Re: IBM iSeries Advertisements

[Steve Richter <stephenrichter@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:33:08 -0600, Rich Duzenbury
<rduz-midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > What I think a lot of people miss on the subject of IBM vs Microsoft,
> > Windows vs OS/2 is that Microsoft puts a lot of effort into the
> > programming side of their products.  Microsoft makes great programming
> > languages.  Windows is a very programmer friendly OS, Win32 API is
> > very well done, COM was great in its day and .NET continues the
> > tradition.
> Geez, I can't help but disagree here.  If you made an investement in
> VB6, you must throw it away to use VB .net.  No upgrade path.  How is
> that friendly?  How is that great?  Sorry, I just don't see it.

VB6 code still works, the compiler is available. VB6, just like RPG,
was a dead end because of its syntax. The fact that VB.NET is a
popular .NET language tells me that MS did a decent job of giving VB
programmers a migration path.

> And it seems that nearly every version of VB has varying amounts of
> extra effort foisted upon those who upgrade.
> 
> Also, you say microsoft makes great programming languages.  What
> programming languages has microsoft invented?  C and C++?  Nope.

Sure they did.  C++'s strength is its extensible class libraries. MFC
was very popular and ATL, which was templates applied to COM was
getting a lot of attention up until the end of the COM era.   MS also
put a lot of effort into making C++ an equal language in .NET.  They
actually added features to C++ to do that.

>  Java?
> Nope, they just tried to corrupt it.  VB, ok, it's finally starting to
> come around after about ten years, although the syntax generally makes
> my eyes bleed.
> 
> C#?  Hmm, too early to tell if this one is 'great'.
> 
> They have made some decent IDE's.
> 
> Lastly, COM is great?  Is that a troll?

what can I say?  COM is the reason VB was so popular. 

My point is that it is the programming languages and frameworks and
whatever that make the platform.  Windows beat OS/2, not because it
had the best marketing or advertisements.  It won because it had the
best programming languages.

-Steve