3 ms·

There has been so much VB love here lately. Here are some counterpoints: In the 90s, when you saw that a Windows app needed Visual Basic DLLs, you kind of knew

by lysace 1y ago

There has been so much VB love here lately. Here are some counterpoints: In the 90s, when you saw that a Windows app needed Visual Basic DLLs, you kind of knew that the app in question was very likely created by a complete amateur. The best apps tended to be tiny and written in C by wizards.

pvg 1y ago
Some miss old handy tools, others miss the old gatekeeping.
- lysace 1y ago
  Gatekeeping or not, it was a useful indicator. There was so much crap.
  - rbanffy 1y ago
    I’ve seen terrible programs written in all sorts of languages.
    - lysace 1y ago
      And there were no patterns, particulary between 1992-1995, for MS Windows apps?
      - tptacek 1y ago
        Bracketing this with '92-'95 makes the claim so much funnier.
        rbanffy 1y ago
        One thing VB allowed was horrible visual design. When you wrote a Windows app in C or C++, you are happy when the button appears in the UI and you leave it alone at that point. VB allowed people to customise their buttons with all sorts of colours and patterns no sane UI designer would attempt.
        pvg 1y ago
        Same with Hypercard, perhaps even more so since Hypercard let you respond to UI gestures the standard UI didn't really use like mouseovers.
        rbanffy 1y ago
        HyperCard, at least initially, didn’t have color, so it somewhat limited how horrendous the UI could be.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    [Nobody][1] [ever][2] [wrote][3] [crap][4] [in][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendmail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendmail] [C][6].
guidedlight 1y ago
Most apps in the 90’s/early 00’s were tiny. They did one thing well. It’s in that context, VB did really well. The thing that VB didn’t do well is scale due to language limitations, but for tiny apps it didn’t matter.
mattl 1y ago
When you go to a modern website and you see it downloads 900kb of JavaScript just to show you the homepage, how do you feel about that? I was a VB developer for a few years. I'm trying to remember the name of the tool we used to bundle VB applications into a single binary. It wasn't a Microsoft tool.
- lysace 1y ago
  > When you go to a modern website and you see it downloads 900kb of JavaScript just to show you the homepage, how do you feel about that? That shipping sites like that should cause you to pay some kind of tax. Use that tax income to invest in software security.
  - mattl 1y ago
    I saw a thread the other day on creating a website without JavaScript and so many people were saying it couldn’t be done.

by lysace 1y ago

pvg 1y ago

Some miss old handy tools, others miss the old gatekeeping.

lysace 1y ago
Gatekeeping or not, it was a useful indicator. There was so much crap.
- rbanffy 1y ago
  I’ve seen terrible programs written in all sorts of languages.
  - lysace 1y ago
    And there were no patterns, particulary between 1992-1995, for MS Windows apps?
    - tptacek 1y ago
      Bracketing this with '92-'95 makes the claim so much funnier.
      - rbanffy 1y ago
        One thing VB allowed was horrible visual design. When you wrote a Windows app in C or C++, you are happy when the button appears in the UI and you leave it alone at that point. VB allowed people to customise their buttons with all sorts of colours and patterns no sane UI designer would attempt.
        pvg 1y ago
        Same with Hypercard, perhaps even more so since Hypercard let you respond to UI gestures the standard UI didn't really use like mouseovers.
        rbanffy 1y ago
        HyperCard, at least initially, didn’t have color, so it somewhat limited how horrendous the UI could be.
- tptacek 1y ago
  [Nobody][1] [ever][2] [wrote][3] [crap][4] [in][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendmail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendmail] [C][6].

guidedlight 1y ago

Most apps in the 90’s/early 00’s were tiny. They did one thing well. It’s in that context, VB did really well. The thing that VB didn’t do well is scale due to language limitations, but for tiny apps it didn’t matter.

mattl 1y ago

When you go to a modern website and you see it downloads 900kb of JavaScript just to show you the homepage, how do you feel about that? I was a VB developer for a few years. I'm trying to remember the name of the tool we used to bundle VB applications into a single binary. It wasn't a Microsoft tool.

lysace 1y ago
> When you go to a modern website and you see it downloads 900kb of JavaScript just to show you the homepage, how do you feel about that? That shipping sites like that should cause you to pay some kind of tax. Use that tax income to invest in software security.
- mattl 1y ago
  I saw a thread the other day on creating a website without JavaScript and so many people were saying it couldn’t be done.