topic Re: VB6 for Automation Projects in BreakPoint

VB6 for Automation Projects

Highland_Controls — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:39:51 GMT

I have a customer that wants to get away from LabVIEW(don't get me started on why, nothing wrong with it), and are choosing VB6 as the solution. I know it is obsolete and no longer supported by Microsoft. The applications would be general automation with integration to SQL databases, motion controllers, vision, test equipment, etc. Let me know if anyone thinks this is a recipe for disaster, and why.

Regards,

Brian

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

altenbach — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:49:52 GMT

There is nothing inherently wrong with this if he has some boiler room full of brilliant VB6 programmers.

Does he? If not, I think it is a recipe for disaster.

(What kind of hardware is involved?)

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Highland_Controls — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:56:12 GMT

It is all kinds of equipment, and several custom machines. They want me to become the VB6 expert. There is one person there that knows some VB, but he is not an equipment engineer, and hence would not be doing the programming.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

pallen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:26:51 GMT

The potential disaster here is that your company could lose a lot of money if you misquote the job. Having no experience in coding with VB6 will make quoting the time required very difficult. In this case, you'll be much better off if you can bill the job as time and materials.

Although you should be able to find plenty of online resources for learning VB6, your customer has chosen platform that ended it's extended support three years ago. You may run into trouble trying to integrate new hardware on this platform.

Your customer should really examine their reasoning behind this decision. If they want VB because they have in-house VB support, then they should use .net VB and at least remain current.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Highland_Controls — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:48:25 GMT

I am not concerned about my $$$ issues. My concern is a company starting from scratch with an obsolete product. This is an edict from upper management, and I am not sure that I can sway the decision.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

RavensFan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:17:13 GMT

Whose upper management is making this edict? Is it the customer's upper management? I sure hope it's not yours as not only is the customer making an illogical decision, then your management is as well. I agree with Christian and Patrick about the recipe for disaster.

I was just talking to my IT buddy the other day about VB6 and how it is obsolete. We have a number of engineering programs written with that years ago and it is just a matter of time before they'll break for good. Up until now, all new PC's deployed were XP based and have worked. From this quarter forward, all new PC's will deployed as Windows 7, and the theory is that there are enough changes there that the VB6 apps won't work anymore.

You may want to raise the concern that not only are you writing an app with an obsolete programming language, but that you may not even be able to port the code to a newer OS and that the OS you might be locked into will is either on the verge of obsolescence (XP), or could just be a few years away.

I wish you luck that rational minds will prevail, or if they don't, you don't get wrapped up in the project. It really sounds to me that it could wind up being one of those career killer projects. You know, those projects that no matter how hard you work, it is doomed to failure and your name gets a black mark along with the project through no fault of your own.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Brian_Beal — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:46:24 GMT

It is not my company making this decision. It is my customer. Yes, I agree it is not a logical decision. If not VB6, what should I recommend? LabVIEW makes the most sense since it is used everywhere at this company, and several people have been trained. They want to make a change, though.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Highland_Controls — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:00:08 GMT

Sorry, I was automatically logged in with my other user name on this computer. Brian Beal=Highland Controls

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

pallen — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:44:33 GMT

Personally, I'd really try to make the argument again for LabVIEW. But then again, that's where all my experience is and what I'm comfortable with.

If you can't convince them to go with what you know, then I would really push for something at least modern. It just seems like a waste of money to invest in something that's already out of date.

They are the customer, and you want them to be happy. But if you know that what they're asking for is going to make them unhappy....then all you can do is try to convince them to take your advice.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

smercurio_fc — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:46:09 GMT

I'm guessing they probably don't like the up-front cost of the development license. This seems to be the big howl from a lot of people. However, they're missing the big picture. I'm not saying that you should push LabVIEW onto them, but the reason why they want to use VB as opposed to, say, C, Java, or .NET has to be examined here. If they're not rational about this, what else are they not rational about? If the customer is not capable of realizing the illogic behind their decision, then you need to ask yourself if you really want them as a customer. What else are they going to ask you to do that makes no sense, either from an engineering standpoint, or a simple financial one?

As for alternatives to LabVIEW, would they consider LabWindows? VB.NET has been mentioned before, but VB.NET ain't VB6, so they may not go for it, even though it has "VB" in the name.

Remember: The customer isn't always right.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

atalvish — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 10:40:18 GMT

I think VB6 is great for creating automation tools.. i have been working with VB myself and i feel that given the hardware support VB tools can be made to do heaviest tasks.. It's right that there may be several ways of doing the same task, but VB can never be a recipe for disaster if the guy knows his stuff well..

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

RavensFan — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:09:21 GMT

@atalvish wrote:

I think VB6 is great for creating automation tools.. i have been working with VB myself and i feel that given the hardware support VB tools can be made to do heaviest tasks.. It's right that there may be several ways of doing the same task, but VB can never be a recipe for disaster if the guy knows his stuff well..

Nobody's saying that VB6 wasn't good at what it did. But the point is, why would someone start programming in a language that is already obsolete? What you create now with it won't run on your next PC when it comes time to upgrade that operating system. You are already locking yourself into the hardware you have now. Two or three years from now you are screwed and will have to start over again writing it in another language that will work on the PC hardware and OS that you can get at that time.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

jcarmody — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:27:14 GMT

I understand that VB6 is obsolete and I wouldn't start another project with it, but I find it hard to believe that it's going away. There are literally zillions of applications with brazillions of lines of code written in VB. The whole world would grind to a halt if VB6 EVER stopped working.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

smercurio_fc — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:03:41 GMT

You mean like the way the world ground to a halt back in January of 2000 when all those COBOL programs stopped working?

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Highland_Controls — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:14:17 GMT

I talked to my customer and explained my concerns with going to VB6. They agreed that they should be looking at something with current support. What is the best programming package out there for general automation projects? I know that is a loaded question, but we are looking for something that is capable, supported, not obscure, and that is popular with programmers(for support reasons). Any suggestions? I am seeing Visual C++ support in several motion controllers, so that might be one option.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

Matthew_Kelton — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 03:05:35 GMT

As long as it is from Visual Studio 2010, I think you'll be safe. If you have no experience in those programming languages, I would do some research and see if you can find libraries for the HW you must support.

I don't know what the lifespan is supposed to be for this project, but I would imagine that if you did it in LabVIEW, you would finish faster and do it for less money. At what point does convenience of support and (I am assuming) lower cost of support save them in the long run? You mentioned in your original post that their VB guy isn't going to be invloved, so there will be no one but your company that is familiar with the code anyway. So, they'll either come back to you because time is of the essence, or go with someone cheaper who has to come up to speed on everything you've done,which means support costs more because it takes more time.

I'm not sure if LabVIEW is what they consider obscure. I'm sure a lot of people would, especially sicne most people I know have no clue what LabVIEW is.

I have a customer who uses an in-house java platform for all their testing. It is their version of TestStand and has support for GPIB, etc. They spent years developing this thing so that they can save costs on Windows (they can run Linux), LabVIEW, and TestStand. Of course, their customers often require them to use LabVIEW and TestStand because it is industry standard. I'm sure they've found ways to charge their customers for developing it, but they have easily paid for LV and TestStand licenses for the remainder of the century. For someone charging their customers hundreds of thousands if not millions for system, a few thousand for boxed software seems a bit extreme. I think a large part of it is that they have a java programmer on staff, so he's cheap.

Since you said that they have lots of LabVIEW currently in place, it seems to me that switching to a new platform will be extremely expensive upfront with the assumption of savings on the back end.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

smercurio_fc — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:48:21 GMT

@Matthew Kelton wrote:
I think a large part of it is that they have a java programmer on staff, so he's cheap.

I can speak to this as I'm on that side of the fence. The company I work for is pretty small, and I'm the only programmer here. Back when it was realized that we needed some form of test executive for the testing of the products we make, the discussion was whether to develop it internally or just to buy TestStand. I wanted to just buy TestStand because I knew the headaches I'd encounter with trying to develop it internally, and having to support it. In the end, the decision was to not buy TestStand. After all, I was already paid for, so why buy something else? I was already on staff, and I could develop the program while not doing other stuff, so it was not seen as extra cost for me to do it over time. That was many years ago. The exec shell I developed is our core testing tool and it's been integrated into our process flow. Could it have been done with TestStand (or something similar that was off-the-shelf). Of course. Did I do a better job than what we could have gotten with TestStand? While I tried to design it logically and make it fairly easy to use, I can honestly say that no, I could never do a better job that what we could have gotten with TestStand.

While I don't agree with the rationale, I understand it, and I can say that most companies probably think like that. Some believe it's a "we can do it better" mentality. I don't think that's the case. While that may be true, it's really more of a matter of

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

_Ian_ — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:43:52 GMT

@smercurio_fc wrote:

While that may be true, it's really more of a matter of

of..... suspense? mystery? finishing sentences?

I'm guessing your post got cropped somehow.... lets hope not too much got lost!

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

smercurio_fc — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:53:13 GMT

Yeah, that's not the first time the forum has done that to me. I've mentioned this before, but it hasn't happened consistenly enough for me to flag it to Laura.

What I was basically was going to say was that it's really more a matter of not spending any more money that what you've already spent by basically already having paid someone's salary. $5000 may not seem like much to big companies, but it's a BIG deal with small outfits.

Re: VB6 for Automation Projects

_Ian_ — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:06:43 GMT

@smercurio_fc wrote:

Yeah, that's not the first time the forum has done that to me. I've mentioned this before, but it hasn't happened consistenly enough for me to flag it to Laura.

I guess now that you've used the magic 'L' word it is duly flagged!

Curiously it just happened to me for the 1st time in a reply I posted in the egg catcher thread.

Ian