🚀 go-pugleaf

mobergru@oslonett.no (Rune Moberg) wrote:

>In article <4fef2l$4sck@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
>stevez1@ibm.net (Steven R. Zuch) wrote:
>>>The sizemaniac aka VB 4.0 doesn't fit into that strategy.
>>
>>My point was that MS can, and IMHO will, incorporate more
>>OLE2 and OCXs into their next operating system, and therefore,
>>the need to distribute so much run time stuff with VB 4 will
>>not be required.  VB may even become bundled with the
>>next OS, just like QBasic became bundled with DOS.

>You're talking 3-10 years from now...
>Win95 didn't come with any OCXs and the same is true for NT 3.51.
>I doubt we'll see any in NT 4.0 either...

Read differently from MS.

>So, when you distribute your app two years from now, you'll most likely
>include those OCXs anyway, because the oldtimers who run NT 3.51 (because
>they never adapted to the Win95 UI) still haven't caught on...

They better get use to the Win95 UI, because, based on what I read,  
MS plans to adopt it for the next version of Windows NT.

[snip]


>>My point was that if a third party has a nice software program,
>>MS may be able to incorporate the best of such into the
>>operating system.  Development languages may fall into
>>this area.  MS has been incorporating disk defragmenters,
>>backup software, compression, desktop file managers,
>>fax software, etc ... into Windows, regardless how the
>>developers felt.

>No. They licensed disk defragmenter from Symantec and the backup software
>from Central Point (or Arcada?). These are stripped down versions of the
>full package, so the customer is encouraged to buy the whole package...

How about the other items mentioned above.  Yup, they license some,
develope others.  But, if they like it, they get it, and bundled it 
into the OS.  Advantage of being a monopoly.

>In any case, not one of the applications you mentioned was made with VB,
>nor did they use any OCXs.

Not even MS markets VB for such apps.  They have other development 
tools.

The point is that Gates loves Basic.  In 1975, he and Paul Allen wrote
a version of BASIC that ran on the MITS Altair 8800 Computer.  They
then founded MS and wrote BASIC version for other platforms.  Gates,
IMHO, is not goint to drop BASIC.

It was bundled with MS DOS, and now is bundled in their Windows Office

Suite.  Next, IMHO, it will be bundled again, as part of the operating
system.  And even if they do not bundled all the OCXs and DLLs for VB 
in the near future, it will end up on a lot of PCs.  How many PCs have
VBRUN300 on it.

So, regardless of what Delphi does, or does not do, how fast it is,
how small it's exe's are, VB will be around for a long time.  It is,
and will continue to be a major developers tool in the Windows 
environment.

So, to the question, "Should I dump Visual Basic", I would so
no. It is just to important to MS, and MS is too big to be ignored.
Ofcourse, that does not mean one should learn other programming 
languages.  Even Delphi.




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