You used to be able to just create a Native GUI App in 10 seconds
twitter.comI remember that not having the right VB DLL was a frequent issue when trying to run EXE files produced by people with visual basic. For me, this Windows "nocode" environment was a big gatekeeper which hindered me in learning programming. It may sound a bit sentimental, but I learned C with Linux, because docs where readily available and open. I literally read man pages.
Today the tooling is just better. Just think, for instance, of the go and rust tool chains which easily produce ready to ship EXE files. Classical toolkits such as Qt still are around.
If you did it in Delphi it will work no matter what.
"no matter what" is pushing it.
It was very common for Delphi programs to use stuff that required external DLLs.
Only if you wanted to include database options.
Connectivity to databases was one of Delphi's main selling points.
I think one dude spread the myth of no DLLs in the Twitter thread, lots of people repeated it, and since Delphi 6/7 is not around anymore and it's hard to check, they got away with a slight historical innacuracy.
I remember not being able to get my C++ compiler to work on Windows and I remember struggling to get basic Linux functionality working. Software was hard back then.
Can view without subjecting yourself to "X": https://xcancel.com/tsoding/status/1998403967718400376
Someone replied to that post "notice how fast everything is to launch", but did Visual Basic really start up that fast back in the day? I'm old enough to have used XP as a kid, and I remember the languorous boot times, but I never programmed on it. My guess is that XP is running in a VM on modern hardware in this GIF.
I can confirm that it took way longer than that on actual contemporary hardware.
VB6 was old by the time XP appeared, and XP lasted for a long time. It was fast.
There was a time when there were some VB clone languages including Envelop Basic: https://members.tripod.com/joe__shmoe/indext.htm These tools did a pretty good job of creating forms and software. Rebol was another language that was sleek at making UI Form: https://www.rebol.com/index-lang.html Now a days, you need to master many technologies to create one UI component. Too much bloat.
You can still do this!
The only difference is that a lot of apps prioritize cross platform UIs over good, fast native UIs.
WinForms and WPF are still well supported.
I mean...at least for GTK on Linux, you still can? It won't be 10 seconds (probably closer to 30-40 seconds) since you have to go through a couple of prompts to name it, decide a license, etc., but with:
https://apps.gnome.org/Builder/
You can do the same thing. In fact, this was the exact method I used to make a few GTK apps.
but then GTK has issues with some DEs supposedly
I saw this comment a while ago, and even now, I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
If you want to make a native GUI app work across desktop Linux users, it's not this simple
ok...and? The post was about making a native GUI app, which GNOME builder is clearly able to do. By your logic, the app in the video won't work across OSes.
My point is this is still clearly possible for native GUI apps.
There is a modern compiler/ide that’s improving (but also preserving compatibility with) VB6 https://twinbasic.com/
I was able to load up a VB6 project I worked on in high school and it compiled and ran with no changes. Pretty neat.
Would've thought the explosion of web apps would kick MS and Apple in the pants, but here we are. Native dev is still annoying and is arguably getting harder. There's no reason making an app work for just one specific platform should have more friction than doing it for all of them.
I tried this using RosettaCode examples awhile ago and its still possible in quite a few languages. I was trying to find examples where you could just copy the code in, click run, and get a GUI.
I used PureBasic back in like 2003 or 2004. It was super simple. Looks like it's still around and the site looks unchanged since then. Probably crazy fast on modern hardware
Take a look at Slint or Avalonia if you miss this experience.
And I'll take needing an internet connection over having to install Visual Basic from a stack of CDs.
In HTML
<button onclick="alert('Hello')">Command1</button>Sure, but that's not a native GUI app.
Save that as `app.hta` on Windows (from XP up to this day!), then double click it.
Not native GUI, but as fast and useful as one.
It's more limited nowadays, but you can still do a lot.
twitter.com?
Is that from OP or HN?