5 ms·

Whoa. VB6 was totally what got me into software development as a kid. A blast from the past I needed today, thanks.

VBprogrammer 2y ago
Same. A pirate copy of VB6 and a download of some website which gave a reasonable introduction of how to do things. I remember doing things like using the Win32 API to get DMA to images so I could do pixel perfect collision detection between sprites etc. Fun times.
- chii 2y ago
  > A pirate copy of VB6 exactly how i did it as well! But it was a pirated copy of visual studio (6?) and it came in 6 CDs. I had no idea what it actually was, and just installed it and played around. I'm so glad that i bought those pirated CDs off the street - it was a huge stack of disks for like $50 bucks, and it included a bunch of pirated games, pirated encyclopedia (brittanica at the time iirc), various music software (cakewalk pro, not that i ever used it). There would not have been a chance in hell i'd discover these things by myself.
  - mobilio 2y ago
    6 CDs because VS6 comes with 3 CDs and 3CDs for MSDN. But later they switched to new format of MSDN and old IDEs can't use them. And there was some add-on that allow to old IDEs to use new MSDN format.
- acjohnson55 2y ago
  I have a very similar memory, building a Spacewar-type game and experimenting with low level stuff to try to get things flicker-free
sph 2y ago
Same. But it didn't take me long, with the exuberance of youth, to declare BASIC a worthless language, and then moved to MS Visual C++ 6. C++ and MFC was worse for different reasons, but then I discovered Linux and the rest is history. Still, haven't found anything as powerful as VB6's RAD. These days we lay out UIs by hand or by writing XML, like absolute cavemen.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Cavemen had declarative UIs?
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > Still, haven't found anything as powerful as VB6's RAD We could easily do this now if companies would accept standard UI component styles instead of everyone inventing their own.
  - sph 2y ago
    Layout has nothing to do with styling. The placement of a button has nothing to do whether it's a native one or it's green. Even on the web, the set of controls we use are mostly the same we did in the 90s, except everyone styles them differently.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      I didn't say otherwise.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      And everyone reinvents their own way to lay them out, and handle the dynamic consequences. It may or may not be a consequence of the web stack inherently tying together layout and styling; nevertheless the layout part was in the past done easier and better with visual tools.
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        I used WinForms for many years before going to the web when they slashed old dotnet. Flex and grid are better than the visual designers. Next.js pages router, React, Styled Components and devserver like Vite or Rsbuild is the best dev experience I have yet encountered. Fast Refresh / Hot Module Replacement is an incredible feature.
- abhiyerra 2y ago
  It is funny I had the same exact journey but starting from VB4. I actually wonder what would have happened if instead of killing VB for .NET that Microsoft instead merged legacy VB into the Office team and actually updated it instead of the perpetual state of deprecation that it has been in.
qwertox 2y ago
VB was the absolute sweet spot when you used Visual C++ to create performant DLLs which you could then use in VB.

Same. A pirate copy of VB6 and a download of some website which gave a reasonable introduction of how to do things. I remember doing things like using the Win32 API to get DMA to images so I could do pixel perfect collision detection between sprites etc. Fun times.

chii 2y ago
> A pirate copy of VB6 exactly how i did it as well! But it was a pirated copy of visual studio (6?) and it came in 6 CDs. I had no idea what it actually was, and just installed it and played around. I'm so glad that i bought those pirated CDs off the street - it was a huge stack of disks for like $50 bucks, and it included a bunch of pirated games, pirated encyclopedia (brittanica at the time iirc), various music software (cakewalk pro, not that i ever used it). There would not have been a chance in hell i'd discover these things by myself.
- mobilio 2y ago
  6 CDs because VS6 comes with 3 CDs and 3CDs for MSDN. But later they switched to new format of MSDN and old IDEs can't use them. And there was some add-on that allow to old IDEs to use new MSDN format.
acjohnson55 2y ago
I have a very similar memory, building a Spacewar-type game and experimenting with low level stuff to try to get things flicker-free

sph 2y ago

Same. But it didn't take me long, with the exuberance of youth, to declare BASIC a worthless language, and then moved to MS Visual C++ 6. C++ and MFC was worse for different reasons, but then I discovered Linux and the rest is history. Still, haven't found anything as powerful as VB6's RAD. These days we lay out UIs by hand or by writing XML, like absolute cavemen.

datavirtue 2y ago
Cavemen had declarative UIs?
robertlagrant 2y ago
> Still, haven't found anything as powerful as VB6's RAD We could easily do this now if companies would accept standard UI component styles instead of everyone inventing their own.
- sph 2y ago
  Layout has nothing to do with styling. The placement of a button has nothing to do whether it's a native one or it's green. Even on the web, the set of controls we use are mostly the same we did in the 90s, except everyone styles them differently.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    I didn't say otherwise.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    And everyone reinvents their own way to lay them out, and handle the dynamic consequences. It may or may not be a consequence of the web stack inherently tying together layout and styling; nevertheless the layout part was in the past done easier and better with visual tools.
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      I used WinForms for many years before going to the web when they slashed old dotnet. Flex and grid are better than the visual designers. Next.js pages router, React, Styled Components and devserver like Vite or Rsbuild is the best dev experience I have yet encountered. Fast Refresh / Hot Module Replacement is an incredible feature.
abhiyerra 2y ago
It is funny I had the same exact journey but starting from VB4. I actually wonder what would have happened if instead of killing VB for .NET that Microsoft instead merged legacy VB into the Office team and actually updated it instead of the perpetual state of deprecation that it has been in.

qwertox 2y ago

VB was the absolute sweet spot when you used Visual C++ to create performant DLLs which you could then use in VB.