🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4e9g08$3dp@maureen.teleport.com>, bw <bw@teleport.com>
writes
>I've been messing around with VB for a couple version releases now, and have 
>VB Pro 4.0 (32bit) now.
>
>Now, I realize that I need to pack the VB40032.DLL (if I want to give it to 
>those that do not already have the driver), but why all the other drivers?
>
Well, I haven't used 4.0 (and don't really want to), so I'm not sure
this applies, but... Does your project include "ocx" or "vbx" things
by default, that aren't actually needed?  In the default VB 3.0 app,
all the freebee VBXs are in the makefile from the default installation.
You should chop them all out, and add them to your individual projects
as you need them.  I find VB 3.0 makes reasonable sized distribution
packages (<100k excl vb*.dll).

>I'm really in need of some insight at this point.  Again, this stuff doesn't 
>come cheap (as you know), and I'd really like to learn programming plus have a 
>great package to program with.

I'm happy with what can be done in VB.  We have Visual C++, and 
would use it to do projects where VB is of no use.  (We haven't had 
the need to do that yet, other than for creating VBXs.)
We use Windows API calls regularly in our VB programs (message
handling, winsock accesses, etc) which are straightforward, and
simple to code.  These obviate the need for a lot of vbx's.

If you want "hard" programs that can't be done in VB then you have
to use some other language, and Visual C++ or Delphi would be best.
(Somehow I think Delphi would be best as it is "third generation".
We've already gone through both Borland and MS/Visual C++, so we
won't move to it.  Starting over, we might go Delphi.)

The Windows API in general leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.
There are many ways of doing the same thing, various hook functions, 
the class methods and Windows API calls.  Memory leaks can be common,
you have to worry about locking structures in memory and loading
and dereferencing handles.  Then you should of course take care to
put exception handling traps around any statements which result
in GDI objects or memory of any sort being reserved (just about
any object declaration.)

Stick with VB for small, quick jobs.  You can't make simple
programs more cheaply than that.
-- 
Ken Tough

Turnpike evaluation. For information, email: info@turnpike.com