A couple of years ago most likely, nowadays I'm not so sure anymore. I mean most of the new UI technologies, research and development seems to happen in the field of web-technologies. Traditional desktop UI frameworks seem to be more or less in maintainance mode (I know that's a bit exaggerating, for sure the big ones like Qt or GTK evolve, but it's not the big new ideas coming from those, they rather adapt ideas origin from the web world). VB6 was probably most-liked for its simplicity to create UIs resulting in small and reasonably fast executables. It did the things needed back then very well, but I guess it doesn't do nowadays tasks that good (web, async, distributed, cloud, ... just to mention a few buzzwords).caseih wrote:And that statement I actually disagree with. Open source VB6 would actually be pretty huge, or would have been even a couple of years ago.
GW-BASIC is open source now
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
Yeah today folks use javascript frameworks to crank out apps for phones and tablets and also desktops. Things like Electron have become the modern equivalent of VB6. Everyone shudders a bit at the thought of writing all the logic in javascript and shipping the complete Chrome OS--I mean browser-- with every dinky app. But nevertheless it's fast and easy and that trumps all else. Just like how "real" programmers thumbed their nose at VB6 while everyone else cranked out quick and dirty apps to do a particular task.
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
No, it is not, at all.caseih wrote:Things like Electron have become the modern equivalent of VB6.
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
I would more interested if they open sourced the VB.NET compiler (and IDE). I never have love with VB6, perhaps because when I tried it, it's on the end of it glorious day. The Mono VB.NET compiler sucks.
p/s: MS also has SmallBASIC: https://smallbasic-publicwebsite.azurewebsites.net/, as I know, it's also open source. For kids programming education, it's much better than any previous BASICs, except for old man.
p/s: MS also has SmallBASIC: https://smallbasic-publicwebsite.azurewebsites.net/, as I know, it's also open source. For kids programming education, it's much better than any previous BASICs, except for old man.
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
VB6 (and Delphi) apps had a certain longevity. It's exactly that what I worry about with many of these javascript frameworks. Everything is still so much growing and changing, will the choices of today be maintainable in 4 years? And how many frameworks will you have to support in 5-10 years?caseih wrote:Yeah today folks use javascript frameworks to crank out apps for phones and tablets and also desktops. Things like Electron have become the modern equivalent of VB6. Everyone shudders a bit at the thought of writing all the logic in javascript and shipping the complete Chrome OS--I mean browser-- with every dinky app. But nevertheless it's fast and easy and that trumps all else. Just like how "real" programmers thumbed their nose at VB6 while everyone else cranked out quick and dirty apps to do a particular task.
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
Yes, yes it is. :) Like it or not.systemctl wrote:No, it is not, at all.caseih wrote:Things like Electron have become the modern equivalent of VB6.
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
Agreed. It's going to cost a lot down the road. I know people who would argue that continuing to use a VB6 app is technical debt, but seems to me all of these javascript frameworks are massive forms of technical debt. Seems like there's a lot of ADHD in the Javascript frameworks.marcov wrote:VB6 (and Delphi) apps had a certain longevity. It's exactly that what I worry about with many of these javascript frameworks. Everything is still so much growing and changing, will the choices of today be maintainable in 4 years? And how many frameworks will you have to support in 5-10 years?
Re: GW-BASIC is open source now
Some of the examples in the Masm32 SDK are over 20 years old. I can open them in my IDE, hit the "build" key and voilà, half a second later the executable's window is displayed in front of me.
In contrast, I've yet to see a hello world proggie in C++ created with the previous (i.e. 2 years old) version of Visual Crap that would be flawlessly compiled by the latest VC. That is one reason why people seem to love VB6 so much (10 posts today at http://www.vbforums.com/forumdisplay.ph ... nd-Earlier - and compare the questions to ours...): it just works.
Obviously, there is some compromise between backward compatibility and availability of recent features. But our forum demonstrates clearly that we spend way too much time and energy on discussing how exactly (which FB version, which include files, which commandline settings, ...) our hello world proggies can be successfully compiled using the XYZ compiler.
In contrast, I've yet to see a hello world proggie in C++ created with the previous (i.e. 2 years old) version of Visual Crap that would be flawlessly compiled by the latest VC. That is one reason why people seem to love VB6 so much (10 posts today at http://www.vbforums.com/forumdisplay.ph ... nd-Earlier - and compare the questions to ours...): it just works.
Obviously, there is some compromise between backward compatibility and availability of recent features. But our forum demonstrates clearly that we spend way too much time and energy on discussing how exactly (which FB version, which include files, which commandline settings, ...) our hello world proggies can be successfully compiled using the XYZ compiler.