Thread: what are your thoughts on visual basic?

  1. #1
    ima n00b, ok? orion-'s Avatar
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    what are your thoughts on visual basic?

    i was just wondering what your opinion is on visual basic . alot of c/c++/java/assmebly ect ect programmers look down upon visual basic. they think that visual basic is slow when it comes to making professional programs and games, and not only that, visual basic doesn't give you 100% complete control over your what you are coding (which i dont think is true). personally i think visual basic is a great language. ill admit i wouldn't write a professional program based entirely on visual basic, but i would make the GUI with visual basic.

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    The main reason why I don't like traditional Visual Basic is because of the crappy primitive types. Try writing a program to read a file that a program written in C/C++ made and cry like I used to (i.e. like a baby). The tricks you have to pull to deal with large unsigned integers...

    Then there's trying to get it to work with the Win32 API. That's not terribly challenging, but they could've made header files for it or something, save all the inaccurate definitions floating around the net.

    Basically, if you're writing a VB program to work either on its own or with other VB programs, that's fine. Otherwise, break out the K&R and free your mind.

  3. #3
    Disrupting the universe Mad_guy's Avatar
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    You can code with whatever you like, if you want to do all of your windows applications with vb, fine, if you want to only have a vb gui and then slap a C DLL on, fine, if you just love to do everything with C/C++, fine.


    While there may be a lot of VB bashers out there, you're not required to listen to what they say. Bill Gates could flat out say "Linux sucks in every possible way", every day, forever, but that doesn't mean you have to take on his word on the subject seriously, or even as your own, do you?
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  4. #4
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    VB is still going to be around for a while. It is still a mainstay in a lot of business information system departments. Books are still selling as well.

    Go to VB boards.. they have alot to say there.

    Mr. C.
    Mr. C: Author and Instructor

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    VB is one of my saving graces. Anything doable in VB is doable in C, and vice versa. The only thing is, when it comes down to the very basic programming aspect, C (and all variants) are way more efficient.

    However, try throwing a GUI together in C compared to VB. VB is superior*. Or Winsock. Instead of 500 lines of initialization, you use Winsock.Listen and accomplish your task.

    It's simple, but perhaps not as flexible. It's like programming a game with somebody elses Library Wrapper. Sure, everything's layed out for you nicely. You can add a button here, add a textbox there. But when it comes down to personalizing that button to do exactly what you want under EVERY condition, you can't get that customization in VB*, whereas in C, it's up to you to decide how everything will behave from the get go.

    VB is often looked down on for it's simplicity (which leads to bulk and non-efficiency). But it is very useful in it's own aspects, and that doesn't mean it can't be used to accomplish your task. Nor does it mean it can't be made as efficient as you'd want it to be.

    The right tool for the right job. And if you know what you need to accomplish, you can make the decision on your own. Anybody who says VB is useless and out of date is WRONG. Anybody who says VB is always the way to go is WRONG. It comes down to what you need and how you need it. Each language is designed with its own strengths, but while focussing in those areas, weaknesses will arise in the ignored areas. And EVERY language has it's own "ignored" areas. It's up to the programmer to realize the strengths and make the appropriate choice.

    It's a saturday night (slash sunday morning), and it's 1:12AM. I'll leave it up to you to decide what I've been doing until now and why I'm still up. You can let that weigh on my post as you like.

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    Last edited by Epo; 09-17-2005 at 11:09 PM.
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  6. #6
    Climber spoon_'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Epo
    The right tool for the right job.
    Amen. Possibly the best post ever on the subject of Visual Basic on this C forum.

    Amen.
    {RTFM, KISS}

  7. #7
    aoeuhtns
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    A relative of mine had his own interesting opinion about other's opinions of Visual Basic.

    According to him, people don't like VB because it's "not nerdy enough."

  8. #8
    ima n00b, ok? orion-'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Epo
    It's simple, but perhaps not as flexible. It's like programming a game with somebody elses Library Wrapper. Sure, everything's layed out for you nicely. You can add a button here, add a textbox there. But when it comes down to personalizing that button to do exactly what you want under EVERY condition, you can't get that customization in VB*, whereas in C, it's up to you to decide how everything will behave from the get go.
    i agree with pretty much everything you said. i too hate the fact that you need to write 500 lines of code just to initialize a control in C, where as in VB, you could do it in just a few lines of code. also, just to let you know. it is possible to get full control over dialogs, buttons, textboxes, ect ect in VB *cough*win32 api*cough* like it is with C/C++.
    Last edited by orion-; 09-18-2005 at 04:21 AM.

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    Bob Dole for '08 B0bDole's Avatar
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    what's up with all of stovellp's spam? Had a little too much to drink this morning?
    Hmm

  10. #10
    the hat of redundancy hat nvoigt's Avatar
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    VB is the dark side of the source. It's quick, easy, powerful. But evil. It is so easy people use it as a starters language and that's plain wrong because it does not teach you good programming. It teaches you that you can get away with anything however stupid it may be as long as your program runs. I would not work with someone who learned that lesson early on because someone will have to fix it down the road and that will probably be me because VB guy couldn't do it right in the first place. Fixing a ton of horrible, messy code using algorithms that are inefficient ( using the VB logic of "it's not fast, but it works, so what ?", who needs efficient algorithms. Or even standards. ) is not exactly my dream job. It's a free country, do what you like. But don't do it in my team and/or have me fix it.

    If you need a RAD language, use C# or Java.
    If you need control, use C/C++.

    Apart from the fact that it tolerates errors that you should not have made anyway, there is no benefit in using VB over another RAD language.
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  11. #11
    Disrupting the universe Mad_guy's Avatar
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    Being a Delphi developer for a while (not a big one, but I've tinkered with it a lot), I can in fact, see the advantages of using a language like VB over a language like C in a certain project. In one of my most recent projects all I'm doing is simply slapping a GUI with Delphi on it and then using a C DLL to write all my backend for simplicity and ease. Delphi, like VB, can teach horrible habits. If you ask me, learning any language at any time is okay since it's your choice in the end, but if you really want my opinion, I'd say not to use a language like VB unless you have previous experiance with a language such as C, or PASCAL.

    As far as speed goes, there's really no such thing as a fast language. It is the ultimately the compilers job to give your code that 'cutting edge' and optimize the outputted Assembly language. The major difference is that with VB, you have tons more overhead which puts more strain on the Microsoft compiler to give out better results in runtime (VB doesn't accomplish this one millionth as well as Delphi does, go check out Borland Delphi v6 or v7 and run a couple of benchmarks and you'll see what I mean, another great thing about Delphi is that the compiler is so fast you can click a button and have it compile in seconds as opposed to waiting, say, ten minutes to compile something with GCC.)



    If you ask me, any type of statically typed C language (such as C or pascal (pascal more than C since it's an easier language to get used to), and when I say C based, it is implied that the language is procedural, not Java, for example) is what someone should have experiance with before moving onto other languages like VB, Delphi, Java or C#. If you're a seasoned programmer, then go ahead and do what you wish, and choose the tool you want to use, but if you aren't, then you should probably stick to lower levels before stepping up since quite frankly you normally won't be mature enough as a programmer to deal with languages like VB/Delphi/Java/C# since in many places they can offer a ton of overhead.
    Last edited by Mad_guy; 09-19-2005 at 04:27 PM.
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    VB? I use Perl whenever I feel like learning some bad habits.

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    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I don't like VB. There seems to be no connection between the actual controls and the underlying data the control is manipulating. Not so in C++ and others. And BTW you can have a fairly nice app up and running very quickly with MFC. VB is so non-object oriented and yet tries to be 100% object oriented - it's really ugly code that uses really ugly tricks to accomplish what MFC, C++,(cough) Java, and C# can do better, cleaner, and faster (well I wouldn't say faster with Java...but....you get the point). VB will be around for a long time but I do know of several companies that have essentially coded themselves into a huge mess because they opted for VB instead of C++ or some other truly object oriented language. I agree that VB is evil. It's so tempting to use because it is extremely easy to get a GUI up and running......but after diving deeper you find that all that ease of use comes with a huge price.

    The big problem I have with VB is the same one I had with BASIC. No matter what you are trying to do, it feels as if you are fighting the language instead of working with it.

  14. #14
    Climber spoon_'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba
    I don't like VB. There seems to be no connection between the actual controls and the underlying data the control is manipulating. Not so in C++ and others. And BTW you can have a fairly nice app up and running very quickly with MFC. VB is so non-object oriented and yet tries to be 100% object oriented - it's really ugly code that uses really ugly tricks to accomplish what MFC, C++,(cough) Java, and C# can do better, cleaner, and faster (well I wouldn't say faster with Java...but....you get the point).
    Misinformation. VB6 had classes but did not have true inheritence. VB.NET is object-oriented and can do the same things that C# and Java can do.

    But what else do people expect by posting a "What do you think of Visual Basic?" or "What do you think of Java?" topic on cboard.cprogramming.com.
    Last edited by spoon_; 09-20-2005 at 05:51 PM.
    {RTFM, KISS}

  15. #15
    Registered User Jaqui's Avatar
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    VB=Visual Basic =GUI design for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

    it is a fancy gui tool to make gui's for learning.
    it is NOT a production language.
    basic was never meant for use in production programs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Henager
    If the average user can put a CD in and boot the system and follow the prompts, he can install and use Linux. If he can't do that simple task, he doesn't need to be around technology.

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