Wish Please develop Basic4Windows

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rizalmartin

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OFF-TOPIC THREAD

Basic4Android is the best programming tool for android device. There is B4J for creating Java apps. Recently there is B4i for creating iOS apps.

I wish that there will be a Basic4Windows for developing Windows Applications as successful and easy as Visual Basic 6.0. Visual Basic is the popular and yet powerful language for developing windows application.

It has a large community of developers using VB6.
It was a successful programming language in Windows Programming but Microsoft abandoned it in favor of Visual Basic .NET forcing the users to migrate. Because of that the Visual Basic 6.0 users are struggling and searching for best alternative for VB6 since it was no longer supported but no other application can be an alternative to VB6. It is one of the main reason why windows users refuse to upgrade their Windows OS even it is no longer supported such as Windows XP. The developers are called to microsoft to bring back VB6 or open source it however they declined without a valid reason.

Here is the official Statement from Microsoft (Source: http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/f...g-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi) :

We have read all of the comments on this thread and I’d like to thank you for providing your constructive feedback on this issue. Instead of merely repeating our support and migration guidance that has been laid out on http://msdn.com/vbrun, I’d like to address some of your specific comments here.

To play back the feedback themes we’re hearing:
- VB6 is awesome
- VB6 needs to be brought forward and maintained: in a new release or OSS

VB6 was and still is without a doubt awesome. VB6 made developers incredibly productive building a breadth of applications and as a result we have a wealth of applications and passionate developers to this day in 2014. One way I see our mission in developer tools is to empower developers to solve problems. This includes both today’s problems AND the problems of tomorrow. VB6, as you all have stated repeatedly in this thread, is an excellent tool for solving the problems of its day. We also stand behind our decision starting in 2002 to meet the current demands of our developers and the industry with .NET. For the scenarios VB6 set out to do, we see VB6 being “complete”. We feel good about VB6 being able to continue maintaining their applications for the past 15 years. Current needs ranging from distributed applications and services, to web applications and services, to devices, to new architectures and languages, required fundamental changes to the whole stack. We looked at how we could accommodate these needs through incremental changes to VB6 while maintaining its essence, and that was not possible.

To address the modern needs we would need to go far beyond updating the language. We have to remember that VB6 is not just a language. VB6 is a language, a runtime, a platform library, a tool/IDE, and an ecosystem tightly packaged together in a way that made all of them work well together. We’ve worked with many customers on migration from VB6 to .NET and found that while yes, there are language changes, the dominating factor in migration difficulties isn’t the language differences. Even open sourcing the language/runtime wouldn’t solve the fact that VB6 was thought for a different set of problems, and the fact that its strength came from the end-to-end solution provided by all these five pieces working together. Take a change like 64bit, the complete runtime, tools and ecosystem chain would need to be retooled.

So, moving forward what can we do? Where we have been able to help move forward is in our stance around support and interoperability. The VB6 runtime it is still a component of the Windows operating system and is a component shipped in Windows 8.1. It will be supported at least through 2024. This ensures your apps and components continue to run as you incrementally move forward to .NET. The support policy is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ms788708. There are numerous interop strategies that we developed and evolved to enable incremental migration as you upgrade your skills, described here: http://msdn.com/vbrun.

In summary, VB6 was awesome. We agree. We don’t expect or demand anyone to throw away their code or rewrite from any of our technologies unless it makes business sense for them to do so. We have to innovate to enable our customers to innovate. It is not a viable option to create a next version of VB6. We stand by our decision to make VB.NET and the .NET Framework. We think they are awesome too. It is not feasible to open source VB6 tools chain and ecosystem. The VB6 runtime was last shipped in Windows 8.1 and will be supported for the lifetime of Windows 8.1. Support and interop are great tools to move forward incrementally.

I hope you feel we’ve listened to your feedback and that I’ve explained things well enough that you understand our decision.

Paul Yuknewicz
Group Program Manager
Microsoft Visual Studio Cloud Tools
Click to expand...

Now the VB6 developers are now search for their new home as the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE is failing to install or to run little by little as time passes by.

This proves that Basic4Windows must be created. It must be a new home for Visual Basic 6.0 developers.

Here is the proposal on creating Basic4Windows:
  • Has Free Version (NOT Trial) and Commercial Version. (Just like Express Editions of latest Visual Studio)
  • Same VB6 syntax and format used and must be compatible.
  • Ability to use ActiveX Components.
  • Ability to have a reference from DLL, TLB, OLB, and OCX.
  • Regfree application output which means the application dependecies must be present only instead of register the dependencies.
  • Safer subclassing.
  • Light and updated IDE environment but still the same as Visual Basic 6.0 environment and its characteristics.
  • Allows to import VB6 Projects and its files (*.vbp,*.frm,*.cls,*.bas etc.)
  • Better Data Report and Paper Print Output
  • Ability to create Desktop Apps and Metro Apps also (if possible).
  • The compiled Basic4Windows application has a communication also on B4A, B4J, and B4i applications.
  • Ability to call Windows API functions.
  • The written application must be compiled in Native code
  • Can use also Visual Basic 6.0 runtime aside from Basic4Windows runtime.
  • Single EXE file application deployment and has an ability to use third party installer creator preferrably Inno Setup

Although its a hard and ambitious task or goal to achieve. But I hope that the creators B4A, B4J, and B4i may consider this suggestions. If they succesfully build B4A, B4J, and B4i. Then there will be a B4W also.

Thank you



References:

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WAZUMBi

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How about PL14Android or FORTRAN4Android?
 
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WAZUMBi

WAZUMBi

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Sorry rizalmartin it would we are having a little fun with this but as Informatix said VB6 is, for the most part, long gone and dead. Whether or not there is still a strong following I don't think it would be in Erel's best interest to devote time and resources to this language. Much like Basic4ppc (Windows Mobile), VB6 is fading away. :(
 
Informatix

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Yes, don't take it bad. You probably created many things with VB6, are happy with it and don't want to lose all what you did or redo it with another language but there's no strong reason to resurrect a language that cannot be considered as a great language nowadays (except by some of its users which rarely know another language) and has been replaced by a language very close (VB.Net) that offers many improvements and removed some bad aspects of VB6.
 
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abhishek007p

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The VB6 vs VB.NET debate is long, i dont want to comment on that. both side have their preferences.

What the thread started wanted is really difficult to achieve. Syntax is not really a big deal, the Big deal is compile to Native Code, so we dont have to ship a large runtime and Execution on JIT is slow, we all know that.

But if there can be a IDE which takes B4A syntax and complies to Native Code then there are a lot of people ready to buy such find of solution, Thousands of people voted to continue the development of VB6 which Microsoft declined in June 2014. There are a few people who tried to make a alternative to VB6, but they have abandoned the Idea due to time and complexity.

B4D - Basic 4 Desktop, a IDE which takes Basic Syntax (like B4A) and Complies to Native Code using the freely available C/C++ Complier.
 
Erel

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abhishek007p

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Yes, but that still requires Java, If people can install Java they would install .NET.

There are free C/C++ compliers available and then there are Basic compliers like FreeBasic and PowerBasic available which are good compliers but lacks a good IDE. There is one guy i know who developed Alpha version of VB6 Alternative, and there was one guy who was ready to start a Kickstarter crowdfunding project for funds. so if you ever work on something like this in future then there are people available who are ready to contribute.
 
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ercolesptr

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abhishek007p said:
Yes, but that still requires Java, If people can install Java they would install .NET.

There are free C/C++ compliers available and then there are Basic compliers like FreeBasic and PowerBasic available which are good compliers but lacks a good IDE. There is one guy i know who developed Alpha version of VB6 Alternative, and there was one guy who was ready to start a Kickstarter crowdfunding project for funds. so if you ever work on something like this in future then there are people available who are ready to contribute.
Click to expand...
Freebasic now has very good IDE very similar to VB6 VisualFBEditor is most advanced and WinFBE is very similar to VB6. Look here:


or here:

 
Magma

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@ercolesptr Very nice, but I am not sure that I have "the courage" to start over again ! - I am so happy with B4X and the community is awesome....
 
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Num3

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Another alternative: Purebasic , compiles for windows, linux and mac. It transpiles purebasic code to C or ASM and then compiles it.
You can directly use any system or 3rd party DLL / SO.
 
Xfood

Xfood

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the best in my opinion is B4x, for windows, Mac, Linux, Iphone, Android
 
BlueVision

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Funny to see this thread resurrected. My programming career went via ATARI-Basic, 6502-Assembler, TurboXL-Basic and Pascal also to VisualBasic6. But to be quite honest, as nice as that language was, it is outdated. The problem with VB6 is that it is so widespread and is still used in Excel VBA, among other things.
It's funny because I'm currently porting a large Excel VBA file with lots of macros to B4J.

The days of Excel VBA are also numbered, there are tons of Excel files with VBA macros in the world. In my opinion, B4J is the best alternative to Excel VBA because it is very quick to implement. Yes, it is a Java application and not a native Windows application. But that makes no difference, the performance and the layout are simply convincing.
I think there will soon be a wide range of possibilities for professional programmers. Excel VBA will also not be developed further. This will also cause problems in companies at some point, they will simply become vulnerable to new malware in the course of time.
 
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