[rbanffy]

That's probably because a good VB6 programmer would still be a terrible C++ programmer. There are too many ideas VB programmers will never encounter. In order to be a good C++ programmer you'd be a VB god (rolling out your own DLLs and OCXs).

I have done more than my fair share of VB programming from version 2 when it was new up until 98 or so. I even got my MCP certification on VB3... It was the quickest tool to build a Windows application at the time.

In fact, at least here in Brazil, the rise of Windows as a corporate OS coincides with a rapid adoption of VB for in-company development and the fall of Clipper under DOS. I saw it first hand because it happened while I was helping write a huge console-based app in Dataflex. The app is still used by more than a hundred municipalities in Brazil and I learned the master thesis of a colleague was about automatically porting it to something more modern (the project more or less failed).

[flomo]

> the rise of Windows as a corporate OS coincides with a rapid adoption of VB for in-company development

Also true of at least one place in the USA. A few thousand Macs went into the dumpster so they could roll-out shiny new VB client-server applications to replace terminal stuff. (Ironically, they were rolling out Netscape 1.1 at the same time.)

[GoodIntentions]

>> a VB god (rolling out your own DLLs and OCXs).

There's plenty of "VB Gods" around then. I suspect many C/C++ programmers one way or another found themselves working in a business that had VB as the shop standard? I know I did. I wrote good solid, readable, maintainable, stable code, including DLLs and OCXs - they're nothing special. Some of the projects I did are _still_ in use 10 years later at one location.

Was VB my tool of choice? Certainly not, but it was what I was required to use, with few exceptions. A good craftsman can succeed with an inferior tool. Just watch - The well crafted VB apps will have a half life similar to COBOL.