Microsoft urges Vista users to remove ALL non-MS software for a better experience

[xwhatsit]

You don't hear engineers whining when a bridge collapses saying "i much preferred it when we made them out of iron, just like the old days, this prestressed concrete is just soooo ugly and difficult to work with"

Lol, yeah you do, all those old guys who crap on about cast iron cylinder heads and how aluminium ones are a piece of shit that crack and strip threads

Us geeks will be as snobby as we like -- it's what keeps us (very) slightly above other geeks on the social ladder

[The_Dover]

yeah, except they're not engineers, they're grease monkeys.

[limbimtimwim]

oooh, geek snobbery.
I prefer it when you cunts just make programs that work and stop whining about about the languages you use to make them.

what's that saying about workmen and tools again??

A good programmer can make any language work well for them. I am sure there are many, well written programs done in VB that work flawlessly. The problem with VB it has let too many people get away making programs that sort of worked without any tuition in the art of programming. Yes, there is more than just a little geek snobbery in that.

It's kinda like letting someone who has made nice wooden deck out the back of their house go out on their next project and build a multilane motorway bridge over a deep valley out of the same materials using the same techniques and not expecting any problems.

[xwhatsit]

A good programmer can make any language work well for them. I am sure there are many, well written programs done in VB that work flawlessly. The problem with VB it has let too many people get away making programs that sort of worked without any tuition in the art of programming. Yes, there is more than just a little geek snobbery in that.

It's kinda like letting someone who has made nice wooden deck out the back of their house go out on their next project and build a multilane motorway bridge over a deep valley out of the same materials using the same techniques and not expecting any problems.

Well said. That's the best I've ever heard anyone put it.

In addition, sure, you can write a decent program in any language you choose, but certain languages are better suited for certain tasks. Trying to write say, for example, an image viewer in VB, whilst having it be good-performing, reliable, and secure, is kind of like trying to replace your piston using an adjusting crescent wrench and a screwdriver (cue Motu talking about the time he rebuilt his BSA on the side of the road with a nail file ). Sure, call it blaming your tools, but there's just some things you shouldn't use a toy language for.

Also, as lbtw said, there's the fact that it's primarily newbies who are writing programmes with it. I've said it for years about music (being a classical musician myself), but lowering the point of entry is not always a good thing. Having an enforced education before you can unleash what you've created on the world is a very good thing -- hence driver's licences. Sure, not everybody got a university education before they started writing in C (certainly not me), but you have to have a reasonable understanding of what's going on before you can write something that'll work in C. In VB, it's just a matter of pushing some mouse buttons, and copying and pasting some code, and you end up with a buggy, insecure, slow-as-shit cunt of a program that everybody in the company is forced to use.