More than 100 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) developers have signed a petition demanding the software company reconsider plans to end support for Visual Basic in its "classic" form.
Developers claim the move could kill development on millions of Visual Basic 6 (VB6) applications and "strand" programmers that have not trained in newer languages.
Microsoft said it will end standard support for Visual Basic 6 at the end of this month, ending free incident support and critical updates. Both services will be available for a fee for another three years.
But MVPs hope Microsoft will reconsider not just VB6's support options, but will continue to develop the language alongside its newer Visual Basic .NET.
"By providing a new version of a COM-based Visual Basic within the Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft will help maintain the value of its clients' existing code, demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the core Visual Basic language, and greatly simplify the adoption of VB .NET by those that wish to do so," the petition says. "The decisions of if, how, and when to migrate code to .NET should lie with the customer."
The problem, say the dissenting developers, is that when Microsoft made Visual Basic .Net (or Visual Basic 7) the successor to VB6, it actually killed one language and replaced it with a fundamentally different one. It's effectively impossible to migrate VB6 applications to VB .Net, and for VB6 developers, learning VB .Net is as complex as learning a completely new programming language, critics say.
"The .NET version of Visual Basic is Visual Basic in name only," wrote developer and author Rich Levin in a recent blog entry. "Any organisation with an investment in Visual Basic code â€" consultants, ISVs, IT departments, businesses, schools, governments â€" are forced to freeze development of their existing VB code base, or reinvest virtually all the time, effort, intellectual property, and expense to rewrite their applications from scratch."
Microsoft continues to develop C++ alongside C#, the language's .NET counterpart, and the company should do the same with "classic" Visual Basic and VB .Net, the petition argues.
Microsoft introduced VB .Net in 2000, and since then, developer use of VB6 and older versions has declined steadily. Many of those leaving the language behind are migrating not to VB .Net but to non-Microsoft languages such as Java, according to some surveys. For example, a November 2004 survey of EMEA developers by Evans Data found that Visual Basic had lost 25 percent of its EMEA developer base since 2003.
VB .Net grew from 16 percent of EMEA developers in the autumn of 2002 to 32 percent in late 2004, with 43 percent of EMEA developers using some form of Visual Basic, the survey found. About half of the developers who had used VB6 or earlier did not migrate to VB .Net Evans Data said.
In North America most Visual Basic developers continued to use VB6 and older versions â€" 45 percent of all North American developers, compared with 34 percent for Visual Basic .NET. Fifty-four percent of North American developers used some sort of Visual Basic.
"One of the main issues keeping VB6 and earlier developers from making the migration to VB.Net is the steepness of the learning curve," said Albion Butters, Evans Data¹s international analyst, in a statement. "The difficulty in moving existing VB6 apps to VB .NET is, in some cases, insurmountable.²
While the rebels' argument may make sense, it is probably a moot point, as Microsoft is unlikely to change its stance on VB6, say some industry observers.
"All software â€" desktop apps, languages, databases, whatever â€" gets 'end-of-lifed' eventually, some unfortunately, some fortunately," said Jez Higgins, a Birmingham-based developer. "The fundamental programming disciplines aren't tied to any one language or any one way or working. They won't disappear out the side of your head. I suggest these blokes buck up and get on."
"The future of programming is clear, and object-oriented languages designed from the get-go for Web and Internet-enabled functionality are the future," wrote one developer in response to Levin's post. "No amount of romanticising VB6 is going to change that."
1
no - 15/03/05
While you're at it, bring back access 97! The same reason these guys are complaining is the same reason
people abandoned VB in the first place. A big, 'I told you so!'.
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2
David Cornelson - 15/03/05
I sympathize with anyone that feels shut out, but I was a VB6 programmer with no C or OO background to speak of. I made the tremendous effort to switch to C# and learn OO. It took time, but it was worth the effort. The ability to write systems in .NET is tremendously more effective than in the old COM architectures. Frankly, you are doing your customers a disservice by continuing to push an older architecture and not moving to object-oriented development.
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3
Docteur Justice - 16/03/05
Being tied to only one furnish company is foolish. Using a full proprietary language with no implementation eslewhere is suicide
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4
Edwardt - 16/03/05
Still having a vb6 Code base I feel for a lot of the vb programmers out there.
Unluckily reading a lot of these blogs going about I am glad to be moving away from VB as I find it embar****ing.
All I can say is thank goodness these are not the people deciding if we are going to implement IPV6. I would hate for that to be canned for reasons like "but all my Doom3 Lan parties are configured for IPV4"
I have a substantial VB6 code base in production at the moment but I see no problem. Eventually as the systems evolve they will be slowly rewitten in something else (most probably VB.NET or C#) and I will have hours of fun trying to get interop to do things it shouldn't but this is less stress than I went through trying to get VB6 to do Windows Subcl****ing and multithreading and being new it should be fun.
If I was Bill and all these people sent me a petition I would cancel all the MVPs from my M$ mailing list and sent them all on a free Sun Java certification course. I reckon the worst damage Bill could do to Sun and Linux at this point in time is to get these idiots working for the enemy.
I have seen a lot of comments like "I will not rewite my VB code in .NET, so to save time I will go and write it in Java and C++ for Linux".
My thoughts:
Go forth and Code in something else, please let me know how you enjoyed the learning curve and let everyone else get on with something useful.
VB6 is on the way out, it is time everyone in IT grew up enough to stop whining like 3 year olds and get on with what we are payed for.
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5
Anon Pers - 16/03/05
Visual FoxPro 9.0 was just released. If you want to do COM development on Win32, look there. VB is going and should go.
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6
Beouwlf TrollsHammer - 04/04/05
Vi$ual Ba$ic in ALL its versions sux really bad. Use Python instead.
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7
Mike Silver - 07/06/05
help them (VB developers) to move their applications over to J2EE standard.... have seen a migration service that does it for you, almost a 100%. www.j2jglobal.com
//Mike
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8
Mike Silver - 07/06/05
help them (VB developers) to move their applications over to J2EE standard.... have seen a migration service that does it for you, almost a 100%. www.j2jglobal.com
//Mike
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9
Ian Nelson - 09/11/05
We can support you moving over to a Java platform! Have a go at our web site. http://www.j2jglobal.com
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10
Humayun - 17/05/06
I am working on a VB6 IDE using VB6 it self, i am not sure if its possible to easily complete this project but still i am trying
See for your self
http://classicvb.sourceforge.net/
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