text, let alone understanding it.
specialist 8y ago
I know we're talking UI frameworks, but... I think we lost something important with the shift from workgroup to client/server (especially ODBC). I banged out a lot of dBase II, FoxBASE, MS Access (in-house) apps, back in the day. I've not felt as productive since. I miss it dearly.
- legulere 8y ago
  Software based on that still exists and it’s a hell to maintain.
  - Yetanfou 8y ago
    To which I can reply 'come back in 20 years and tell me about your experience maintaining something based on npm and friends'. At least those old crufty systems had the good grace of not having a best-before date measured in weeks. They might lack many other graces but for maintainability there is something to be said for a modicum of temporal stability when it comes to development environments.
    - TheOtherDave 8y ago
      +1, would agree with again

badsectoracula 8y ago

Dijkstra had issues with the older BASICs where the only way to control flow was with GOTOs and people flinging them all over the place. Visual Basic 6 (and QBasic before it) has Algol-like structures like subs, functions, while/repeat loops, etc so it would satisfy the issues Dijkstra had with older BASICs (if he'd dislike it for other reasons is another matter though). Most people just repeat Dijkstra's headlines without having even read his text, let alone understanding it.

specialist 8y ago

I know we're talking UI frameworks, but... I think we lost something important with the shift from workgroup to client/server (especially ODBC). I banged out a lot of dBase II, FoxBASE, MS Access (in-house) apps, back in the day. I've not felt as productive since. I miss it dearly.

legulere 8y ago
Software based on that still exists and it’s a hell to maintain.
- Yetanfou 8y ago
  To which I can reply 'come back in 20 years and tell me about your experience maintaining something based on npm and friends'. At least those old crufty systems had the good grace of not having a best-before date measured in weeks. They might lack many other graces but for maintainability there is something to be said for a modicum of temporal stability when it comes to development environments.
  - TheOtherDave 8y ago
    +1, would agree with again