Ask HN: Why did Visual Basic die?

1

Anvil.works

Have you tried https://anvil.works? (I'm a founder!) It's quite explicitly VB-esque, and the single-paradigm thing speeds things up even for those who can write HTML/JS/CSS in their sleep. Overall I think the development speed is comparable to VB6. (And of course, you can drop out to JS/CSS/HTML if you want.).

#Developer Tools #App Development #Python Tools 94 social mentions

Talking of alternatives, I'm also aware of Gambas, though I've never tried it: http://gambas.sourceforge.net/.

#Programming Language #OOP #Development Tools 4 social mentions

3

Budibase

Budibase looks really impressive, basically a GUI frontend builder for postgres and its open source. Haven't actually deployed it, but played with the GUI builder and its nice. There's a few other similar ones out there too like Baserow [2], Appsmith [3] and nocodb [4]. Finally, if you wanted a step up, then I guess supabase [5] would be the next one up but its more like "I just want to write front end and have auth, database, API and storage taken care of for me" But none of these really give you that all-in-one database and front-end via files like Access did and its a damn shame. Yeah I know Access lead to some god-awful applications, but honestly the people complaining about shadow IT don't realize that its inevitable if IT isn't fixing people's problems. The whole lowcode-nocode shtick is a bit oversold, but one good aspect of it is that if you allow for an easy onboarding sandbox for the type of person who would otherwise make an Excel VBA app, at least some of these platforms have sandboxes with guardrails and other compliance stuff you can apply. [1] https://budibase.com/.

#Web App Builders #Web Frameworks #PaaS 59 social mentions

4

htmx

#Software Development #Javascript UI Libraries #JavaScript 65 social mentions

Why not give Decker a spin? It's similar to HyperCard, but open source, runs nearly everywhere, and it's under active development: http://beyondloom.com/decker/.

#Game Development #Game Engine #IDE 8 social mentions

6

Xojo

For anyone looking for a modern alternative to Visual Basic, you might want to take a look at Xojo. Xojo's a rapid application development platform (both a language and an IDE) that you can use to develop desktop apps (for macOS, Windows, Linux), Web apps, mobile apps (for iOS and Android), as well as console apps. It's been around for more than 20 years, and some of you might remember it from back when it was called REALbasic. I'm a solo custom software developer that specializes in NetSuite, and I'm using Xojo to develop all kinds of apps that integrate with NetSuite - from desktop apps to mobile apps to Web APIs. There's a blog post on Xojo's site that provides a good summary of how Xojo is both similar to and different from VB. It's an older post (from 2013), and Xojo's come a long way since then. https://xojo.com http://blog.xojo.com/2013/06/19/a-modern-alternative-to-visual-basic/.

#IDE #Text Editors #Programming Language 5 social mentions

7

Gnumeric

Gnumeric is actually a good excel. The stats routines are shared with R so if ever someone demonstrates a bug, it is fixed! Free, fast, accurate. Pick any three! http://gnumeric.org.

#Spreadsheets #Project Management #Office Suites 2 social mentions

8

Supabase

#Developer Tools #Realtime Backend / API #Backend As A Service 428 social mentions

9

Baserow

#Tech #SaaS #Open Source 94 social mentions