School WTF



  • I've been learning so many new things in my Database class this semester! For example, did you know that MySQL is not suitable for the enterprise because it doesn't run on Windows? We've been told to use Access instead, since it is only a few hundred dollars. Of course, once the database grows beyond "a few thousand rows", it would be time to start looking into an Oracle solution.

    Also, the reason Macs do not have as large a market share as Windows is because they do not come with compilers for good languages, like Pascal. Lastly, it's always good to create a project during the course, which will be turned in at the end. This should of course be coded in C#, because Visual Basic isn't a serious enough language.
     



  • i'm also not much of a mac fan, but it seems they do have a pascal compiler.
    http://www.freepascal.org/fpcmac.html 

     



  • This is only a WTF if your college is accredited. Many private non-accredited colleges exist for the gullible and/or short-sighted, and something like this would be par for the course in such an institution.



  • Reminds me of my school (in germany):

     

    Apparently. the root password for the gateway computer between the medialab and the school intranet was secret. One wordlist attack later, it became obvious that it was the string "secret". D'oh!




  • Ask the instructor how they feel about leveraged turn-key solutions when in the context of databases. The answer will be another thing to add.



  • [quote user="bugmenot"]

    This should of course be coded in C#, because Visual Basic isn't a serious enough language.
     [/quote]

    Once upon a time, I was a member of a cult. This cult was the "Visual Basic is not a real language" cult.

    Every time a new version of VB came out, I had to come out with a new reason why it wasn't a real language. VB couldn't access the full Windows API; it was interpreted and not compiled; it was "fake" compiled by tokenising the program and attaching it to a VB interpreter; it didn't have an optimiser; and then one day I simply could not believe the argument I posted once it showed up on my screen.

    VB, I said, was not a real language because it was case-insensitive.

    At that moment, I was enlightened. If you have to try THAT HARD to find some reason why something isn't a real language, you're just retarded. So I wrote a hasty apology to the forum and quit the cult.

    Today, I sometimes write a little VB. I still prefer to work in some C derivative (they're all pretty much the same), but it's not always my decision.

     



  • [quote user="CDarklock"]Every time a new version of VB came out, I had to come out with a new reason why it wasn't a real language. VB couldn't access the full Windows API; it was interpreted and not compiled; it was "fake" compiled by tokenising the program and attaching it to a VB interpreter; it didn't have an optimiser; and then one day I simply could not believe the argument I posted once it showed up on my screen. ...If you have to try THAT HARD to find some reason why something isn't a real language, you're just retarded. So I wrote a hasty apology to the forum and quit the cult.[/quote]

    Why did you work that hard? Of course you can do almost anything in VB, but the question is really, why would you want to? No need to go inventing attributes why the devil is, just avoid him and enjoy the smell of no sulfur on your soul.



  • [quote user="Mikademus"]Why did you work that hard?
    [/quote]

    I'm going to respond to that with an interesting story I heard recently.

    A man in his late eighties went to a government office to get a passport. He had with him two close friends who could verify his identity, but the government official demanded to see a birth certificate. The man explained that his town was a small one, and had only started using birth certificates within the last fifteen or twenty years. "Well," said the official, "you will need to go back to your town and get two people who witnessed your birth."

    The government official has such contempt for this old man, he doesn't even bother to ensure that his demands are sane. This is the highest pinnacle of disrespect: to say, in essence, that you are not even worthy of an argument that makes sense.

    The same applies to VB developers. No matter what you may think of VB as a language, the people who use it are still human beings and worthy of a certain basic respect. If you do not like their language, it is imperative that you be able to say why. If you cannot say why, or your reasoning is flawed, then you are just a bigot.



  • I have a simple explanation why I don't like VB: This language is not stable enough. I'm not talking about the compiler or the IDE or the programs written in this language, I'm talking about the language itself. VB5, the first "really usable" version, was released in 1997. One year later, there was VB6, which eventually became obsolete in 2002.

    A lifespan of 5 years is absurdly short for a programming language. It takes some time to adopt the language, it takes some time to make a project. To make things worse, many projects made in VB5 or VB6 rely on external components (OCX controls etc.) which have been made by small companies which went out of business after a few years. I've seen more than a few VB projects which are difficult to compile because there is only one PC left with all those components etc. installed. Maintenance nightmare at it's worst.
     



  • Yes maybe, but now VB is part of the .Net environment.  VB functions exactly the same as C# (well atleast for everything I have used it for) except for case sensitivity(which sort of sucks..)



  • [quote user="CDarklock"]The same applies to VB developers. No matter what you may think of VB as a language, the people who use it are still human beings and worthy of a certain basic respect. If you do not like their language, it is imperative that you be able to say why. If you cannot say why, or your reasoning is flawed, then you are just a bigot. [/quote]

    I agree - I don't think there's anything wrong with disliking a particular language.  Bit if I don't prefer to code with VB, C#, Java, or <insert language here>, I shouldn't *have* to come up with a compelling reason - why can't I just not like it?

    On the same note, however, the argument goes both ways.  If I state "I don't like VB" and immediately get flamed for it for not having a "good enough reason", it's just as bigoted.  That's like saying "If you don't have a good enough reason to not like <insert language>, then you're an asshole"



  • [quote user="bugmenot"]

    This should of course be coded in C#, because Visual Basic isn't a serious enough language.

    [/quote]

    Before yall chime in: NO, I am not the teacher of that class. I would have said:

    "This should of course be coded in C#, because I don't even consider Visual Basic a programming language."


    Besides, I definitely wouldn't have said any of that other crap. Where did this guy goto school? Head up your ass University?

     

     

    p.s. VB is ok for some stuff.... sometimes... I guess.....  

     



  • Run, run away fast.

    I had an instructor like that.  He told us that the 'www' in http://www.yahoo.com told your computer to use the 'www protocol'.  I guess he'd never tried to visit http://yahoo.com.

    Another time, he told us you couldn't set the protocol binding order in windows.  I shot my hand up, and showed him exactly which menu he needed to pull down to do exactly that. 

    I had another instructor, in a networking class, who's experience in the industry consisted of working in sales at IBM in the 60s.  He taught class by reading from the textbook.  That was it.  He just read.



  • VB6
    was garbage. My main gripe with it was that anytime an API call issued
    a runtime error, the IDE would crash. Pisses me off. Also, the error
    handling is utter crap. I haven't verified this, but one of our lead
    developers hates VB because they flip true and false for booleans.
    Apparenly it's also flipped in .NET (unverified).

    VB.NET is
    useful, however I wouldn't ever hire a programmer that only knows VB. I
    don't consider anyone that knows only one language a programmer, as
    they haven't had enough exposure to multiple languages to truely "get
    it". Also, I would never want new projects started in VB.NET unless no
    one knew C#. It's fine as a language now because it's backed by .NET,
    however the syntax is just so far from anything else that it makes it
    difficult to read. I hate reading crap like "If not something is
    nothing then". WTF.



  • [quote user="treefrog"]

    [quote user="CDarklock"]The same applies to VB developers. No matter what you may think of VB as a language, the people who use it are still human beings and worthy of a certain basic respect. If you do not like their language, it is imperative that you be able to say why. If you cannot say why, or your reasoning is flawed, then you are just a bigot. [/quote]

    I agree - I don't think there's anything wrong with disliking a particular language.  Bit if I don't prefer to code with VB, C#, Java, or <insert language here>, I shouldn't have to come up with a compelling reason - why can't I just not like it?

    On the same note, however, the argument goes both ways.  If I state "I don't like VB" and immediately get flamed for it for not having a "good enough reason", it's just as bigoted.  That's like saying "If you don't have a good enough reason to not like <insert language>, then you're an asshole"

    [/quote]

     

    Language flame wars never start with a simple "I don't like <language>".  It's always "<language> IS FOR IDIOTS LOL, U CALL TAHT A LANGUAGE!?".



  • [quote user="ammoQ"]

    I have a simple explanation why I don't like VB: This language is not stable enough. I'm not talking about the compiler or the IDE or the programs written in this language, I'm talking about the language itself. VB5, the first "really usable" version, was released in 1997. One year later, there was VB6, which eventually became obsolete in 2002.

    A lifespan of 5 years is absurdly short for a programming language. It takes some time to adopt the language, it takes some time to make a project. To make things worse, many projects made in VB5 or VB6 rely on external components (OCX controls etc.) which have been made by small companies which went out of business after a few years. I've seen more than a few VB projects which are difficult to compile because there is only one PC left with all those components etc. installed. Maintenance nightmare at it's worst.
     

    [/quote]

    Hahahah oh man, that's a good one.

    Wait. You were kidding, right? You're saying that because third-party companies build OCX's and then go out of business, VB is therefore flawed? I'm struggling to follow your logic.

    So the problem is that VB relies on external components? OK, what language doesn't? Maybe I've been living under a rock, but does a language exist that seamlessly can hook into every single type of component natively? One that provides TCP/IP connectivity, reading and writing PDFs, support for Office products, etc, etc? These OCX's could also provide a GUI that you can drop onto the form so you don't have to spend days or weeks painstakingly creating the interface.

    Hey did you know that .Net works kinda the same way? Try to compile a .Net project on a computer that's missing the components, you'll probably get similar results to your compaints here.

    As for the lifespan, it was so short because .Net came along to integrate several languages into a single environment, not because of the shortcomings of VB. C got a head start because they started designing it 30 years ago. The languages were updated to meet the times and demands of businesses today that want faster application development with greater stability and power.

    Just because you call it obsolete doesn't mean it was immediately abandoned. In my office we were forced to continue developing under VB6 in order to utilize a particular object library. Only in the last year has that company jumped on the bandwagon and started expanding their objects to work under .Net. And by the way, since 2002 there have been several .Net framework releases. Does that mean that it is unstable as well?

    Basically it's not a powerhouse language. It's not meant to be as robust. It was intended to provide rapid development for small tasks with an easy interface. Personally I think people who hate VB are the ones that think programming shouldn't be easy, that it should cause some headaches. But VBScript has saved me countless hours of mind-numbing work by letting me write a quickie script in 5 minutes to parse out text files and query databases and other simple crap.

    If you hate it but can't come up with a good enough reason why, then just say that it irks you and leave it at that.



  • [quote user="Manni"]

    As for the lifespan, it was so short because .Net came along to integrate several languages into a single environment, not because of the shortcomings of VB. C got a head start because they started designing it 30 years ago. The languages were updated to meet the times and demands of businesses today that want faster application development with greater stability and power.

    [/quote]

    VB is so fundamentally different than C that you can't really compare them fairly. C is meant to be low-level enough so that the programmer can pretty much predict the assembly output. VB is meant to be high-level enough so that a programmer doesn't have to know what assembly is.

    If you want to do a VB comparison theses days, the best languages to compare it to are C#, Java, and maybe Python. 



  • [quote user="merreborn"]I had another instructor, in a networking class, who's experience in the industry consisted of working in sales at IBM in the 60s.  He taught class by reading from the textbook.  That was it.  He just read.[/quote]Sounds like my first programming class at university - we had to buy the two books on the language our instructor wrote (not that there were any other books available anyway - ever heard of oberon?), then he read from these same books (in a slow, very monotonous voice) while projecting the pages to the whiteboard - it worked better than any sleeping pills. (we had to buy the books because 25% of the exam was a task that started with "Change the example from page...")



  • [quote user="GoatCheez"][quote user="Manni"]

    As for the lifespan, it was so short because .Net came along to integrate several languages into a single environment, not because of the shortcomings of VB. C got a head start because they started designing it 30 years ago. The languages were updated to meet the times and demands of businesses today that want faster application development with greater stability and power.

    [/quote]

    VB is so fundamentally different than C that you can't really compare them fairly. C is meant to be low-level enough so that the programmer can pretty much predict the assembly output. VB is meant to be high-level enough so that a programmer doesn't have to know what assembly is.

    If you want to do a VB comparison theses days, the best languages to compare it to are C#, Java, and maybe Python. 

    [/quote]

    Which is exactly the reason why I don't think anyone can say that a particular language, by its very nature, is a WTF. Based on the target audience and the time period during which it was created, it satisfied certain needs. VB gets a bad name because it's ease of use allows flocks of morons to come up with some terribly destructive stuff.

    But I think we can all agree that Java sucks.



  • [quote user="Manni"]

    Hahahah oh man, that's a good one.

    Wait. You were kidding, right? You're saying that because third-party companies build OCX's and then go out of business, VB is therefore flawed? I'm struggling to follow your logic.

    So the problem is that VB relies on external components? OK, what language doesn't? Maybe I've been living under a rock, but does a language exist that seamlessly can hook into every single type of component natively? One that provides TCP/IP connectivity, reading and writing PDFs, support for Office products, etc, etc? These OCX's could also provide a GUI that you can drop onto the form so you don't have to spend days or weeks painstakingly creating the interface.

    [/quote]

    Java has a larger standard library. Plus there is a lot of open source components, which are very likely to be around 5 years from now (even if nothing has been improved by then)

    But those external components are not the main problem. The main problem is that VB has been discontinued by MS. VB.net is relatively similar, but not a successor.

     

    Hey did you know that .Net works kinda the same way? Try to compile a .Net project on a computer that's missing the components, you'll probably get similar results to your compaints here.

    The standard library in .net is larger than it was in VB, so chances are I don't need that many 3rd party components. 

    As for the lifespan, it was so short because .Net came along to integrate several languages into a single environment, not because of the shortcomings of VB. C got a head start because they started designing it 30 years ago. The languages were updated to meet the times and demands of businesses today that want faster application development with greater stability and power.

    I know that reason but that's small comfort. Fact is: in 1998, MS actively encouraged people to write enterprisy applications in VB, using DCOM and MTS and stuff. Five years later, it's legacy. Five years is nothing in the realm of enterprise computing. Quite a lot of companies run on programs that are 20 or 30 years old, maybe even more. Time-tested code is too much of an investment to throw it away after a few years.

     

    Just because you call it obsolete doesn't mean it was immediately abandoned. In my office we were forced to continue developing under VB6 in order to utilize a particular object library.

    I know several companies that still use VB5 or VB6, but not because it's cool. They are too heavily invested in that technology. Sad, really sad. 

     

    Only in the last year has that company jumped on the bandwagon and started expanding their objects to work under .Net. And by the way, since 2002 there have been several .Net framework releases. Does that mean that it is unstable as well?

    As far as I know, programs written for the first version of .net still compile and work. That's what counts. Maybe some parts of those programs could be made more elegant using new features (generics and whatnot), but that's not important.

     

    Basically it's not a powerhouse language. It's not meant to be as robust. It was intended to provide rapid development for small tasks with an easy interface. Personally I think people who hate VB are the ones that think programming shouldn't be easy, that it should cause some headaches. But VBScript has saved me countless hours of mind-numbing work by letting me write a quickie script in 5 minutes to parse out text files and query databases and other simple crap.

    If you hate it but can't come up with a good enough reason why, then just say that it irks you and leave it at that.

    There is nothing wrong with using languages like VB for short-lived small programs, scripts etc. The problem is that too many important programs have been made in VB. By the way, I didn't say that I hate it. I just said that I don't like it. That doesn't mean the same to me.
     



  • [quote user="bugmenot"]

    Also, the reason Macs do not have as large a market share as Windows is because they do not come with compilers for good languages, like Pascal.[/quote]

    The real WTF here is that "Macintosh" and "Pascal" were synonymous for about ten years: when Macs and IBM-compatibles were competing for market share, if you wanted to write a program for a Mac, you had two choices for language: Pascal, or assembler.



  • [quote user="Manni"]

    But VBScript has saved me countless hours of mind-numbing work by letting me write a quickie script in 5 minutes to parse out text files and query databases and other simple crap.

    [/quote]

     

    That is why my $deity  invented perl.



  • @stratos said:

    i'm also not much of a mac fan, but it seems they do have a pascal compiler.

    It's even funnier than that. When the Mac first came out, parts of the OS were written in Pascal, and Mac Pascal was the first compiler/interpreter on the platform.



  • [quote user="ammoQ"]

    As far as I know, programs written for the first version of .net still compile and work. That's what counts. Maybe some parts of those programs could be made more elegant using new features (generics and whatnot), but that's not important

    [/quote]

     We code all of our .NET samples in VS2002. A couple of the threading samples initially had a problem with VS2005, but that was because MS tightened the noose on cross thread calls. A simple addition to the code fixed it. They all compile and work the same across the board from .NET 1.0 to .NET 2.0. Ask anyone who's ever done that and they'll tell you it's as easy as just programming in 1.0. Nothing special needs to be done.



  • [quote user="ammoQ"]
    ...an excellent response...[/quote]

    I can't really disagree with you. And I'm really really trying.

    Well maybe about this...In this day and age, 5 years is a hell of a lot of time in the computing world. Back in the day, things would stick around for decades, but today the sheer amount of software development and computer hardware in use means a larger customer base of people demanding improvements and changes. Although VB has been discontinued by Microsoft, people still rely on it for small tasks in VBA. In those cases, using anything else would be trying to hammer a nail with a nuclear weapon.

    And in our company, as is true in an unfortunate number of corporations, management frowns on the use of open-source products because there is no entity behind it that can take accountability for bugs, corrupted data, etc. So for now we're stuck with the third-party solutions.

    Sometimes it isn't the language, it's the politics that turn out to be the WTF.



  • [quote user="Manni"]

    Well maybe about this...In this day and age, 5 years is a hell of a lot of time in the computing world. Back in the day, things would stick around for decades, but today the sheer amount of software development and computer hardware in use means a larger customer base of people demanding improvements and changes.

    [/quote]

    Since many of us work on web applications, 5 year seem like a long time. "This website is 5 years old" means "it's old and ugly as hell".

    But the same is not true e.g. for an ERP system. "This ERP system is 5 years old" rather means "it's no longer experimental".



  • [quote user="GoatCheez"]Also, I would never want new projects started in VB.NET unless no one knew C#. It's fine as a language now because it's backed by .NET, however the syntax is just so far from anything else that it makes it difficult to read. I hate reading crap like "If not something is nothing then". WTF.

    [/quote]

     Why? What is the difference between VB.net and C#? THey are pretty well exactly the same thing except for syntax and the case sensitivity.

    I can take any C# code and "convert" it to VB in a flash, and vice versa. In fact I had to for my job. My manager wanted me to convert a C# framework to VB. THe framework was a couple thousand lines of code. I finished it before afternoon break.

    Now I do like C# a tad better, because of case sensitivity, but in VB.Net i just declare class variables with an underscore infront of them.

    And people that write  "If not something is nothing" then they are writing it incorrectly. It should be  "If something IsNot Nothing" (Mind you that is a new 2005 syntax, but so what?)

     

     

     



  • [quote user="CDarklock"]

    [quote user="Mikademus"]Why did you work that hard?
    [/quote]

    I'm ... an interesting story ... in his late eighties ... The same applies to VB developers. No matter what
    you may think of VB as a language, the people who use it are still
    human beings and worthy of a certain basic respect. If you do not like
    their language, it is imperative that you be able to say why. If you
    cannot say why, or your reasoning is flawed, then you are just a bigot.[/quote]

    Well,
    my point was that from your original post it seemed you didn't have to
    work with VB but spent a lot of time and effort to invent reasons why
    it sucks. WhenyYou could've simply avoided it altogether. Me myself
    have been forced to work in VB, and that language always gives me
    claustrophobia and epilepsy from exposure toanti-aestheticness. Note, though, that I'm talking VB6 and VBA here, not VB .NET. 



  • [quote user="accident"][quote user="GoatCheez"]Also, I would never want new projects started in VB.NET unless no one knew C#. It's fine as a language now because it's backed by .NET, however the syntax is just so far from anything else that it makes it difficult to read. I hate reading crap like "If not something is nothing then". WTF.

    [/quote]

     Why? What is the difference between VB.net and C#? THey are pretty well exactly the same thing except for syntax and the case sensitivity.

    I can take any C# code and "convert" it to VB in a flash, and vice versa. In fact I had to for my job. My manager wanted me to convert a C# framework to VB. THe framework was a couple thousand lines of code. I finished it before afternoon break.

    Now I do like C# a tad better, because of case sensitivity, but in VB.Net i just declare class variables with an underscore infront of them.

    And people that write  "If not something is nothing" then they are writing it incorrectly. It should be  "If something IsNot Nothing" (Mind you that is a new 2005 syntax, but so what?)  

    [/quote]

     As I has said before, C# is just more readable to me. It also has the advantage of having a very similar syntax to Java and C++. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing that I can write a simple class to so some complex math or algorithm, and in 20-30 years if I can't use that class exactly as it is written, it would take almost no effort to port it to C++. As you had mention, it takes almost no effort to convert between VB.NET and C#, so why doesn't everyone just port everything to C#? Why are there VB.NET programmers? What advantage does VB.NET have that is so significant that it prevents the person from using C#? Frankly, I just think it's a choice made by what you were brought up programming with the most. I went a Pascal->C++ route when I was young, and didn't touch VB until a friend gave me a free copy of VB5 learning edition he had picked up at a math competition. It was nifty to be able to create simple apps REALLY fast, although I found that anything a little more complex became hard to do. Not saying that has anything to do with VB.NET, because it frankly doesn't, I'm just throwing a possible reason why I prefer C style languages. Oh yeah, I had also mentioned that I have to conform to 1.0 standards most of the time. Because of that, I can't use IsNot, resulting in uglier VB code than I would like.

    I have no major gripes with VB.NET, I just think it's absurd that people would start projects in a language that is so different than ones that are by far more popular. I wonder why the programmers would not want to learn or use syntax that is almost identical to what I would call the "powerhouse languages".

    Random Note: The case sensitivity in VB is a mixed blessing....
     



  • [quote user="merreborn"]

    Language flame wars never start with a simple "I don't like <language>".  It's always "<language> IS FOR IDIOTS LOL, U CALL TAHT A LANGUAGE!?".

    [/quote]

    ENGLSIH IS FOR IDIOTS LOL, U CALL TAHT A LANGAUGE!?  :-)



  • [quote user="Manni"]But I think we can all agree that Java sucks.

    JAVA IS FOR IDIOTS LOL, U CALL TAHT A LANGAUGE!? [/quote]

    (mind pointing out why you think that?)



  • VB.net to c# and c# to vb.net automatic conversion is implemented in SharpDevelop IDE ... and works very well.



  • [quote user="ahnfelt"]

    [quote user="Manni"]But I think we can all agree that Java sucks.

    JAVA IS FOR IDIOTS LOL, U CALL TAHT A LANGAUGE!? [/quote]

    (mind pointing out why you think that?)

    [/quote]

    Mkay. Mostly I was half-joking when I said the line you struck-thru, but meh whatever.

    The original idea of Java was awesome. Cross-platform compatibility without rewriting the code, sounded genius. The implementation sucked, and didn't quite go as smoothly as promised.

    It's slow and clunky, and until recently has tended to crash whatever browser I'm using. For awhile there you couldn't run certain Java apps because you had version 1.1.3.234 and you needed release 1.2.8.225. The number of revisions it went through that were not backward compatible left a bad taste in my mouth, and overall it gives you a crappy GUI that looks like someone drew the buttons and stuff in MS Paint.

    I'm sure you'll say that's all changed now, but since it was such utter crap for so long, I can't bring myself to start using a language that, sa far as I can tell, is used more rarely than CGI.



  • [quote user="Manni"]

    Mkay. Mostly I was half-joking when I said the line you struck-thru, but meh whatever.

    The original idea of Java was awesome. Cross-platform compatibility without rewriting the code, sounded genius. The implementation sucked, and didn't quite go as smoothly as promised.

    It's slow and clunky, and until recently has tended to crash whatever browser I'm using. For awhile there you couldn't run certain Java apps because you had version 1.1.3.234 and you needed release 1.2.8.225. The number of revisions it went through that were not backward compatible left a bad taste in my mouth, and overall it gives you a crappy GUI that looks like someone drew the buttons and stuff in MS Paint.

    I'm sure you'll say that's all changed now, but since it was such utter crap for so long, I can't bring myself to start using a language that, sa far as I can tell, is used more rarely than CGI.

    [/quote]

    Currently, most java stuff is web stuff; like servlets, JSP, JSF, Spring, Struts etc. Chances are that you look at java-generated web pages very often but do not notice. It's definitely used more often than CGI, since CGI is absolutely obsolete.

    GUI Programs written with Java are not that bad anymore, but well, many people prefer nativce Windows apps anyway.

    Java applets (the thing that runs in a browser) are mostly dead, nobody needs them anymore except for very special reasons.

     



  • [quote user="CDarklock"]

    The same applies to VB developers. No matter what you may think of VB as a language, the people who use it are still human beings and worthy of a certain basic respect. If you do not like their language, it is imperative that you be able to say why. If you cannot say why, or your reasoning is flawed, then you are just a bigot.

    [/quote]

    Whoa... had a bad night? Anyway, I can tell you what I don't like about VB, if you absolutely insist, all the while offering my basic respect to the people who use it:

    • The syntax. It's ugly. (This is subjective and thus mostly unarguable.)
    • Lack of stable interface. ("Visual Fred" anyone?)
    • Windows only. Very bad.

    • No exception handling
    • Lack of essential OOP features
    • Limited static type-safety
    • Lack of several integer types
    • No shortcutting logical operators
    • No means for generic programming

    Now before you try to refute these arguments saying that VB.NET has addressed most of them... Yes, it has, but is it really VB anymore? As a coworker of mine quipped: VB.NET is just an alternate syntax for C#. That also means that anything you can do in VB.NET, you can do in C#. And since I like C#'s syntax better, I am even less inclined to use VB.NET. C# is also more portable because Mono does not presently include a VB compiler, and maybe it never will.

    [quote user="stratos"]i'm also not much of a mac fan, but it seems they do have a pascal compiler.[/quote]

    There are at least two: fpc (as you mentioned) and gpc. There's also a Pascal-to-C converter. Not that I am keen on using Pascal on the Mac.



  • http://www.ddj.com/184403996

     

    In fairness, many of those issues are fixed in VB.NET, and the 'single implementation, Windows only' problem is diminished. 


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