linux-watch.com— The Mono Project on Feb. 20 announced that it has developed a Visual Basic compiler that will enable software developers who use Microsoft Visual Basic to run their applications on any platform that supports Mono, such as Linux, without any code modifications.
Feb 20, 2007View in Crawl 4
Yes we know VB sucks. Why would anybody want to do this? Because there are plenty of businesses out there running legacy applications written in VB. Being able to natively run them on Linux will finally enable them to migrate to Linux and shutdown those crusty old NT servers for good.
There are programmers out there, like me, that are forced to use VB to program some client side applications, or for local installs in school districts where they all have MS IIS and want it in ASP.net/MS SQL. Yes, I know, this isn't an install of MS SQL, but I could probably convince some people to have it in mySQL now.I'm very excited about this... I love linux and would LOVE to run my VB code on it.
Visual Basic != Visual Basic .NETPeople who say "VB sucks" when they are talking about VB.NET needs to get a clue.Saying that VB.NET is bad but C# is good doesn't make much sense. VB.NET really is C# but with another syntax. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure there are some differences but they are rather minor.The real difference are the developers behind those two languages.-VB.NET developers tend to be former VB developers (the others VB.NET developers being the one whose management decided to use VB.NET because their previous software where done in VB and they fell in the Microsoft trap that "VB.NET is just an updated version of VB".)-C# developers tend to be former Java or c++ programmers.THAT make all the difference. VB.NET guys tend to be worse than C# guys. Just look at any website with a VB.NET and a C# forum. The dumbest question will always be asked on the VB forum...(Note that C# could be replaced by Java in my comment and it would be equaly true)
"Why, in GOD'S name would you want to do this?..."Since the VB .NET market share is already very large and it helps bring over developers as well as application ports to Linux and other platforms. If you have a source code in VB and you wish to port it to OS X or Linux natively, you'll sure be happy to see this. And a hell of a lot of code is written in VB .NET already, along with it having a very large community."Because there are plenty of businesses out there running legacy applications written in VB."And about 50% of the .NET community is apparently VB .NET devs. And that means millions of people, quite literally.
"Visual Basic may be a crayola crayon programming language, but a lot of people still use it to build in-house apps."Hmm, well, to be fair, VB .NET is however as advanced as any other full-fledged object-oriented language though, such as C# or Java. It's not based on VB 6, and nowadays supports the expected stuff like abstract classes and interfaces, operator/method overloading, native thread synchronization support, and much more.
hackmeisterFeb 21, 2007
Yes we know VB sucks. Why would anybody want to do this? Because there are plenty of businesses out there running legacy applications written in VB. Being able to natively run them on Linux will finally enable them to migrate to Linux and shutdown those crusty old NT servers for good.
idreamincodeFeb 21, 2007
There are programmers out there, like me, that are forced to use VB to program some client side applications, or for local installs in school districts where they all have MS IIS and want it in ASP.net/MS SQL. Yes, I know, this isn't an install of MS SQL, but I could probably convince some people to have it in mySQL now.I'm very excited about this... I love linux and would LOVE to run my VB code on it.
monkeygetFeb 21, 2007
Visual Basic != Visual Basic .NETPeople who say "VB sucks" when they are talking about VB.NET needs to get a clue.Saying that VB.NET is bad but C# is good doesn't make much sense. VB.NET really is C# but with another syntax. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure there are some differences but they are rather minor.The real difference are the developers behind those two languages.-VB.NET developers tend to be former VB developers (the others VB.NET developers being the one whose management decided to use VB.NET because their previous software where done in VB and they fell in the Microsoft trap that "VB.NET is just an updated version of VB".)-C# developers tend to be former Java or c++ programmers.THAT make all the difference. VB.NET guys tend to be worse than C# guys. Just look at any website with a VB.NET and a C# forum. The dumbest question will always be asked on the VB forum...(Note that C# could be replaced by Java in my comment and it would be equaly true)
jugalatorFeb 21, 2007
"Why, in GOD'S name would you want to do this?..."Since the VB .NET market share is already very large and it helps bring over developers as well as application ports to Linux and other platforms. If you have a source code in VB and you wish to port it to OS X or Linux natively, you'll sure be happy to see this. And a hell of a lot of code is written in VB .NET already, along with it having a very large community."Because there are plenty of businesses out there running legacy applications written in VB."And about 50% of the .NET community is apparently VB .NET devs. And that means millions of people, quite literally.
jugalatorFeb 21, 2007
"Visual Basic may be a crayola crayon programming language, but a lot of people still use it to build in-house apps."Hmm, well, to be fair, VB .NET is however as advanced as any other full-fledged object-oriented language though, such as C# or Java. It's not based on VB 6, and nowadays supports the expected stuff like abstract classes and interfaces, operator/method overloading, native thread synchronization support, and much more.