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| SavannahLion:
IRT: (+_+) You are correct, but the full story isn't being told here. The very first language I learned is Atari Basic when I was eight, so when I entered the adult academic world, it was a natural choice for me to continue with the Basic family. For a very long time VB filled almost every need I had. I eventually reached a point where I found myself utilizing Windows API outside of VB to get around annoying VB bugs, writing wrappers to interface with 3rd party API's, and doing all sorts of other convoluted code in order to do the things I wanted it to do. (Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, VB and databases never worked well together for me.) In the end, I was trying to use just a hammer to build houses when I should've utilized a wider gamut of tools. I finally realized enough was enough when I found myself writing viciously complicated memory management wrappers just to utilize one single API function I needed for my application. Basic is relatively EASY as a language. Nothing brings a smile to a budding programmer better than to be able to literally "paint" a complicated GUI application in just a few minutes. I think VB should be in everyones language tool box, but I don't pretend to believe that VB should always be the tool of choice to turn to for every application need. And I don't kid people when I say that VB (or any language) shouldn't be the only tool learn. There is no perfect tool for every application. After discarding my Basic portfolio, I decided to touch upon as many languages as I can including Java, C*, and Perl. I'm not shy to admit that my depth of knowledge is nowhere as deep as it was with VB. I spent the better part of ten years screwing around with the Basic language. Now I am happier that I can fire up notepad and pound out a small CL script with Perl to remotely manage files on a server, or not have to depend on anyone to audit the godawful PHP (which suffers from newbie hell worse than VB ever did) scripts before installing them, or port functionality I really want in either Windows or Linux to the other OS. The gist of my argument here is to use the right tool for the job. You can get VB to do anything you want. But is it better to spend a week writing and debugging something when the same job can be accomplished in a much less time with another language? How about when you can use one language to accomplish one task and use VB to accomplish another? In order not to steal this thread and to stay on topic. Try Xtreme Visual Basic and asking there. It's been years since I've last frequented that place so I don't know what kind of people visit there now. If they're anything like when I visited, you should be able to find at least several answers to your problem. If it were up to me, I would eschew using intrinsic VB controls for managing the image and look into bitblt as a basic starting point. Your options will quickly ramp up from there. That's just me though. Edit: fixed typo |
| unclet:
If you want a good forum to ask VB questions then www.vbcity.com is where you would like to go as well. |
| (+_+):
--- Quote from: gonzo90017 on June 26, 2007, 04:09:13 pm ---Hey (+_+) Any plans on releasing your frontend? --- End quote --- It is something that has always been in the back of my mind. I've been the sole developer and primary tester (my neighbor is the secondary tester and has found a couple of bugs :-[) since it's inception. It isn't easy and I'm sure that once it hits the mainstream, there would be bugs that need fixing, install shields for the installing, help files for the making and web sites for the publishing. To be quite honest, I could easily handle the bugs, but the rest is really to much for me to handle at the moment. The launcher does have a lot of promise and does so many things that I sometimes forget it does them. I'd love to get it out there, since I feel such an large effort is wasted if only my next door neighbor and I use it. Any takers on sharing the burden? It may take some growing pains to get over the few humps of getting it installed (VB run time, reg keys, ... etc), but I've always felt it is worth it and continue to feel that way. SavannahLion, a programming language is definitely a sensitive issue to tackle since there are so many of them as well as so many biased opinions about them as well. I'm surprised you found Database programming to be so difficult using VB. I wrote a database class to make connections, return recordsets and the like for Sybase, Oracle and SQL server which made my life a breeze for all 3 platforms. It ending up boiling down to whether or not the stored procs being called were robust enough. If anything, I'd probably write my next app in C#. I'm considering writing a Robotron type game in C# using direct x 9, 10, 11, 12 ... infinity ::) ;D. But again there are just so many hours in a day and I still need to finish my Hyperspace project. The CP art should be done any time now and the wiring festivities should begin. :) |
| MaMeNnO:
This thread brings back some memories from way back, but that's what we are trying to accomplish with our projects I guess. :) Anyway thanks for the thoughts, insight, inspiration and the links not to forget! |
| gonzo90017:
I'd love to be a tester for you. A have a spare pc i've been messing around with. I've been testing a bunch of frontends some you've heard of some you haven't like MalagaEmulador. It's using an nlited version of XP the only drawback is it's only 400mhz. But on the plus side because of that i've tested so many emulators to try to get the most out of the hardware. 90-95% of the games run full speed with no frameskip up to mame 84. So if you like what you here let me know. |
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