4 ms·

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

by 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.

by sph 2y ago

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.