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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

I am a huge fan of the Microsoft ecosystem, and I spent a great many hours developing VB.NET code at the beginning of my career.

VB6 is a scourge. The fact that Joe in HR threw together an application in a weekend in a testament not to its accessibility but to its abject lack of maintainability.

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I think the important part here is that (in your example), Joe in HR wrote an application that is important enough to be used but not important enough to be professionally rewritten in a "better" language. I don't really think that speaks to faults in VB6, but to a sizable and interesting market for a product that allows non-programmers to write simple programs.

I have known people writing apps in MS-Office like Access, Word, or Excel using VBA, and I was assigned to convert it to VB 6.0 and SQL Server.

Usually the over the weekend projects need debugging and error trapping and other things to it. I can't tell you how many Invalid Use of Null errors where avoided by using the trim function and adding a blank quote "" next to the variable that held data:

result = trim("" & RS(index))

Just a simple modification that new programmers didn't know.

That's sort of like applauding your neighbor for training his dog to always shit on your lawn

Of course it isn't. Some of the stuff people wrote in VB6 was (and still is) enormously productive.

Sure, and shit is productive in a biological sense. Doesn't mean I want to work with it.

You remind me of programmers who will bill a client $50k for a $2k problem under the guise of it being done "properly"...oh, and keeping it a secret that an "improper" $2k implementation was an option.

People heap scorn on auto mechanics (for example) that pad bills, but many people whose work doesn't get their hands dirty seem to think they are subject to a different moral code.

It depends on the client, and whether you're going to be on the hook (phone wise or legal wise) for the future of whatever you create.

The $2k prototype/hack has a way of becoming a business-critical thing when you're not watching.

> many people whose work doesn't get their hands dirty seem to think they are subject to a different moral code

Let's not try to turn this into some "workers unite!" nonsense. I don't think how dirty someone's hands get have anything to do with what we're talking about.

Using your extreme example, the the $2k option is wrapping half a roll of duct tape around a leak. The $50k option is buying warrantied parts directly from the factory (not OEM).

What both you and the parent ignore is that there's usually a perfectly valid $20k option (OEM) that is a fair middle ground.

> Using your extreme example, the the $2k option is wrapping half a roll of duct tape around a leak. The $50k option is buying warrantied parts directly from the factory (not OEM).

You haven't seen some of the things I have. There are some extremely dishonest people in this industry that would literally be in prison if they pulled financially comparable stunts in an industry that isn't so opaque.

He reminds me of an entire team of programmers who turned up their noses at VB, insisting that they work in VC instead. When, predictably, the VB prototype of the product worked perfectly well (the whole app was database-driven)... they were all fired and the product was finished by one designer and a team of contractors instead.

I think there is much to be said about Jack in IT who spent 6 months working on a program that doesn't even meet the business' needs in the end, for something Joe could have done over a week end.

I'm not sure I understand your position.

I mean, yeah, unmaintainable code sucks. But I think this highlights the need for more accessible coding. The web became huge because it was so accessible. Yes, it generated a lot of crap code, but if 10% of projects add value to society, the more projects, the more valuable projects.

> The fact that Joe in HR threw together an application in a weekend in a testament not to its accessibility but to its abject lack of maintainability.

I don't see how "easy/fast to create" necessitates lack of maintainability, nor that it is a statement AGAINST accessibility. (without regard to the quality of VB6)

Well if Joe in HR can throw it together in a weekend, surely a 'proper' programmer like you could replace it in one?

You seem to think that I'm making some sort of judgment against Joe, or that I think I'm better, or something of that sort. I didn't say or imply anything like that.

Oh?

> abject lack of maintainability

The judgement is against the platform, not Joe.

Implying VB6 code is intrinsically unmaintainable, which is obviously false.

Sir, you jest. However I have indeed seen Joe in HR throw stuff together in a weekend, and it worked, mainly because Joe knew his business intimately and Googleing VBA was easier than writing a business requirement.

Yes and it does the job. If it's unmaintainable as alleged then that's a refactoring job which is a lot easier imo than starting from scratch.

Joe from HR has given him his UI and undeniably laid out everything the code needs to do. Mr Real Programmer should just then get on, stick in his tests, refactor and quit whining about Joe's code.

After all what's he there for, did he expect Joe to do everything?

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