Not off topic, still discussing Basic. Prior comments discussed Excel. That version of Basic is VBA. You suggested it would be written by an amateur. I an not an amateur having been developing in multiple languages since the 1970's. Basic is a good solid language and will be around for many more years. I am sorry you don't care for it.

Bubble time: .net Basic is as fully capable as .net C# and uses the same runtime. Non .net BASIC supports reuse with classes. I have many functions and subroutines that have worked for years with no changes in hundreds of programs. Basic is not good for all things, but for general business use it does 99% of the job. And, if you need to write an Excel or Word macro there is no other option. Maintenance of any program is dependent on program documentation and training as well as knowledge of the language. So far, no one has had to wake up at 2 am to fix my code. I wish that were true of some Cobol, Java and C# I have to support.

Not always true. I for one use Basic daily (VBA), there is nothing wrong with the language when a competent developer writes clean, tested, documented code.

Writing an Excel macro with the built in tools easily results in totally untestable code. Using VBA with a fully expressed, documented and peer review can and will prevent these errors. The problem is that "computer scientists" and "professional programmers" only want to learn to code in C variants. As developers we need broad experience and open minds.

You can maintain the entire domain with policy and use powershell scripts for that. Wake up it 2017.

Spoken like a true hater. Show me how using open office will allow me to collaborate with Microsoft office at work where it counts. Show me how open office runs Excel macros or how I can drag and drop my files into whatever open source sharepoint replacement you pick. I guesss this makes me a hater as well, but I just want to get my work done. All of Microsoft productcs might be crap, but until Linux has a killer app that only works there and is necessary for business it will always be a hard sell.

18 years in the grocery business tells me that when the cash registers started figuring out the change was the end of checkers that could count. (here comes the when I was young story) When I started, the registers were mechanical and did their best to add the bill. When the order was done, you asked the customer for $18.75 and got a $20. You counted back the change - ".25 is $19 and $1 makes $20". If you handed the customer $1.25 like they do now, you'd be looking for a job. It still drives me crazy.

I totally agree. In southern California we have made a decision over the last 60 years to drive cars and now we are paying the price. It would be great to have mass transit, but I work 25 miles from home (that is about average for the area) and there is no bus or train that will get me to work in less than 3 hours. Riding a bike is also not an option because drivers think bikes are a target.Until we act as a group to get real mass transit again, and we are willing to pay for it, the car will be king even if gas goes to $20 a gallon.

Another reason is that Americans are too cheap to pay for things built in the USA. Look at Walmart... I don' think you will see anything made in thee USA there. It would probably add 50 to 100 dollars to build a computer here and we will never pay that much moreeven to save our own economy.

Here's the real scoop. I would pay for Majel, but I would not pay for Siri.

Ok so it's just 99.9% that won't code. Most users just want to get their work done and whatever platform that is easiest to use at that time will be their favorite. If mainstream media says that Mac or Windows is better or easier users will flock to it. I really doubt that most users understand that OSX is UNIX, and they don't care either.

We should all be prepared - if you are a non believer I suggest you read Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, the clear "bible" in this area. Better safe than missing all your brains.

More to the point of using native code vs high(er) level languages, the usual complaint here is garbage collection that takes arbitrary amounts of time and possible stalls the applications. I think the real issue is not language, but compiler design. With current multiprocessor systems threading can cover up a ton of garbage collection and make high(er) level languages APPEAR to be more efficient. Compilers should take care of this for us. From a developer quality standpoint, the developer that can churn out high quality code (no bugs, does what was intented) in the shortest time is the winner. What language is used or is currently popular depends on speed to develop with and how slow the application can be to still run acceptably. That's whay better compilers and run time libraries are expensive. The rest of us get lowest common denominator systems from M$ and open source, and have slow, memory hogging and leaking applications to show for it. As developers we should be aware of what we are doing, try to use the right tool and bitch like crazy to language and compiler developers that we need better tools.

Ray Milland or Rosey Grier?