Microsoft Programming Languages

[HellDiver]

PS. I think I read somewhere that MS's .NET in VB is using something similar to Delphi's VCL components. Is it true?

No clue. Frankly, I'm absolutely not interested in .NET, so naturally I don't follow the headlines. Traditionally VB used OCXes and stuff like that that can be roughly compared to VCL components, but whether that's the case with .NET I don't know...

PPS. Can you write me one darn positive thing about VB?!?

NO!!!

Ok, ok, there are obviously some things about VB that could be called positive, but that would very much depend on what's your angle on things...
For starters, one thing VB has going for it is that you can teach a bloody monkey to code some basic stuff in VB. Sometimes that is important. The drawback (I'll bet you knew this was coming! ) of course is that as a result all of VB code looks like it was written by a horde of monkeys!
Also, if you were to spend your entire development career revolving around small things in M$ Office in Windoze, VB would blend in very nicely - you'd be able to code entire (albeit somewhat slow, ugly and backwards) applications in VB, customize Office with macros and stuff in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), really stress out Access (and possibly Excel - I did quite a bit of former but haven't tried any Excel mangling) - all that without ever leaving the comfort of your VB bubble. But of course, there are always alternatives, often much better alternatives to such mindset...

I think I also had another "positive" thing to add, but it slipped my mind... I'll add it if I recall it later on.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I want to be programming apps at least as complex and sophisticated as those made by those Iranian neurosurgeons... at least!

 

[timwhit]

Helldiver-you keep saying that everything in VB is backwards. Have you ever coded anything in VB. It is essentially BASIC with some improvments like being Object oriented.

Maybe I should post some VB code so you can see that it is super easy to read and write.

Option Explicit

[color=blue]Private Sub this_is_easy()
    Dim i as integer
    i = 1
    Do While i < 10
        picbox1.caption=i * 64
        i++
    Loop
End Sub[/color]

[color=green]'Everything in VB is standard BASIC, which makes it very easy to use[/color]

The only thing is that I wouldn't really try to start using VB.Net the older editions will do everything that you will want to do, but they are easier to use. Pick up a copy of VB 6 and try it out. You can probably find it for very cheap.

-Tim

 

[Mercutio]

Helldriver, I have personally seen a 50,000-line app written in whatever the hell Excel v5's language was. I was written by an acquaintance of mine for use by vendors doing business with one of one of the local Steel Mills. It's really a pretty amazing thing.

 

[timwhit]

Helldriver, I have personally seen a 50,000-line app written in whatever the hell Excel v5's language was. I was written by an acquaintance of mine for use by vendors doing business with one of one of the local Steel Mills. It's really a pretty amazing thing.

Excel's language is VBA. It is almost exactly like VB except it has a few more commands specific to Excel.

I wrote an Excel app this summer for a local business, it was maybe 1000 lines of code. And it simply reformated a very large worksheet so that it could be printed and be readable. It would have taken several hours to reformat it by hand, and with the program it could be reformatted in approximately 30 seconds.

You really can do some pretty amazing stuff using VBA with Excel or any of the other office apps.

-Tim

 

[Mercutio]

Excel 5 was the version included with Office 4.3, which pre-dated full VBA adoption in Office by two releases and probably 5 years.

Hard to explain what the app does, except to say that it provides a number of documents that US Steel requires its vendors fill out EXACTLY but will not itself provide in electronic form or in paper form outside their plant. It's time consuming. There's more but that's the big thing.

 

[HellDiver]

Helldiver-you keep saying that everything in VB is backwards. Have you ever coded anything in VB.

Actually - yes, a little. Wasn't my choice, really, it was client's call. I did dig through some other people's code, though (kind of a 3-rd party debugging), and had to port some VB code into VC++. And I did some serious VBA coding under Access, which is essentially the same thing, spare minor differences AFAIK. So, yes, I know what VB code looks like. And it's backwards.

I am certainly not going to engage in any kind of pissing match regarding what programming language is better, easier and such. VB has its niche, it stayed there till now, and it'll die in it some day. To you the excerpt you posted seems "easy to read and write". To me it looks backwards, bad habit, and very bug-prone (especially if picbox1.caption is a string!).

Helldriver, I have personally seen a 50,000-line app written in whatever the hell Excel v5's language was.

May very well be. Dunno what "language" was used in v5, but as Timwhit suggests, in contemporary Excels it would make sense that it would be VBA as VBA is pretty much the standard "behind the scenes" language of M$ Office. I just never tried coding VBA under Excel myself (unlike under Access and VC++), therefore I said "possibly Excel".

 

[HellDiver]

Helldiver-you keep saying that everything in VB is backwards. Have you ever coded anything in VB.

Come think of it - strange question, really. It would be kind of stupid of me to diss a language I have no knowledge of, don't you find?

 

[Mercutio]

I got a real kick out of reading about this programming language...

 

[Prof.Wizard]

LOL: Var' aq?! That's more difficult than C++... :lol:

Guys, truce! I'll try both languages... Most probably I'll go with Delphi 6 Personal buying a couple of introductory books as well. If I manage to get a copy of VB .net I will install it to see what it looks like, or how I can use it for secondary, hobbyist projects. From what I've understood, one can start programming in VB even without special knowledge, so I'll take that in my advantage to experiment in creating GUIs and Office macros... well, in any case, things that can be done easier and faster with VB instead of Delphi. 8)

 

[timwhit]

Prof: You don't even need a copy of VB to write office macros. VBA is already built in to Word, Excel, Access, ect. Just goto tools->macros->visual basic editor. Check help with any questions you have. VBA help is very complete and I have been able to answer endless questions after spending a few minutes browsing.

-Tim

 

[HellDiver]

Speaking of digit "6"... Looks like Borland finally gave birth to C++Builder 6. Should be an interesting thing to toy around with... Looks like they're shifting over to CLX cross-platform component library, allowing direct compatibility with [future] Borland C++ products for Linux.
Anyone has a clue regarding components compatibility between C++B6 and Delphi6/Kylix2 ?

As for GUI design and such... With todays RAD tools it matters not if you're using Kylix, VB, C++Builder or Delphi, you can create a perfectly functioning GUI/DB/net app with next to zero knowledge in programming. You just drag and drop, type in a couple of object names, hit "Build" and it works. That's the idea behind RAD - Rapid Application Development.

Good luck, Prof with whatever you choose. Anyways, it's not a Catholic marriage, you know, you can always switch horses if you don't like it!

 

[timwhit]

Good luck, Prof with whatever you choose. Anyways, it's not a Catholic marriage, you know, you can always switch horses if you don't like it!

And after you learn the basics of programming it is very easy to switch between different languages as they all enploy the same concepts, its just that the syntax changes...

-Tim

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Guys, I'm one lucky ass for sure... I've just noticed that one of the most prominent Delphi gurus, Marco Cantú, is Italian and gives lectures and seminars every now and then around the country. He probably comes at least one per year in the capital too... :wink:

My decision is final. Since programming will be more than a hobby for me, I'm bound to go for Delphi... I'm buying Delphi 6 Personal when I finish the exam period, with a couple of other introductory books as well...

Marco is running a cool site with all the stuff I need to get familiar. This includes online books of "Essential Pascal", "Essential Delphi", and the top-notch (sorry for this, but already downloaded it as e-book from KaZaA :wink: ) 1100-page "Mastering Delphi 6"... He also runs newsletters and newsgroups...

Guys... SKY IS THE LIMIT! 8)

(Thank you for helping me making my choice. I'll be going Delphi cause from there, with some more will, I can move to other languages much more easily... Visual Basic is something I can do whenever I want afterall... )

 

[HellDiver]

Ah, yes - the enthusiasm of the naive... :lol:

Well, don't let this remark put you down, Prof. Maybe you will like this "programming" thing after all - who knows?

P.S. Frankly, I think I felt just about the same... a very long time ago! Except back then on PCs memory was measured in dozens of kilo-bytes and "hard drive" meant passing a stretch of bumpy road...

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Could anyone link me to book titles of Delphi for beginners?

A quick search on the 'Net and Amazon didn't give me any good results. There are only books about experienced (or even guru) Delphi users out there. Nothing simple for beginners. When I mean simple I mean a book starting from basic Pascal syntax and coding, rich with examples, but always Delphi-specific. It's so strange an old language like Pascal/Delphi doesn't have zillions of titles for beginners...

PS. By principle, I don't buy "For Dummies" titles... :evil:
PPS. This lack of learning material is really killing me. I go to the local bookstores and find tons of titles how to program in VB and almost nothing about Delphi for novices.

 

[LiamC]

After spending 3 or 4 years doing Access/VB, I know I prefer Delphi

Prof, I'll dig up some titles for you later. The absolute, most important thing to do though is to understand the Delphi object model. I've watched a ton of VB/C++ programmers code Delphi - thinking it a toy language - write a ton of code - and get frustrated - to do relatively simple things simply because they don't understand the object model. If you are writing a lot of code - you've missed someting - stop working so hard.

 

[time]

I don't know if it's still available, but Delphi Programming Explorer is intended for people learning Delphi from scratch.

Unfortunately, it's intended for Delphi 1, although last time I looked Delphi 1 (16-bit) was still bundled with subsequent versions. Delphi 1 is fine for learning the IDE, basic object model and Pascal, however. The book was updated for Delphi 2 at least. Here's a review, although I wouldn't worry about the Delphi 2 stuff much, seeing the latest version is 6.

 

[time]

Er, I meant "... seeing the latest version is 7".

 

[e_dawg]

If I could only use one MS language, it would be VB/VBA. Why? 1. I need it for Excel and Access programming and 2. that's all I know...

Good luck with Delphi. Once you programming fundamentals (variables, iterative structures, conditional/selection structures, functions/methods, classes, objects, and "passing") then you just have to become familiar with the particular object model you're using.

BTW, I guess VB does lull you into bad habits. I don't really know how to program... I just muck around in the IDE and keep on fixing things until it compiles

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I don't know if it's still available, but Delphi Programming Explorer is intended for people learning Delphi from scratch.

Unfortunately, it's intended for Delphi 1...

This is my main problem. The few titles I found about learning from zero were intended for too-old versions of Delphi. I don't assume that it changes a hell lot, afterall only the advanced features do really change from 6-to-7... but this shows a programming language that's not "suggested" for new/novice programmers... only for those who are fed up with VB/C and need a powerful RAD suite and already know a lot about programming.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

If I could only use one MS language, it would be VB/VBA. Why? 1. I need it for Excel and Access programming and 2. that's all I know...

Good luck with Delphi. Once you programming fundamentals (variables, iterative structures, conditional/selection structures, functions/methods, classes, objects, and "passing") then you just have to become familiar with the particular object model you're using.

BTW, I guess VB does lull you into bad habits. I don't really know how to program... I just muck around in the IDE and keep on fixing things until it compiles

You know, I think you're right afterall. I'm studying to be a doctor of medicine, not a professional programmer. I don't have aspirations to stress Pascal to its limits...
Yes, VB is a hell sum of bad habits but afterall it's those MS Office applications I will need to trim to my needs. And what's so wrong about having automated-code and a fancy IDE to help you do your work fast and efficiently? Frontpage too puts HTML without you knowing it, but it DOES build pages quickly as well!

I think VB will complete my needs at 99.99%. Jee, if I happen to be on the rest .01% I'll pay a professional programmer.

 

[e_dawg]

If you are looking for an intro VB/programming book, I found Learn to Program with Visual Basic by John Smiley to be pretty good. John makes it seem like you're taking one of his intro college programming courses by writing like he speaks -- it's a conversational style that a prof might use in his lectures. I'm not too fond of his insistence on also teaching you about the Systems Development LifeCycle (SDLC) and the software consulting process, as many people don't care about what it takes to be a contract developer or a software consultant... but other than that, it is one of the best intro programming books I have ever seen.

The entire "course" is based on one massive class project, which is to write an sales quotation program for a china shop. In the course of writing this program, you learn things like variables, conditional/selection structures, iterative structures. You learn the basics of programming in a real world context.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1902745000

This book also comes with a learning edition of VB6. You can also get the VB.NET version.

There are also more advanced books in this series like Learn to Program Visual Basic Objects, LTP VB Databases that continue this china shop example to build an inventory management system, etc.

Other VB books include Peter Wright's Beginning Visual Basic 6 from Wrox Press
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1861001053
Wrox has a number of good books in their VB series (VB objects, VB with databases, etc)

For VBA (I assume you will want to write macros in Excel), check out:

John Walkenbach's Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764532634

Albright's VBA for Modelers: Developing Decision Support Systems Using Excel
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0534380123

Getz and Gilbert's VBA Developer's Handbook
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0782129781

 

[Howell]

You know, I think you're right afterall. I'm studying to be a doctor of medicine, not a professional programmer. I don't have aspirations to stress Pascal to its limits...

I thought you had your mind set or I would have suggested VB for you too. I understand you to looking for something for easy prototyping. Whip up a quick proof of concept in other words. Although I use C, VB would enable you to get something that works and is relatively pretty (not the code though) out quickly.

If you get to a place where everything works and you just need it to be faster you can pay someone to port it or learn C then. FWIW, I understand the programming language of Lotus Notes is very similar to VB.

 

[Pradeep]

Did the new version of FoxPro come with VS.NET?

Because FoxPro doesn't use the .Net crap, it isn't included.

 

[Mercutio]

That just means they didn't take the opportunity to screw it up. That is a good thing.

 

[JSF]

Prof.Wizard, in my opinion you should go with MS Visual C++ because it offers an ordered growth path as you become more competent with the language and its implementation. As your own programming needs expand beyond those you presently foresee it will not limit you.

With Visual C++ you can start with a Console presentation of simple programs in which output is presented in an emulated DOS window. Your programs can be written in Kernighan and Ritchie’s C, or preferably, in Stroustrup’s C++. None of MS’s bells and whistles are present to confuse you in your early learning process. As you become more proficient with the language you will move to more complex programs best implemented with multiple classes and their implementations; but you can still stick with a Console presentation.

Eventually you will want to print out data and documentation associated with your program. To do this you will want to use your Windows resources. Later you may want your program to evolve into a full Windows style application program with dialog boxes, buttons, check boxes, sliders, scroll bars, etc. These features are preprogrammed for you in the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library. This is where Visual C++ shines. After all, Windows Operating Systems were developed with Visual C++.

It is my understanding that Visual C#.net addresses the needs of enterprise software developers. Since I have no intention to work with a software development team over a computer network I don’t want to be sucked into another large cash outlay to acquire capabilities I’ll never need. Your projected software needs are different from mine, so your needs will have to guide you in your decision.

I have a lot of Fortran experience, limited Pascal experience and miniscule C++ experience. Currently, I am teaching myself Visual C++ with the aid of several textbooks. I want the modular structure, slick syntax and data controls that C++ offers. It is a language very suited to research and design types who want to generate a personal library of reusable software modules.

Visual C++ is not easily learned. It wasn’t until I acquired Horton’s Beginning Visual C++ 6 with its initial emphasis of Console presentations that I was able to embark on an ordered learning experience. Most textbooks jump immediately into MFC implementations, and this was too big of a jump for me.

If you want a programming language that will serve you well in the future, be prepared to invest significant time. Fortunately, Visual C++ allows you to pace yourself slowly when you have a busy schedule.

Hope this helps, Joe.

 

[e_dawg]

Nobody disputes that C and its derivatives (C++, Java) are the most important languages for a programmer, but for those with little to no programming background, I still say VB is the way to go. It has two important features:

1. It is easy enough for beginners to program interesting apps quickly. This is important because it builds momentum and enthusiasm, encouraging the beginner to forge ahead with the learning process. When a language has too steep a learning curve for a beginner, it can discourage them altogether (trust me: been there, done that with Java as my 1st language... almost swore off programming forever until VB saved me)

2. The language is easy enough so that you don't have to worry about instantiating a new object, allocating memory, using pointers, and all the other things that can make a newbie programmer starting off in C, C++, and Java feel like a total idiot. With VB, you can learn the basics of programming (variables, conditional/selection structures, and iterative structures) first to build a solid foundation. Then you can move on and tackle OOP (C++, Java) and memory management (C) concepts. Learning everything at once is just too much to ask, resulting in a state where you are just confused (well, that was my expeience, anyways)

 

[Howell]

I have a lot of Fortran experience, limited Pascal experience and miniscule C++ experience.

Heh, I also started in FORTRAN. After I had been programming on Borland C for a while, I tried to switch to VC++ for the better debugger. I never did figure out how to get my program to display in a console window. I suspected at the time that I would need some MS library. I also didn't understand the need to construct a "project" when I was only writing a 100 line program. I ended up going back to Borland despite the debugger.

 

[GIANT]

MS Macro Assembler V5.1 is where the future lies! :idea:

 

[Howell]

MS Macro Assembler V5.1 is where the future lies! :idea:

What? Are they decreasing the version numbers as new versions come out? Ver. 6.11 is available.

 

[GIANT]

What? Are they decreasing the version numbers as new versions come out? Ver. 6.11 is available.

Heh... I wasn't aware that MS still had MASM available. The last version I ever used was V5.1.

BTW, Intel assembly language makes my head hurt. After years of working with various Motorola and Zilog assemblers (way back when), little endian X86 seems totally bass-ackwards.

 

[Mercutio]

I think I saw something twisted about Object Oriented Cobol a while back. That's got to be at LEAST as distubing as x86 assembly.

If only someone would OO-ify RPG... sigh.

Big Iron forever!

 

[timwhit]

Hey Prof about 1 year yesterday you decided on Delphi as your final choice. But have you been able to program anything in it?

Listen to e_dawg and myself and just try out VB. It's easy and you don't need a degree to program Hello World in it. Actually Java and C++ aren't really that hard to program in. You really don't need pointers or structs or anything like that unless you are doing complicated programming.

I'm going to go rewrite all my programs recursively for fun now.

 

[Howell]

Hey Prof about 1 year yesterday you decided on Delphi as your final choice. But have you been able to program anything in it?

I did not even realize this thread was so old.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

Hey Prof about 1 year yesterday you decided on Delphi as your final choice. But have you been able to program anything in it?

Actually I left the whole endeavor cause
I had much studying to do and clinics to attend. No, all this time I wasn't trying anything else than reading a few lines of Essential Pascal by Marco Cantu.

But believe, I tried to find some titles of "beginner's Delphi" but there nothing is out there.

 

[Fushigi]

If only someone would OO-ify RPG... sigh.

Big Iron forever!

Well, it's not naturally OO, but RPG on the 400 has always been capable of being used to develop OO systems. The 400's OS itself is an OO design and was originally written in RPG (before being re-written in C/C++ a few years ago).

Current RPG IV as implemented can easily interoperate with any other HLL including Java, COBOL, command language, C++, etc. Here is a description of the current state of RPG.

What we really need is OO APL! :mrgrn:

- Fushigi