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an optimistic group who stuck on VB 6.0

 
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we have a big deal on our part. i am now a 3rd year college, in my 1st year and 2nd year our college taught us java.
but now 2 new instructors wants us to use VB 6.0. we(lets say 10 students reacted) that we want to still use java. they said that its
ok to use java but when in RAD(rapid application development) application VB 6.0 is better. (java in netbeans is also RAD, am i correct?)
we dont want to use VB 6.0 because it is an old age (we are using an IDE in an old age era) and not OOP in approach. But if he said we will use VB.net, we will grab that
opportunity, the confusing part there is, he also dont recommend VB.net. (WTF on him). i cant dig VB 6.0 on my part, then now our project is in java, we still insist java.
the problem there is he give big points to the students who use VB 6.0, and low grades on students who use java. and his database is in microsoft access. whoah! ! !
MS Access is not a real database right? it is like a playing ground for the newbies. yet im still a newbie but i want to use opensource languages that run on different
platforms.
the other instructor is he always said that VB 6.0 is OOP. wtf, does he do research? VB 6.0 is not OOP right? he also said about RAD in VB 6.0.

can you give me some advice, i want to argue with this kind of people. what will be my counter attack to this RAD thing or etc.
 
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Moving to our "other languages" forum, where this thread would fit better.
 
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You should look at it positively Sometimes, in a real working environment, you have no choice, but to use a very dated technology that nobody wants to use. Although I may disagree with a lot of points that you instructors said, simply take it as a learning experience.

At the end of the project, if you're still interested, you can convert the project into Java, Python, Scala, Ruby, or whatever language that you like. That way you have nothing to lose.
 
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VB6 is barely OOP; I'd say it isn't at all.

Anyone that thinks using VB6 in today's day and age is just trying to avoid having to learn anything: why focus on an unsupported platform a decade behind in functionality? Besides that you can do the same RAD using .NET. One thing *is* true, though, and that's that VB6 allowed *very* fast creation of applications... with the caveat that once the application gets larger, it's more and more difficult to manage.

(JVM-based RAD is much better these days, too; there are GUI designers for Swing, and several JVM languages have really straight-forward ways of creating GUI apps without all the hassle.)

Access isn't a "real" DB, but it's also fine for basic concepts. Would *I* teach with it? No, but I wouldn't teach programming with Java, either, at least not unless it was a course specifically designed to teach Java, and not general programming.
 
Roldan Baldo
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my teacher: what is the difference in VB6 and .NET
ME: vb6 is not OOP while .net is OOP
my teacher: no, vb6 is OOP

how come he said vb6 is OOP, is it because we can make classes/objects? can we inherit? polymorphism? encapsulation? etc.
 
David Newton
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Your teacher has a very... interesting definition of OOP. VB6 has no inheritance or polymorphism (unless you count interface-only). It sort of had classes and modules.

All this is "IIRC" ("If I Remember Correctly" -- VB6 is old, dead technology). It has zero business being taught to a student of today, and quite frankly, students of when it was still around. VB6 came out in 1998, and was killed off in 2005 with extended support ending in 2008 (Wikipedia history). Its runtime lives on :/

I missed one of your earlier questions, "Java in NetBeans is RAD." This depends on your definition; if you're using a GUI builder, you could consider it that. But the bottom line is that GUI apps built with a builder almost always end up causing more confusion than they save, particularly if the people using the GUI builder don't understand the underlying GUI and how to use it effectively.

VB6 *was* usable for creating fast, one-off apps that didn't need to be maintained, but... why not just switch to VB.NET (although I wouldn't bother, and would just use C#.NET)? As far as I can tell it's some teachers that refuse to learn new material, are afraid of .NET, and afraid of their own irrelevance.
 
Roldan Baldo
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wow! im very relieved for that answer. thank you very much.

i have a subject "IT ELECTIVE" with the same teacher. but the coverage is VB6 beginner's tutorial, i think "IT ELECTIVE" is some advance
learning not basics of any language. am i correct? what is your point of view with the subject and being taught?
 
David Newton
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"IT Elective" could mean anything, so I can't really comment on it. Also, since I only know one side of the VB6 discussion, take everything I say with a grain of salt--it *sounds* really suspicious, though, and like someone doesn't want to acknowledge that the only thing they know is no longer relevant.
 
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Back in my day (old fogey rant warning), pretty much every class had a different language. The only exception was C -- which was used in a few programming classes. And with the exception of the first few classes, during the first year, students were expected to learn the language on their own.

You only had one language during your first two years? And a pretty developer friendly language at that? Wow. Is that the normal these days? Standardizing on a language, instead of requiring the students learn everything?

Henry
 
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Yes, it is, although obviously it depends on the school. CS education is *not* what it used to be, at least in general... I'm not actually sure *what* they teach any more, because over the past decade it just seems like people are coming out of school knowing less and less, without the added bonus of at least knowing less about more stuff.

CS education, at a lot of institutions, has become a commodity, where the focus is on delivering "marketable" students. Not *my* market, but cubicle drones. It's sort of like early 20th century education, where the idea of education became more about generating people that could function in a factory than actual education.
 
Roldan Baldo
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@Sir david: thanks sir, very much appreciated for your answers.

@sir henry: 1st year: we learned C and HTML, 2nd year we learned Java, OOP(approach) and MySQL(self study),
3rd year: the worst part VB6.0 and MSAccess, but i work on a different project which is not required on school, for not wasting my
time with the unsupported one, i am currently researching/studying OODBMS which is db4o.
 
Campbell Ritchie
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They no longer learn C++ round our way, which a few years ago everybody learnt. Our principal programming language is now Java. That means they never encounter pointer arithmetic.
We teach a lot of C#.NET, html and JavaScript and I'm not sure what other scripting languages.
Lots of people learn SQL.
The people who do AI have to learn basic LISP and some also C to emit the code in.
We have stopped B (J-R Abrial) for formal methods and program proving.
We used to have a module about functional programming using OZ, which i still running in a different version.
We had a module for two years using FORTH as a basis to teach compilers on top of; I am about the only student still using FORTH like that. That requires pointer arithmetic. It is real fun trying to implement pointer arithmetic directly onto a stack of values
 
Roldan Baldo
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wow, how lucky i am to teach that in school.
 
Henry Wong
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Campbell Ritchie wrote:They no longer learn C++ round our way, which a few years ago everybody learnt. Our principal programming language is now Java. That means they never encounter pointer arithmetic.



My pet peeve is assembly. Schools that stop teaching that are generating grads that can't really understand bit logic, doesn't understand why things are they are under the covers, etc.

And do they even bother teaching hardware anymore?

Henry
 
Campbell Ritchie
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We taught hardware as a whole module until last year; I think we still teach it as part of a model.
 
Roldan Baldo
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theres also an intrigue subject to us, we have Computer Organization with low level programming,
same teachers, but he taught us java GUI, like gates if we input 1 or 0 and select a gate, a binary gate will appear at the
panel, WTF, we dont even discuss Registers, low level programming is not there at all. what a waste of money,
brain and time.
 
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