>>I may humbly point out that VB is probably the most usable RAD Ofcourse ! VB does have a very gentle learning curve for beginners in GUI design, but you missed my point - I was talking about VB 6.0.
VB6 is *obsolete* and incorporating an obsolete language in curiculla is *bad*, specially in a technical university mainly churning out software developers. All the time you wasted learning VB 6 is *not* coming back ! Why - I won't say a word if they change it to VB.NET ! Souymyadip (and others interested), you should try out M$ free VB.NET Express 2005 package. I can get it for you if you don't want to download. I can bet anybody will *stop* coding VB6 once they taste VB.NET (or any other .NET lang. for that matter)! But I am still against making students learn a proprietary language. Cos. like TCS develop using Delphi. Cognizant/Infosys/M$ etc mainly use MFC/C/C++. Have you tried any one of MFC.NET, Qt, WinForms (which does everything in plain C#, incl. the GUI !), MyXAML, XUL ... ? Then you will know why ! A VB coder will feel home at once with Qt (Provided me knows a little C++) - no question about that. However, I am specially against C/BASIC solutions as maintaning code in these languages is a terrible nightmare. Please don't refute me on this point - talk with any competent programmer and you will get a clear picture ! (If you want to talk, let our exams finish and then we will have a nice discussion..) >>You evidently have not studied the basics of RDBMS's as mandated by the >>University. True - Database design is not till the 5th sem. and I am in the 3rd. But I was not blowing hot air. I have done some RDBMS design using MySQL/MFC myself and I was *instantly* at home with OOP and relational design. I *did not* mean about using OODBMS, but more that I could dedicate a separate class for every field in the DB and the project was so very nicely architectured and easy to maintain as a result... >>I personally think that C++ is a little top-heavy True for many cases ! That's why there is Python, Perl or even C#.. Infact, many software designs in the modern world has shifted from OOP to "programming by contract" or "literate programming" or even "XP". In a nutshell - we coders have to be good enough to select a lang. for a particular design. C++ is *not* a solution for each and every case, but it teaches the coder many good practises which pet lang. like BASIC does not ! Just spell out the full form of BASIC for me, and you see why ;) >>Oriented concepts to a procedural language (even when that language is >>as good as C) does not result in a pleasant language. I am sorry, but this is what *many* people get wrong. C++ != C + OOP. C++ is a radically new language, but also compatible with C. Infact C++ is not compatible with the latest C99 standard for the C Language. C and C++ were created to solve totally different problems. This will explain why one will *not* use C++ in the Linux kernel, but certainly while designing a GUI ! >> For example, what is the use of public functions for structures in C++ ? I could not get you here ! Unlike C, structures are *not* just "plain old data types". C++ structures are *same* as classes - only that default visibilty is public and private respectively.. If you mean to say that because member fields of a structure are public, and thuswe can change them globally instead of using functions to do so, well, I can atleast think of a dozen reasons why that will be a disastrous design decision. The most important of all would be reusability and data integrity. I would like to discuss these with you if you like after our exams finish. Please visit Bjarne Stroustrup's site to learn more. You should also buy his "The C++ Programming Language" book. I lament to say that many people do not understand what C++ actually is because they are always taught the language as a superset of C. I would urge you to read the excellent article "The Miseducation of C++" by Kevlin Henney to get some idea about what I am talking of. Last time I checked, it was here : http://www.two-sdg.demon.co.uk/curbralan/papers/TheMiseducationOfC++.pdf Do read it ! >>Send your suggestions to (possibly) the WBUT-LUG mailing list. Tell me about it offline please >>Or go and talk to the officials directly. OMG ! Altough I know Prof. Thakur, still .. :+) To summarize, VB is mainly in curiculla to help dudes like us learn coding GUI quickly. Infact, most small cos. make a living out of making VB GUI frontends of a database - but that's because the coders of such companies are unaware of goodies like Qt, Gtk, MyXAML, XUL or MFC ! Believe me, MFC has changed a *lot* the last few years, and if you still are queasy about C++, go in for WinForms (C#) ! If our curiculla is *going* to teach a proprietary language, why not a good one which mandates good programming practise ? Notice that I had also mentioned the financial aspect of buying Windows + the *very* expensive Visual Studio package which is very imposible for a student, who might want to practise at home. Contrast this with the fact that VB.NET is available gratis from M$, and if there is a change in our syllabi to things like Gtk/Qt/XUL etc, why *not* strive to make that happen ?? I hope you got my point. Anyways, it's always nice talking to you ! Regards Subhobroto Sinha http://www.geocities.com/subhobrotosinha __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=3
