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Visual Basic 6

MrVestek

Ok, so I know Visual Basic can hardly be considered a true programming language but for my current college project I just need to know one thing as endless googling hasn't given me the answer.

Currently I have a program that's reading integers from a text file so that the numbers stay constant when the program starts and finishes (we haven't learned how to integreate Databases into our programs yet).

Anyways at present I have it reading the text file by typing out the full path to the file as it doesn't except just the file name. Is there a way to just get it to read from the textfile of the directory that the form (uncompiled) is currently in?

Cheers.

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rsynnott

Kernel32 wrote:

VB3 to VB6 which was what I used to do the bulk of my development up until .Net Beta 1 put many thousands of dollars, pounds and euros into my bank account. No matter how much I didn't like working with it sometimes it will always have a special place in my heart.

I have a somewhat similar feeling about PHP.

Kernel32

VB3 to VB6 which was what I used to do the bulk of my development up until .Net Beta 1 put many thousands of dollars, pounds and euros into my bank account. No matter how much I didn't like working with it sometimes it will always have a special place in my heart.

Evil Phil

Yeah, Pulse is VB6.

bonkey

rsynnott wrote:

VB (especially pre-.NET) makes it quite easy for frighteningly stupid people to write programs which at first glance look okay. This is not a good thing; such programs are invariably broken.

To be honest, I don't think VB is in any way unique in that regard.

In my experience, the biggest problem users have had with VB apps has been the UI.

Up to Version 3, VB was more-or-less at the cutting edge of the whole idea of Drag-n-Drop UI-building scene. The downside of this was that it meant people could build UIs without learning how to do so. This was bad - I lost track of how often in teh early-to-mid 90s I had variations of the following conversation...

me: Why did you add those frames-within-frames-within-frames, and why are you using purple, green and pink for frame-titles.

developer: Coz it looks nice. Its boring when you make an application look like a boring, ordinary windows application.

Of course, now that web-design has caught the "anything goes, and the less standard the better" bug, people may not see this as a bad thing any more....but that point is that it destroyed VBs reputation at the time. People looked at these shocking-looking apps, discovered that even when functional the code quality was as high as the UI-quality....and decided that it was the language's fault for letting some idiot produce something vile.

Post-VB3, the biggest problem has been that MS are doing their damndest to keep VB in the "Windows 95 Look-and-Feel" groove. To do most of the by-now-standard things like graded shading, "Outlook-style" toolbars...hell....even proper XP-themed checkboxes and stuff.....you need to go find third-party add-ons.

So now, even though the language has matured somewhat...it still manages to produce ugly apps really well, and allows idiots to produce them relatively simply.

If you know what you're doing, you can write some serious stuff in VB. PULSE, if memory serves, is primarily a VB application. Thats not where the problem is.

The problem is that VB gets you up and running far before you should be even considering anything more than crawling, people get ahead of themselves, and the language gets blamed for letting them.

jc

rsynnott

The Corinthian wrote:

However being too user friendly is a new one on me. Do you mean it is not strict enough on data types or has an easy to use IDE?

VB (especially pre-.NET) makes it quite easy for frighteningly stupid people to write programs which at first glance look okay. This is not a good thing; such programs are invariably broken.

Drag and drop database design is possibly the silliest idea in computing history.

And no, it is certainly NOT strict enough on data types. 'variants', indeed! (PHP and similar have the same problem).

"On Error Resume Next"? What were they THINKING of?!

The fabulous Verity Stob sums up some of the issues here: http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=1503/ddj0001vs/jan00.htm

All that said, it is of course perfectly possible to program well in VB. (A few issues remain, particularly the portability and runtime issues)

The Corinthian

Achilles wrote:

VB in my eyes is almost too user friendly, hence the 'inspiration' behind my original comment.

There are numerous complaints that I could make about VB, such as the fact that it’s inflexible in its handling of memory, is not really designed for multi-threading easily and less said about arrays in VB the better. However, it is the language to use in some projects and not in others; dependant on the platform used, functionality required and business constraints. Simple as that - anything else is nothing more than a mixture of fashion and bluff.

However being too user friendly is a new one on me. Do you mean it is not strict enough on data types or has an easy to use IDE?

That said tho the Java teacher is straight out of college herself and can barely explain the bloody language to us.

I refer you to my earlier comment on this.

MrVestek

Well this thread has certainly spiraled out of all control, perhaps we should Wiki it under the great VB debate. Anyways I retract my comment about VB seeing as it caused so much fuss, and I am currently learning Java here in college too, although it has a much steeper learning curve than VB. VB in my eyes is almost too user friendly, hence the 'inspiration' behind my original comment.

That said tho the Java teacher is straight out of college herself and can barely explain the bloody language to us. I'm one of about... 2 people in the class that actually understand what's going on. Guess the old rule of 'there are only 2 types of people in this world... those who understand binary...' applies here.

Draupnir

I like when I hear students insult VB, it makes me feel a great sense of job security.

bonkey

Hobbes wrote:

It was a toy language 10 years ago prehaps.

I think you missed the implication of this bit, Hobbes:

if he/she doesn't like VB, thats one less bod to compete with in that market when I choose to work in it. Why would I encourage them to do otherwise?

Either that or this week's flavour of humour doesn't translate so well in writing.

Other then that, your second post back is spot on. Should almost go into the charter.

Shux. Thankee sir.

Hobbes

bonkey wrote:

Please Achilles. Ignore these clowns. VB is a toy language, and no-one writes real applications in it.

It was a toy language 10 years ago prehaps. But there certainly real-world applications made in it. People tend to only notice that is done in VB when the developer makes a complete Pigs ear of the UI design (they should give classes in that).

Java has this same problem of people spouting "Its not a real language" based on how version 1.0/1.1(MS) worked.

Other then that, your second post back is spot on. Should almost go into the charter.

bonkey

The Corinthian wrote:

Where the OP went wrong is, as has been pointed out, by insulting the people he was seeking help from - not too bright.

To be fair, the thread seems to be more continuing on Laguna's high-horsedness than the OP's initial gaffe when referring to VB.

And to be fair to the OP, if he/she is doing it in college, and is being made learn VB as a subject (instead of something kule n secksy like Java, C++, or anything webby), I can kinda understand the comment. I don't agree with it, but if I was to spend my days correcting everyone who makes false assumptions about VB....

The way I look at it...no matter how good a programmer the OP turns out to be, if he/she doesn't like VB, thats one less bod to compete with in that market when I choose to work in it. Why would I encourage them to do otherwise?

Hmm...that gives me an idea.

Please Achilles. Ignore these clowns. VB is a toy language, and no-one writes real applications in it. Take Laguna's example, and choose a different field. I'd recommend something web-releated, as long as its not back-end enterprise-level systems. Or games programming. I hear thats a growth industry, (and uses computer languages so real you won't believe they're not butter). Oh - and avoid project management like the plague too. No-one serious will want it.

The Corinthian

rsynnott wrote:

Any question which can be trivially answered through use of Google or a bit of common sense should not be answered here.

In fairness using App.Path in this way is not really something that can easily be Googled. Where the OP went wrong is, as has been pointed out, by insulting the people he was seeking help from - not too bright.

As for his lecturer not knowing 'off hand' - well, if he did know, he'd probably have a real job.

bonkey

Laguna wrote:

OK now, let me see if I've got this right..

This is the Programming forum... yes?

Why is it taboo/forbidden for people (especially 'newbies') to ask Programming questions?

Its not. Its taboo to be asking questions where the asking and/or subsequent follow-up suggests that you're trying to leech an answer rather than be pointed in the right direction.

K32 pointed a link to an article discussing the Path property, which mentioned (at the very least) the App object. It was accompanied by an almost-standard programmer-to-programmer comment of RTFM.

Your response was that it wasn't helpful and didn't give the right answer anyway. The point is that it gave all the pointers one needed to either answer the question directly, or find the answer in short order.

If you don't see that as helpful, instead preferring that some other programmer hand you the code being asked for, I would humbly suggest you are in the wrong profession.

Anytime anyone ever asks a question that has a *hint* of a college assignment from it, you're all down their throat deeming yourselves to have carte blanche to pick apart everything and anything they say

Bear in mind that most of the programmers you're deriding managed to get through college when there was no WWW at hand to supply a handy forum of people to regurgitate knowledge.

We had to bribe the guys a year in front of us with beer n stuff

And even then, it involved ridicule.

One of the greatest skills programmers develop is how to find solutions to problems. While your in college or elsewhere, it may seem that getting other people to tell you what you're missing is a valid way of doing this. In the real world, you'll find that changes.

Programmers who solve problems by asking other programmers what the solution is....well....ask yourself why you'd hire such a question asker, and not another "question answerer".

As a result, you'll generally find that programmers who are helping other programmers will not hand over a solution...just a means to find it. If you can find your solution given a pointer, then hopefully your knowledge of where and how to look for pointers will improve and you'll ask less often. You may even understand more of the entire area around which your question was based, rather than just the specific answer to your question.

K32's link gave the information to solve the problem, plus general information about Path properties. To get the full complete answer, you'd also have to learn a bit (and have the opportunity to learn more) about the App object. So a lot of learning, which would along the way answer the question being asked. Is that not a fair trade?

If you're response is "that doesn't answer my question, please help", then generally there'd better be a "because..." added at the end to show that you've looked at the pointer and figured out why its wrong.

Yes, programmers with experience are probably too harsh on beginners. But there's mostly a reason. Give a programmer a hint that you want a spoon-fed answer rather than a pointer....well....just pray you never, ever have to work with or be interviewed for a job by said programmer.

If the only things beginners learn from such harshness is to be more self-reliant, and to learn how better to find answers from scratch or from pointers....thats worth more than any high grades we can help them obtain by handing them their homework.

jc

rsynnott

Any question which can be trivially answered through use of Google or a bit of common sense should not be answered here.

Bear in mind that ultimately, you may one day end up debugging these peoples' code. With that in mind, it is surely better that they actually learn things, no?

Laguna

OK now, let me see if I've got this right..

This is the Programming forum... yes?

Why is it taboo/forbidden for people (especially 'newbies') to ask Programming questions?

Anytime anyone ever asks a question that has a *hint* of a college assignment from it, you're all down their throat deeming yourselves to have carte blanche to pick apart everything and anything they say as you're all uber-L33t HaxxorZ. They should change the name of the forum for it to be more applicable, perhaps to 10010101010101010, to indicate your sheer superiority by communicating via binary.

Kernel32

I don't see the problem. My original response was framed within the philosophy of the homework sticky. The original poster indicated this was a college project. The sticky says to not supply code. My reply had no code except a pointer to the help file where the answer could be found. I was then accused of being unhelpful, bizarre to say the least.

Now at the risk of being seen as an angry old coder, any response beyond the pointer to the help file and maybe a quick one line explanation is doing a disservice to the original poster. At some point the poster well join the workforce and for simple questions like that they will not get any help from senior developers beyond what I provided. If they persisted in ignoring the response as they did here they would soon find themselves looking for a new job. I realize he or she is in college but its all part of learning and it will make them better in the long run.

I like to see newbie questions. They often start interesting discussions that go beyond the orginal question.

Evil Phil

I think a newbie programming forum would be a great idea, it would require more *ahem* tolerance on our part - we all had to learn after all

TempestSabre

Newbie ques always make people grumpy...:D

Coding requires you to be very precise about that you say and do. It also requires that you read very carefully all the instructions and help files, as porgrammers are often not very verbose (wordy) when explaining or describing things. Since if something is obvious to them, they often assume its obvious to everyone else. This is especially difficult if you are a newbie thats not used to reading carefully. I have a habit of scan/speed reading things, and its a bad habit for coders. Another habit of coders is to only look at, and answer the question thats been asked. Whereas often the question being asked isn't fully formed due to lack of knowledge of the poster. A good coder looks beyond the question, to see if the question being asked is the right question. I think theres should be a few more rules in this forum.

1) Newbies, RTFM very carefully and slowly, you might have missed something.
2) If you don't have the patience for newbie ques, don't post in reply.
3) Don't be pedantic, without explaining why. (A concise answer and RTFM isn't helpful IMO).

Of course this is kinda in the FAQs and Charter: READ BEFORE POSTING but its kinda longwinded.

Mind you if you don't want newbie questions in the forum, you should change the forum name to Advanced Programming or similar. Scare newbies away. Just a thought. :cool:

Hobbes

Kernel32 wrote:

Hobbes went one step further and supplied a line of code. I'm not sure what more is needed?

That was Evil Phil, not me.

rsynnott

Laguna wrote:

That's not a helpful comment, I think the charter should say something about posts saying RTFM/unhelpful comments? (if it doesn't already).

It does indeed; it encourages them for trivial questions such as this.

Laguna wrote:

Besides, I had a look at the link, it provides no answer to the mans question, it's not even close.

Yes it does...

Trampas wrote:

Typical college student comment about Visual Basic not a programming language.

Of course it's a programming language. However, so is INTERCAL.

Incidentally, I hadn't realised it was taught in colleges. *shudder*

amen

I can be damned if i'm changing all the file paths (the above aint the only instance in my program of where code is read from a text file) if I'm changing all of the paths manually

you should have a common function for opening files that accepts a path/file name and does the open/close read etc
that way you only have to change code in one place
if the same code is in more than 1 place you have done something wrong!

MrVestek

Beano wrote:

sin é

Cheers guys thanks for the help.

Beano

sin é

MrVestek

Ahh yes, sorry.

So I'd just do something like:

Open as #1 filePath = app.path & "\" & "coins.txt"

Would that work?

Beano

Evil Phil has already posted what you need above.

MrVestek

bonkey wrote:

No, there isn't.

There is a way to open it from the same location/folder as the compiled .exe, but - as has been pointed out - when working in Debug mode this will look for the file in the same location as where the .vbp is stored.

IN either case, this may be the same folder as "the form" (by which I can only assume you mean the .frm), but that would fall into the category of "programming by coincidence" in my book.

Why not look at the FileOpen Dialog, and simply get the user to select the file they want to read the values from? Or use a .INI file with the app?

jc

That's exactly what I need, a way to read the variables from the same directory that the .vbp project is stored, and when the .exe is compiled, to read them from the same directory. We're on the right track now, so how is it done?

bonkey

Achilles wrote:

But surely there's a way to get it to open variables.txt from within the same folder as the form.

No, there isn't.

There is a way to open it from the same location/folder as the compiled .exe, but - as has been pointed out - when working in Debug mode this will look for the file in the same location as where the .vbp is stored.

IN either case, this may be the same folder as "the form" (by which I can only assume you mean the .frm), but that would fall into the category of "programming by coincidence" in my book.

Why not look at the FileOpen Dialog, and simply get the user to select the file they want to read the values from? Or use a .INI file with the app?

jc

Trampas

Achilles wrote:
Jesus christ I never should have posted here in the first place. Any time anybody asks for help you always pick apart every little thing that the user asks.

The program we were asked to create is a Vending Machine Simulation Program. I've explained what I'm trying to do as best as I can. Basically I'm looking to input 5 variables into 5 seperate text files that are retreaved from a text file, do this like so:
Open "M:\College\CP2\Visual Basic\Vending Machine Project\stock.txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, CokeStock, DietCokeStock, FantaStock, LiltStock, SpriteStock
Close #1
txtCokeQuantity.Text = CokeStock
txtDietCokeQuantity.Text = DietCokeStock
txtFantaQuantity.Text = FantaStock
txtLiltQuantity.Text = LiltStock
txtSpriteQuantity.Text = SpriteStock
As you can see, for it to work I have to give it the full path of the directory, which in this case is my pen drive. The problem I will have later is if I want to work on it on a college PC or when I submit it on a floppy discs, the paths won't be correct and I can be damned if i'm changing all the file paths (the above aint the only instance in my program of where code is read from a text file) if I'm changing all of the paths manually. If I do something along the lines of this:
Open "stock.txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, CokeStock, DietCokeStock, FantaStock, LiltStock, SpriteStock
Close #1
txtCokeQuantity.Text = CokeStock
txtDietCokeQuantity.Text = DietCokeStock
txtFantaQuantity.Text = FantaStock
txtLiltQuantity.Text = LiltStock
txtSpriteQuantity.Text = SpriteStock
Then it doesn't work. So how do I get it to read the variables from a text file?

1. create a registry file which means you can change it between networks. Get it working locally on C drive before you go deep into folder. Google it

2. You should have enough now to google it to get further with the Input # as this is part of VB and not a thing we made up.

3. Go with 1 var first before trying to do 5

Finally i think college lectures teaching student who know nothing about programming teach them rubbish.

Kernel32

Achilles wrote:

Jesus christ I never should have posted here in the first place. Any time anybody asks for help you always pick apart every little thing that the user asks.

Did you actually read any of the replies?

I pointed you to the help file entry that solved the problem.

Hobbes went one step further and supplied a line of code. I'm not sure what more is needed?

MrVestek

Jesus christ I never should have posted here in the first place. Any time anybody asks for help you always pick apart every little thing that the user asks.

The program we were asked to create is a Vending Machine Simulation Program. I've explained what I'm trying to do as best as I can. Basically I'm looking to input 5 variables into 5 seperate text files that are retreaved from a text file, do this like so:

Open "M:\College\CP2\Visual Basic\Vending Machine Project\stock.txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, CokeStock, DietCokeStock, FantaStock, LiltStock, SpriteStock
Close #1
txtCokeQuantity.Text = CokeStock
txtDietCokeQuantity.Text = DietCokeStock
txtFantaQuantity.Text = FantaStock
txtLiltQuantity.Text = LiltStock
txtSpriteQuantity.Text = SpriteStock

As you can see, for it to work I have to give it the full path of the directory, which in this case is my pen drive. The problem I will have later is if I want to work on it on a college PC or when I submit it on a floppy discs, the paths won't be correct and I can be damned if i'm changing all the file paths (the above aint the only instance in my program of where code is read from a text file) if I'm changing all of the paths manually. If I do something along the lines of this:

Open "stock.txt" For Input As #1
Input #1, CokeStock, DietCokeStock, FantaStock, LiltStock, SpriteStock
Close #1
txtCokeQuantity.Text = CokeStock
txtDietCokeQuantity.Text = DietCokeStock
txtFantaQuantity.Text = FantaStock
txtLiltQuantity.Text = LiltStock
txtSpriteQuantity.Text = SpriteStock

Then it doesn't work. So how do I get it to read the variables from a text file?