VB6 for Automation Projects

[atalvish]

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..

[RavensFan]

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@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..

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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.

[jcarmody]

I understand that VB6 is obsolete and I wouldn't start another project with it, but I find it hard to believe that it's going away.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.

[smercurio_fc]

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

[Highland_Controls]

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.

[Matthew_Kelton]

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.

[smercurio_fc]

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

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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

[_Ian_]

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@smercurio_fc wrote:

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

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

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

[smercurio_fc]

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.

[_Ian_]

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@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.

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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