[TeleMad]

Alexander: Its not that VB cant do it, although there are some tasks that it cant, another example is that VB can not communicate with the operating system and tell it what to do...

Wrong again. Ever here of the Win32 API?

[TeleMad]

Alexander: Let the doctor explain here:
the lowest level of programming language is Assembly…

The "doctor" is wrong again. The lowest level of programming is machine language. Assembly language is at a higher level than machine language.

[TeleMad]

Alexander: As you can see, most of the process in a high level language is automated, someone already programmed the function that you use in and you only need to give the computer broad directions. But the more broad directions are, the more code has to go into functions, because noone can predict what you want the print function to display for example, and whether it is a variable or a typed in value, and although you dont use that functionality, the code is there, and it takes up more space in memory.

You make it sound like that additional code is always loaded, wasting memory. That’s wrong. Demand paging pulls into physical memory only the code and data that are needed. If printing is not needed, that code is not (or at least should not) be in memory. Furthermore, if it has been brought into RAM and free physical memory is running low, the no-longer used frames containing the printing code will be paged back out to make room for incoming, needed frames.

In addition, frames (and their corresponding pages) are typically a fixed size. Now, even if 1 byte of code is needed, a full frame of physical memory is reserved (the wasting of memory within a frame is called internal fragmentation). So whether 1 byte of code or 3kB of code needed to be brought in, the same amount of physical memory would be allocated.

Alexander: I hope you got the gist of what i meant, in this example VB is the high-level programming language…

No, what I am getting out of your little speech is that you seem to be oblivious to the fact – or at least failed to mention it because doing so would undermine your position – that there is a tradeoff involved, and that modern programmers as a whole have rejected assembly language in favor of high level languages…such as VB.NET.

Why? Because with assembly language the programmer has to communicate with the computer on the computer’s own terms (so to speak), which takes too long to get anything useful coded. With high level languages, the programmer can leave the details to others and spend his/her time solving actual business problems. I can write something in a few minutes using a high level language that someone writing in low-level assembly would take hours or days to code. With the fast pace of the modern computer world, the vast majority of programmers simply don’t have the time (or the patience ) to write in assembly.

[alexander]

The lowest level of programming is machine language.

Well, I thought of putting that instead of assembly, the thing is, machine language really isnt a programming language as a language, in assembly there are words while in machine code there are only strings of ones and zeros, so what in assembly would be "print" in machine would be "01110000 01110010 01101001 01101110 01110110" (that is just an example, it doesnt mean that a "print" command exists in assembly or that the other command exists in machine, although the commands are the same). However you can program in machine code, so i admit i was in a way wrong.

that there is a tradeoff involved, and that modern programmers as a whole have rejected assembly language in favor of high level languages…such as VB.NET

Actually Python and Perl, most hackers ("A slang term for a computer enthusiast, i.e., a person who enjoys learning programming languages and computer systems and can often be considered an expert on the subject(s). " a part of a definition from webopaedia) dont use Windows unless they have to, they are good enough to use more powerfull operating systems than Windows...
Programming languages, as all things, get old and become less and less used, not saying that assembly is extinct, because those who write bioses for new processors still have to use the old ways, but as new languages are created and things like object oriented programming come into being, more hackers convert to the new ways.

I can write something in a few minutes using a high level language that someone writing in low-level assembly would take hours or days to code. With the fast pace of the modern computer world, the vast majority of programmers simply don’t have the time (or the patience ) to write in assembly.

Every language has its own use... People still program in fortran, because it suits their needs in what they do. Hey, aside from the fact that i'm defending the low-level languages, i know most Basic languages that exist, from original Basic to QBasic, VisualBasic, DarkBasic. I still use them i.e. if im playing around with encryption, algorithms, keys and all, i would rather use QBasic than C++, because i dont know whether my new idea will work or not, so why bother spending days creating classes and functions for all the stuff that i will use maybe once and find out that it didnt work, id rather spend a few hours writing the code that will be 200-500 lines long in QBasic rather than writing thousands of lines of code in C++, if it works i might rewrite it in C++, but for testing purposes, why bother?

Wrong again. Ever here of the Win32 API

ok, here is the one i know that VB cant do (at least last time i checked): VB cant iterate over the properties of a class like C++.

[TeleMad]

"Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure 1.0 Release
The Shared Source CLI is a compressed archive of the source code to a working implementation of the ECMA CLI and the ECMA C# language specification. This implementation builds and runs on Windows XP, the FreeBSD operating system, and Mac OS X 10.2."

Overview
The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is the ECMA standard that describes the core of the .NET Framework world. The Shared Source CLI is a compressed archive of the source code to a working implementation of the ECMA CLI and the ECMA C# language specification.

This implementation builds and runs on Windows XP, the FreeBSD operating system, and Mac OS X 10.2. It is released under a shared source initiative. Please see the accompanying license <http://msdn.microsoft.com/MSDN-FILES/027/002/097/ShSourceCLILicense.htm>..


The Shared Source CLI goes beyond the printed specification of the ECMA standards, providing a working implementation for CLI developers to explore and understand. It will be of interest to academics and researchers wishing to teach and explore modern programming language concepts, and to .NET developers interested in how the technology works.

Features
The Shared Source CLI archive contains the following technologies in source code form:
* An implementation of the runtime for the Common Language Infrastructure (ECMA-335) that builds and runs on Windows XP, the FreeBSD operating system, and Mac OS X 10.2.
* Compilers that work with the Shared Source CLI for C# (ECMA-334) and JScript.
* Development tools for working with the Shared Source CLI such as assembler/disassemblers (ilasm, ildasm), a debugger (cordbg), metadata introspection (metainfo), and other utilities.
* The Platform Adaptation Layer (PAL) used to port the Shared Source CLI from Windows XP to FreeBSD and Mac OS X.
* Build environment tools (nmake, build, and others).
* Documentation for the implementation.
* Test suites used to verify the implementation.
* A rich set of sample code and tools for working with the Shared Source CLI.

New in this Release
A more detailed list of what's new in this release is included in the FAQ (below).
* Support for Mac OS X 10.2.
* Additional code clean-up and bug fixes.
* Debugger improvements.
* Class reference documentation (separate archive) and additional samples.
* Build system improvements and additional test cases and tool improvements."
(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...isplaylang=en)

[TeleMad]

"All the .NET languages have access to the same class libraries [i.e., the FCL]. In addition, all languages are equally powerful. There is no superior language in .NET; Visual Basic .NET is as powerful as Visual C# or Visual C++ .NET." (Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual C# .NET, Kathy Harding, Jean Trenary, and Bob Willer (editors), Microsoft Press, 2003, p5)

[TeleMad]

Alexander: ok, here is the one i know that VB cant do (at least last time i checked): VB cant iterate over the properties of a class like C++.

Tsk tsk…wrong again "Doctor". You've never heard of the Reflection namespace in ..NET, have you.

Here's something from Visual Studio .NET help...I've highlighted a couple key parts.

"The System.Type class is central to reflection. The common language runtime creates the Type for a loaded type when reflection requests it. You can use a Type object's methods, fields, properties, and nested classes to find out everything about that type.

Use Assembly.GetType or Assembly.GetTypes to obtain Type objects from assemblies that have not been loaded, passing in the name of the type or types you want. Use Type.GetType to get the Type objects from an assembly that is already loaded. Use Module.GetType and Module.GetTypes to obtain module Type objects.

The following example shows the syntax necessary to get the Assembly object and module for an assembly.

[Visual Basic]
' Gets the mscorlib assembly in which the object is defined.
Dim a As Reflection.Assembly = GetType(Object).Module.Assembly

[C#]
....

The following example demonstrates getting Type objects from a loaded assembly.

[Visual Basic]
' Loads an assembly using its file name.
Dim a As Reflection.Assembly = Reflection.Assembly.LoadFrom("MyExe.exe")
' Gets the type names from the assembly.
Dim types2 As Type() = a.GetTypes()
Dim t As Type
For Each t In types2
Console.WriteLine(t.FullName)
Next t

[C#]
....

Once you obtain a Type, there are many ways you can discover information about the members of that type. For example, you can find out about all the type's members by calling the Type.GetMembers method, which obtains an array of MemberInfo objects describing each of the members of the current type.

You can also use methods on the Type class to retrieve information about one or more constructors, methods, events, fields, or properties that you specify by name. For example, Type.GetConstructor encapsulates a specific constructor of the current class.

In fact, you can know absolutely nothing about a class - not even know that it exists - and setup your code such that during runtime, it uses Reflection to interrogate the metadata of the current .NET assembly to find out what types (classes) are available, and what their methods, fields, and properties are - shoot, you can even find out what the signature is for one of the class's methods, create an appropriate array of objects as arguments, and then invoke that method, even though you never knew even knew the method - or even the class - existed.

Isn't VB .NET simply amazing! :-)

[Tormod]

Telemad, your insight is impressive and I appreciate your documenting your stance. But a friendly request from me: could you try to loosen up on the "wrong again" phrase? It suffices to point out where Alexander is wrong, no need to repeatedly make fun of him.