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Nice project though as someone else said it basically replaces one proprietary commercial VBA with another proprietary commercial VBA. There have been at least

Nice project though as someone else said it basically replaces one proprietary commercial VBA with another proprietary commercial VBA. There have been at least a couple of those who ended up being abandoned. Also the cost is both very high (after a handful of months you'd have paid more than what VB3 standard was sold for and the IDE certainly looks way less functional than VB3) and lacks any perpetual license. Also it isn't mentioned anywhere in the preorder page, but since it requires a subscription, that means that it most likely uses some form of online checking DRM, which in turn means that when the company shuts down and/or abandons the project, all that money would be lost forever. That said i tried the demo version a bit and seemed to be ok, at least unlike other VB-clone attempts this one seems to have a visual designer (though very primitive). The IDE was a bit buggy and very sluggish and the theme felt very alien and not that well made. Why not use native controls like the applications themselves? The way it looks and feels now is like those early WPF demos, full with sluggish motion and blurry text.

stormdennis 4y ago
There is a free community edition, no?
- rst 4y ago
  With significant restrictions (most notably a nag screen at application startup).
- rbanffy 4y ago
  It's still proprietary. It's just free as in beer.
orra 4y ago
> as someone else said it basically replaces one proprietary commercial VBA with another proprietary commercial VBA. Yeah, that's definitely a downside. I appreciate the author believes they can commercialise this more successfully if it's proprietary, but /personally/ I'd prefer something open source. One day I'll finish my own open source VB6 clone. > There have been at least a couple of those who ended up being abandoned. You're right. History is littered with abandoned VB6 replacements. Anybody remember GNOME Basic? Nonetheless, credit where credit is due. Technologically, it looks like TwinBASIC has good foundations. It had a language server, although the VSCode extension is on hold for now. It imports VB6 project files, unlike looser VB6 alternatives like Gambas. And a combined Dim / Let (=) statement is long overdue.

stormdennis 4y ago

There is a free community edition, no?

rst 4y ago
With significant restrictions (most notably a nag screen at application startup).
rbanffy 4y ago
It's still proprietary. It's just free as in beer.

orra 4y ago

> as someone else said it basically replaces one proprietary commercial VBA with another proprietary commercial VBA. Yeah, that's definitely a downside. I appreciate the author believes they can commercialise this more successfully if it's proprietary, but /personally/ I'd prefer something open source. One day I'll finish my own open source VB6 clone. > There have been at least a couple of those who ended up being abandoned. You're right. History is littered with abandoned VB6 replacements. Anybody remember GNOME Basic? Nonetheless, credit where credit is due. Technologically, it looks like TwinBASIC has good foundations. It had a language server, although the VSCode extension is on hold for now. It imports VB6 project files, unlike looser VB6 alternatives like Gambas. And a combined Dim / Let (=) statement is long overdue.