I started with VB 1.0 for DOS, (before that I used PDQ) and used VB all the way to 6.0 - I agree there hasn't been anything like it since. However some of the

I started with VB 1.0 for DOS, (before that I used PDQ) and used VB all the way to 6.0 - I agree there hasn't been anything like it since. However some of the downsides included DLL hell and requiring 3rd party components for functions like TCP/IP (IP-Works) and more advanced UI elements and so on. I remember investing quite a lot in such components - I recall componentsource.com as being a key marketplace. I think one of the main issues was OS integration, hooking into Win32 required all kinds of incantations. Decompilers were also an issue. It brings back memories of a much simpler time in terms of development, especially the UI editor - it was so fast to just draw a few forms and hook them up to code. I used it a lot for statistics type interfaces, and CRUD type systems, however I wrote a P2P communication tool back in 2000 that even had VOIP. I also recall writing a game that wrapped OpenGL and running it on my SGI520 Windows NT box. So much fun. I transitioned to .NET and C# and didn't look back or bother with VBScript. However I recall at the time feeling so abandoned by Microsoft, having to learn another complete system from scratch - existing projects didn't come across cleanly. Anyhow... just a bit of a greybeard rant about the 'good old times'... Just as an aside - after playing around with BBC Basic during covid, I was so impressed how OS calls were implemented in the language. If VB integrated with Win32 to the same level BBC basic integrates with RiscOS it would have been pretty much the perfect tool in my opinion.