Hi Jeremy, I'm not sure how old you are or what your experience is with mainstream games in general, but let me give you a little bit of background on why I am so extremely concerned about your decision here. However, first, let me just say my fears about VB 6 apps not running on Windows X may or may not be unfounded, but I have a lifetime of practical experience that tells me that basing all of your projects on an outdated language like VB 6 is not a wise decision. Here is why.
I started out on the Atari 2600 clear back in the 1980's, moved onto the NES in the late 80's, and eventually to Dos and Windows in the 90's. While you are perfectly right to argue that there are good Atari, NES, and Dos emulators that will play most of those older games I also know those are not perfect solutions. I've lost count of the number of the games I use to play that aren't compatible with any emulator, and won't run on Windows 7 just because of one reason or another. Its that fear of seeing this same thing happen to the accessible games market why I choose to try and insure my code is as up to date and compatible with the current operating systems as possible, and hope to prevent my fellow developers from making what I see as a big mistake. As a developer the last thing I would want to do is have to rewrite all of my games from scratch, because I chose badly and based my games on an older outdated technology. For instance, lets assume I went out and purchased a new netbook with an arm processor. As willem has accurately explained it is not compatible with the Intel x86 and x64 processors so those apps won't run on that netbook without being recompiled. If I used VB 6 I couldn't target arm processors specifically because Microsoft doesn't offer VB 6 libraries for that target platform. I would be forced into rewriting the entire game or application from scratch to support that target platform all because I didn't take that into consideration ahead of time. There are a number of other choices I could have made like .Net, Java, or C++ that would allow me to quite easily adapt to the change without a lot of unnecessary work. This is exactly the sort of problem I foresee comming in the not to distant future. Which poses a question. You say that when things change you will reconsider your position, and change the way you do things. Fair enough, but does that mean that you will rewrite and update every single game you have written to insure they all work on the new target platform or will you decide to abandon all your older games and start over with new games? That's not an easy decision for a developer, and not one I would take lightly if I were you. You have written some truly decent games, and I'd hate to see you abandon them if it so happens they are no longer compatible with Windows X or the new netbooks with arm processors. At the same time I wouldn't want to be the one who had to rewrite all of those games from scratch since they weren't written with a little more future consideration beyond the current status quo in mind. Maybe my concerns are right or they are wrong, but is it really worthth taking that risk? Cheers! On 6/9/11, Jeremy Kaldobsky <jer...@kaldobsky.com> wrote: > I understand that the issue is about users being able to play the game. For > many years, since Microsoft first stopped supporting VB6, people have been > saying that "any day" no one will be able to use software written with it. > Obviously with each passing year this gets closer to the truth, but we have > different opinions on the seriousness of this problem right now. As I've > said, when things change, I'll re-evaluate my position on the languages I > use. > > You're probably right that the next generation of windows won't support VB6 > at all, but then again, you might be wrong. Before Vista released, many > people told me that it would be impossible to run VB6 applications on it, > and it didn't turn out that way. It's entirely possible that some small > change will allow VB6 apps to run on Windows X, just as it has allowed > Windows Vista and Windows 7 users to run them. If not, then that's life and > we will deal with the new situation. We are both playing a guessing game, > clearly some of you guess that all VB6 titles will be lost forever, and I am > guessing that probably won't be the case, or at least I'm not so convinced > that I'm willing to change how I'm currently doing things. > > Dennis, when you say people can't play the games, I assume you mean the > theoretical date when some new windows absolutely can't run VB6 games. As > things stand at the moment, I'm unaware of any version of windows (2000 and > later) that can't run VB6 games. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. 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