Thirteen Ways to loathe VB

[corliss at alaskapm.org]

Greetings:

Recently ran across this article by Verity Stob, and I had to pass it on.
:-)

==============================================================================

Thirteen ways to loathe VB
==========================

Verity Stob has recently been press-ganged into a
Visual Basic project. For the benefit of other programmers who may be
brought down in this way, she has prepared an executive summary of her
experience.

1. Procedure and function call. This area of Basic has come on in leaps and 
bounds.  Whereas in the bad old days you had to use GOSUB, these days you 
have subs ('subs' is the preferred baby-speak for what grown-ups call 
procedures or void functions) and functions. You write:

	Subname Param1, Param2

to call sub Subname and:

	Result = FuncName(Param1, Param2)

to call function FuncName.  Notice the useful difference in syntax, with and 
without parentheses, which serves more purposes than I can describe. It is of 
course a syntax error to write:

	Subname(Param1, Param2)

but the good news is you can write:

	FuncName(Param1, Param2)

to call a function and ignore its return. However, if Param1 or Param2
are reference parameters - and they will be unless you have specifically
demanded value parameters - they will be treated in this specific case as 
value parameters, and any assignment to them discarded on exit from 
FuncName.

Obviously the syntax:

	Call FuncName(Param1, Param2)

fixes this, and causes Param1 and Param2 to be treated as reference 
parameters.

Right.

2. Variable declaration.  This is achieved using the intuitive keyword Dim.

To declare an integer I write

	Dim I As Integer

To declare a whole load of integers write:

	Dim I, J, K, L As Integer

Actually (haha got you!) this doesn't work. This declares I, J, and K as 
variants and only L as an Integer.  This almost never matters, except quite 
often.

3. Calling functions and accessing arrays. In most languages you can 
distinguish between a call to function F with parameter 3 and a reference to 
array F index 3 because one is written F(3) and the other F[3].  In Visual 
Basic they are both written F(3).

Yes.

4. Another thing about arrays.  The index of the first element is 0, unless 
it is set to 1 by a directive.

5. But there are also collections, modern object-oriented versions of arrays. 
And the first element of these is usually 1, unless it happens to be 0. 
Sometimes it is 0 and sometimes it is 1, depending on where you found it. Do 
you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?

6. Did I mention 'object-oriented' back there? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

7. Initialisation.  This area of Basic has come on in leaps and bounds. 
Whereas in the bad old days you had to use a completely barbaric mechanism 
based on the keywords DATA and READ, this has now been swept away. The 
fragment below illustrates the modern way to initialise an array in code.

	Dim A(20) As Double

	A(0) = 4.5 May work, may not, who can tell?
	A(1) = 4.71
	A(2) = 4.82
	A(3) = 4.92
	...

You get the idea.

8. Arrays of constants. No such thing. Anyway, what would you do with 'em if 
you had 'em?

9. The type Integer declares a 16-bit integer.  That's right, sixteen bits. 
Yes I am using the latest version. Unbelievable, isn't it? Let’s have a big 
warm EXE welcome back to code that dies suddenly around the 33 KB mark.

10. Assignment.  This area of BASIC has come on in leaps and bounds. Whereas 
in the bad old days you used the operator for assignment, preceding it with 
LET if you were a fusspot of the first order, these days you use the =
operator for assignment. Or Set if it's an object. Which is compulsory not 
optional.

11. Logic.  This particular language is supposed to be easy and intuitive, so 
here's a test for you. Suppose that Check1 is a checkbox on a form, and you 
execute the code:

	Dim b As Boolean, c As Boolean
	b = Check1.Value
	c = Not Check1.Value

Then b as expected will contain True if the checkbox is checked and False
if the checkbox is unchecked. What do you think c will contain? (Clue: always
True.  No, really.)

12. The four magic constants of the apocalypse:

	Nothing,
	Null,
	Empty,
	and Error.

12.5 The stupid editor, which by default will put up a whining dialog if you 
try to leave a line which it recognises as syntactically incorrect. Like when 
you leave an incomplete line temporarily to go and copy a long identifier into
the clipboard, for example.

12.7 The stupid compiler, which by default does a 'compile' so superficial
that you can get runtime errors caused by an If missing its End If.

12.8 Procedures, sorry 'Subs', can be declared Public, Private, or Static.
Two points to anybody who correctly guesses what Static does. Three points to 
anybody who can suggest a sane use for it.

13. Bill is making even more money out of this. And I am powerless to stop 
him. In fact, I am helping him.

=============================================================================

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Perl Monger/Alaska Perl Mongers
	  http://www.alaskapm.org/

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