VB / VC++ / VJ++ (was PC: Visual Basic as a Soft Engine)

B

Thread Starter

Brian Boothe

response to cww
cww ; are you saying VB / VC++/VJ++ is usefull for automation or not??
i believe it is myself ; i write it all day long for my company.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Curt Wuollet"
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: PC: Visual Basic as a Soft Engine

> Hi Asif
>
> List Manager wrote:
> > ------------ Forwarded Message ------------
> > From: Asif Khokher
> >
> > Michael & Alex!
> >
> > You have rightly pointed out that VB is not suitable for control
> > purposes. But the question was to use VB solely and implement it in
> > Microsoft Environment. Getting the maximum from VB based solution is
> > difficult, but finding ways in low level languages i.e C, C++,
> > Assembly.... is not easy for an average programmer especially diagnosing
> > & maintenance.
>
> That depends on what you call an average programmer. I am conversant in
> all the mentioned low level languages and half a dozen (more or less)
> high level languages, but I still wouldn't bill myself as a programmer.
> It seems definitions have slipped a lot in the Microsoft era. But, as
> a general rule, if you can't properly program the task at hand, you're
> not a programmer.
>
> VB is user friendly and generation of lot of ActiveX
> > control in the markets has lead to use of VB. Windows is also striving to
> > be real time operating system, and hopefully dream of VB based soluton
> > can become reality in near future.
>
> Oh the horror!, the horror!
>
> IMHO the blight of people who think programming is running end user
> software and pointing and clicking something together is directly
> responsible for the lack of progress in PC automation. When a "Hello
> World!" program is two megabytes, it hardly qualifies as progress.
> Think of it this way, how on earth can you possibly make two pages
> of control code perform poorly on a 1Ghz machine? Code it in VB.
> I'm not sure it is possible in any other way. And that's programming?
> In any of those "low level" languages, with skill, you could run
> hundreds of instances of the same logic before slowing the machine
> much. I think we're moving backwards fast. Opinions?
<clip>
 
C

Curt Wuollet

Hi Brian

I didn't comment at all on VC++ or VJ++ but the former is at least reasonably efficient. The latter is an effort to embrace, extend and destroy the JAVA language as the courts ruled. And I didn't comment at all on usefullness, you and others obviously find it useful and that's a subjective judgment anyway. What I did comment on is the fact that it is perhaps the most resource intensive, least efficient means of producing an application that I have ever seen. And that covers quite a bit of ground, since about the birth of transistorized computing. But it does fulfill it's purpose, to enable almost anyone to create Windows applications. And almost anyone does. But when we are talking about automation and control, are these great ideas? Is it good engineering for almost anyone who can point and click to produce control software? And is it good engineering when the product barely performs on a 1ghz processor with 128mb of RAM ? Contrast this with a PLC that can control thousands of points with a comparatively tiny processor amd RAM often expressed in kbytes. Or contrast that with the fact that I have run entire businesses with >250 active users on a processor much smaller than today's entry level PC. How is it that engineering is completely disregarded for the sake of using end user office tools? And which products and tools best exemplify this? Most of the hardware used for automation and control is well engineered and very efficient and software systems _were_ likewise optimized to the nth degree. Yet now there is grafted on this huge blob of bloated, hugely inefficient, unreliable software of which 95% has nothing to do with solving automation and control logic and which causes at least 75% of the problems we read about here. And for the sake of safety and professionalism as well as liability, shouldn't we raise the bar, just a little? Some of the questions from point and click mode "programmers" in all seriousness leave me deeply troubled.
Am I the only one?

This is a reality check. Is it really _that_ useful? And is "ease of use" all that matters? I'd love to hear where I'm off base with this. Especially since I may soon be forced to do things this way.

Regards

cww
 
B
I am dismayed to hear that even YOU may be forced to "do things this way".

Does this mean you are forced to succumb to marketing pressures and use windows for all things control? I hope not.

Bill Sturm
 
C

Curt Wuollet

Hi Bill

Bill Sturm wrote:
> I am dismayed to hear that even YOU may be forced to "do things this way".
>
> Does this mean you are forced to succumb to marketing pressures and
> use windows for all things control? I hope not.

No, I believe it means I may have to demonstrate again that I can. And then I can demonstrate why I don't. Our institutional memory was lost through a change in management and personnel. This, combined with some good old fashioned FUD has brought on regression. I believe this to be temporary, cost, support and reliability are strongly in my favor. Of course, it is possible to ignore all those for political purposes. And people problems don't always involve logic and reason.

And no, I contemplate using PLC's and other automation hardware. My exposure to Windows is only because the vendors are in lockstep with
the monopoly and support nothing else. I'll quit automation before I'll use Windows in any role that involves lives or safety. I can't plausibly say "I didn't know" like other folks can. I'd rather be unemployed than legally negligent.

Regards

cww
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