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VB was about getting stuff done. Ugly, awkward, convoluted, nowhere near a real programming language. But, the things you could build. Fast. In no time, you had
by DodgyEggplant 12y ago
VB was about getting stuff done. Ugly, awkward, convoluted, nowhere near a real programming language. But, the things you could build. Fast. In no time, you had something that worked, installed anywhere, no approvals, no app-stores, no complicated deployments. Microsoft miserably failed to scale it to the web, and with some efforts - to mobile. They just drove developers away, and till today we do not have a similar tool for the semi-developers, the hobbyists, the lawyer who wants to make some app for his office.
- j_s 12y agoI copied the following comment onto a post-it: "stop trying to be clever and start trying to be done" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7602816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7602816 (6 months ago on Boring Systems Build Badass Businesses)
- mschuster91 12y ago> Microsoft miserably failed to scale it to the web They did, in form of the abomination called ActiveX. Back in the heydays, it was the Java and Flash in terms of exploits and 0wnage. Obviously the worst thing was that ActiveX applets allowed raw access to the win32 API (or any other external DLL which could be used with the FFI of VB). No one signed their applets and everyone clicked "accept and run"... and on DOS-based OSs like win95/98/98SE/ME or XP (which set up the primary account as admin) this basically meant local r00t on the web.
- yuhong 12y agoI think many did sign their applets.