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RE: "Which Technologies Matter?" & xml processing model s...

• To: 'Uche Ogbuji' <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Subject: RE: "Which Technologies Matter?" & xml processing model s...
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 09:52:20 -0600
• Cc: "'andrzej@c...'" <andrzej@c...>, xml-dev@l...

I didn't say it was best, just the most successful 
if we look at ubiquity, numbers of applications produced, 
ease of use, ease of mastery, simplicity and so on.

All of these are perceptions but if we count money, 
a lot more people are making money programming with 
VB than C.  The object framework scripting model 
is successful.  It has a limited application, but 
so far, that limit is power, not utility at the 
level where much programming goes on.  If I use 
MS products, VB runs in most of them and that saves a 
lot effort.  VB's success is precisely like HTML's 
and for the same reasons.

If one doesn't use MS products, nevermind.  

I understand why C or C++ is to be preferred when it comes time 
to do heavy lifting.  But a very large number of 
programmers don't work in the warehouse or on the 
code loading dock.  VB definitely matters to a 
very large group of programmers, and Tim is dead 
wrong; it isn't struggling with the web at all. 

It is beginning to dominate it. :-)

len


From: Uche Ogbuji [mailto:uche.ogbuji@f...]

> VB is a very successful programming language, 
> probably the most successful one to date for 
> all of the reasons Tim cited originally.  

Probably the wrong thread on which to nit-pick, but I highly doubt this 
statement.

Measuring the success of programming languages is very hard, but I find it 
near impossible to think of a criterion by which C is not *by far* the most 
successful language ever.  Whether longevity of active usage, total number of 
LOC deployed, number of language implementations, number of derivative 
languages, variety of practical uses applied, words written about it, etc...

I'd also place FORTRAN and SQL before Visual Basic, and I'd have some 
difficulty over the relative placement of Java and VB.

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