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> Visual Basic was the pinnacle of graphics programming I am still shocked how no tool since has managed to come even close to VB. You could easily develop a m
by sheepscreek 1y ago
> Visual Basic was the pinnacle of graphics programming
I am still shocked how no tool since has managed to come even close to VB. You could easily develop a moderately complex GUI application that felt snappy in an afternoon. C# with WinForms is the second closest to that. All other iterations since have not been designed with individual developers in mind, sadly.
A powerful developing alternative to this paradigm could be what I’m calling speech/voice driven development (SDD or VDD). It takes some pain of typing so much away - makes interactions with AI feel a bit more natural. Like talking to a colleague. But for it to really work well, AI models will need to become even faster.
- ranger_danger 1y agoI find Qt Creator to be quite comparable to the experience I remember with e.g. VB6. Have you tried it?
- EasyMark 1y agoYeah if you know c++ decently, you can whip up a basic app pretty quickly.
- ChromaticPanic 1y agoWorks with python too, you can build a desktop UI for your app in an hour
- p3rls 1y ago[dead]
- int_19h 1y agoDelphi was superior to VB even back in the day, and is still around, as is Lazarus. C# WinForms is actually closest to that, not to VB - and is also still around.
- throw-the-towel 1y agoIt's not surprising, Delphi and C# design were both led by the same person, Anders Hejlsberg. (He then went on to design Typescript.)
- tiku 1y agoIt was also very easy to build the visual aspect, tying it together was step 3 for me. It felt more like a mix of designing and powerpoint than programming in the beginning of a project. Very fast visual results to keep your momentum.
- thw_9a83c 1y agoThe simplicity and efficiency of Visual Basic UI programming relied on several assumptions that became obsolete in 2000 when LCD and high-DPI displays became widely available. Everything in the VB UI editor was based on a fixed layout. There was a fixed font size, fixed DPI-density display expectation, and fixed button sizes. Every dialog assumed fixed sizes and was non-resizable. Adding a translation to such an application was pure hell. Typically, you needed to add a lot of buffer space for English strings to ensure that German strings, for example, would not break the layout too much. UI frameworks that solve these problems with a proper layout management system are obviously more complicated, but they address issues that VB6 never touched.
- mexicocitinluez 1y ago> The simplicity and efficiency of Visual Basic UI programming relied on several assumptions that became obsolete in 2000 This is a great point that extends beyond rebutting the rose-colored glasses for the gool ole days of programming. While yes, things were simpler. That simplicity came at a cost. For instance, how accessible were VB apps to people who had sight-related disabilities?
- DiskoHexyl 1y agoMore accessible by default than modern electron-based apps
- thw_9a83c 1y ago> how accessible were VB apps to people who had sight-related disabilities? Coincidentally, they were very accessible because they used corresponding Win32 components for all logical UI entities, despite being fixed in layout. Therefore, they worked really well with screen readers. Sadly, this is not the case with UI frameworks, which render the screen as a Vulcan/DirectX/OpenGL canvas. By the way, for today's Electron-based apps, you can use WAI-ARIA (or similar) standards to achieve a similar level of accessibility.
- Grumbledour 1y ago
- geon 1y agoI did some iphone development around 2010. The interface builder in xcode was pretty powerful. You could set up multiple screens and hook them up to eachother with drag and drop.
- raydev 1y ago> I am still shocked how no tool since has managed to come even close to VB Over on OS X/macOS, Xcode's Interface Builder carried this torch a long way until Apple introduced SwiftUI. Windows developers just didn't notice because it was a different platform.
- pjmlp 1y agoDelphi, C++ Builder, and there are still other ones around like Xojo. Problem is the amount of Electron crap nowadays.
- VB6-Programming 1y agoTake a look at the twinBASIC programming language. VB6 compatible and can import VB6 source code and forms and adds modern features too.