Old Programming Language Visual Basic 6.0

Panda60 · 19 Sep 2023 at 19:17

I used to work as a VB Database programmer in early 2000s. In the loft, I found many VB Programming, VBA and MSSQL books from that era.
I have not done any programming since 2005 doing other business.
Just wondering, if VB programming is still used in the industry, or have they been long gone, and forgotten / replaced by other PLs.

Andre · 19 Sep 2023 at 19:28

vb programming still exists, but there are better languages out there nowadays that enable better program flow etc.

We still have in active development a vb6 program

Panda60 · 19 Sep 2023 at 19:56

Andre said:
vb programming still exists, but there are better languages out there nowadays that enable better program flow etc.

We still have in active development a vb6 program

Which PLs are the most popular and useful for DB systems and apps in general these days in the industry?

Rroff · 19 Sep 2023 at 19:58

For new stuff VB6.0 would be a big nope, but we still have many bits of software at work created in older programming languages, including stuff built in older versions of VB, which are actively maintained - some of it is becoming an issue due to people with the experience and skills disappearing. Unfortunately it often takes a lot of justification to get the budget to rebuild older stuff on a newer platform.

Panda60 · 19 Sep 2023 at 20:09

Rroff said:
For new stuff VB6.0 would be a big nope, but we still have many bits of software at work, including stuff built in older versions of VB, which are actively maintained - some of it is becoming an issue due to people with the experience and skills disappearing. Unfortunately it often takes a lot of justification to get the budget to rebuild older stuff on a newer platform.

Yes, VB used to be a bit of limited PL even back in the days when I was active in programming.
I am thinking of getting back into programming, and the other books I have are C, C++ and C#.
Java, .ASP PHP and CSS Perl Pyton, UNIX Shell PL as well.
I was going to get into iOS programming at the time, and that's when I stopped programming, so
I also have iOS and Cocoa programming for Mac OS x too.

Java and C, C++ and C# is the ones I might return to, although I heard C# is very easy PL, and is totally different from the other two.

goldy6660 · 19 Sep 2023 at 20:10

The justification is a pain sometimes. I've got a component library created in a new programming language (and new design) and Devs want to have the new design in the old language just because they don't want to learn and spend time and effort doing the thing. Annoying.

Separately though take a look in to the more modern languages, react or angular for web or swift UI/compose on native

Rroff · 19 Sep 2023 at 20:14

Panda60 said:
Yes, VB used to be a bit of limited PL even back in the days when I was active in programming.
I am thinking of getting back into programming, and the other books I have are C, C++ and C#.
Java, .ASP PHP and CSS Perl Pyton, UNIX Shell PL as well.
I was going to get into iOS programming at the time, and that's when I stopped programming, so
I also have iOS and Cocoa programming for Mac OS x too.

Java and C, C++ and C# is the ones I might return to, although I heard C# is very easy PL, and is totally different from the other two.

Back in the day, a very different age, I was creating software on VB3-6 and we'd build the framework in that, which was most of the frontend stuff, and then use API calls to a DLL(s) created using C/C++ for the backend stuff or anything which needed speed or access to Windows functions not easily exposed via VB.

It was generally much nicer than trying to do the whole thing using Visual C++ or another language.

Panda60 · 19 Sep 2023 at 21:04

goldy6660 said:
The justification is a pain sometimes. I've got a component library created in a new programming language (and new design) and Devs want to have the new design in the old language just because they don't want to learn and spend time and effort doing the thing. Annoying.

Separately though take a look in to the more modern languages, react or angular for web or swift UI/compose on native

Yeah, they sound like real cool PLs, especially for the front ends.
They are totally new for me, so need to learn from the start, if I go that route.

Panda60 · 19 Sep 2023 at 21:08

Rroff said:
Back in the day, a very different age, I was creating software on VB3-6 and we'd build the framework in that, which was most of the frontend stuff, and then use API calls to a DLL(s) created using C/C++ for the backend stuff or anything which needed speed or access to Windows functions not easily exposed via VB.

It was generally much nicer than trying to do the whole thing using Visual C++ or another language.

Sounds really cool way writing large system.
We always used VB5-6 for everything and MSSQL back end.
They were not efficient especially for searches and queries.
I would have thought there are Visual C++ which supposed to be good for the front ends?
Maybe Visual in the programming, not the front end stuff?

C, C++ seems most efficient and robust, but as you say, it can be nightmare for creating good graphic UI.
Would C# better option?

darkblade · 20 Sep 2023 at 12:51

Rroff said:
Back in the day, a very different age, I was creating software on VB3-6 and we'd build the framework in that, which was most of the frontend stuff, and then use API calls to a DLL(s) created using C/C++ for the backend stuff or anything which needed speed or access to Windows functions not easily exposed via VB.

It was generally much nicer than trying to do the whole thing using Visual C++ or another language.

I was in the same boat back then with VB underporming with DBs and switched to Delphi. Huge jump in performance and productivity. The software I wrote over 20 years ago is still being used in the tyre & exhaust industry today.
God I feel old now!

Andre · 20 Sep 2023 at 13:52

Panda60 said:
Sounds really cool way writing large system.
We always used VB5-6 for everything and MSSQL back end.
They were not efficient especially for searches and queries.
I would have thought there are Visual C++ which supposed to be good for the front ends?
Maybe Visual in the programming, not the front end stuff?

C, C++ seems most efficient and robust, but as you say, it can be nightmare for creating good graphic UI.
Would C# better option?

Personally, I would look at the .net languages and javascript/typescript and all their supporting frameworks - but others will suggest go/dart/ruby etc.
You could look at vb.net as a starting point if you are happy with vb, but microsoft are not providing any new functionality going forward
It is all a different world from vb3-6!

Best bet is to read up on each of the languages you might find interesting, but c# rather than c/c++ unless you want to get into real time programming

Rroff · 24 Sep 2023 at 03:44

darkblade said:
I was in the same boat back then with VB underporming with DBs and switched to Delphi. Huge jump in performance and productivity. The software I wrote over 20 years ago is still being used in the tyre & exhaust industry today.
God I feel old now!

I've never really touched Delphi though I've done a bit with Pascal - around the time Delphi 6 IIRC was released there was a bit of hype around it as the next best thing but never really took on.

Grim5 · 24 Sep 2023 at 04:39

Vba is dead, even Microsoft says so - it's being replaced with Python

Steve1 · 2 Aug 2024 at 00:48

The new twinBASIC programming language is worth looking at. It is VB6 and VBA backwards compatible. You can import VB6 source code and forms. twinBASIC can compile to 64bit.