Re: IBM iSeries Advertisements

On Wed, 2005-03-30 at 15:55 -0500, Steve Richter wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:33:08 -0600, Rich Duzenbury
> <rduz-midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > > What I think a lot of people miss on the subject of IBM vs Microsoft,
> > > Windows vs OS/2 is that Microsoft puts a lot of effort into the
> > > programming side of their products.  Microsoft makes great programming
> > > languages.  Windows is a very programmer friendly OS, Win32 API is
> > > very well done, COM was great in its day and .NET continues the
> > > tradition.
> > Geez, I can't help but disagree here.  If you made an investement in
> > VB6, you must throw it away to use VB .net.  No upgrade path.  How is
> > that friendly?  How is that great?  Sorry, I just don't see it.
> 
> VB6 code still works, the compiler is available. 
You might still be able to purchase it, but it's a dead end now for
sure.

> VB6, just like RPG,
> was a dead end because of its syntax. The fact that VB.NET is a
> popular .NET language tells me that MS did a decent job of giving VB
> programmers a migration path.
> 
Uhh, rewriting <> migration path.  Seems pretty simple to me.  A lot of
people are wasting a lot of time becoming proficient in the 'new'
environment and porting their VB6 code to VB.net.  I remember the same
nonsense from earlier version of VB as well.  Why is this acceptable to
anyone?

> > And it seems that nearly every version of VB has varying amounts of
> > extra effort foisted upon those who upgrade.
> > 
> > Also, you say microsoft makes great programming languages.  What
> > programming languages has microsoft invented?  C and C++?  Nope.
> 
> Sure they did.  
No, C++ was invented at AT&T in 1979 or so, not Microsoft, and C quite a
few years earlier before Microsoft came into being.

>  MFC
> was very popular and ATL, which was templates applied to COM was
> getting a lot of attention up until the end of the COM era.   MS also
> put a lot of effort into making C++ an equal language in .NET.  They
> actually added features to C++ to do that.
More corruption and vendor lock in.  This is *not* a good thing.

In order to try to construe this as being on-topic, before David raps
our knuckles, I will at least say that I'm really thankful that I don't
have to rewrite my iSeries applications each time a new version of the
operating system or the compiler comes out, as I do if I use VB, or most
anything Microsoft.
--
Regards,
Rich

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