posted 18 years ago
I admit I have been out of the Microsoft world for a long time now, so I might be off the mark, but I distinctly remember VB developers claiming that they can write DLL's just like C++ developers can. Basically, the claim was that VB can do anything that C++ can.
I don't think b) is an issue because you don't really need a VB "runtime" to use a VB dll. The compiler could either statically link all the VB functions into your DLL (creating a huge dll), or dynamically link your dlls to VB dlls that have to be shipped with your dll (which leads to DLL hell). I beleive, more recently, Microsoft has been claiming that all their languages have the same capabilities, but I haven't looked too much into it. I am curious whether you can still create dll's using any of the Microsoft languages
I think a) might be an issue, because there are so many ways you can export symbols out of DLLs, and Java prefers one way, but I don't know if VB compiler implements that.
Alternatively, we can get around a) by creating a COM object in VB and using JACOB to interface Java to VB COM dll. This would introduce too many layers, and would add a learning curve for COM.
Ideally, I would love to see a javah type of utility that takes a native class and creates a .bas file from it.