XYplorer Beta Club

admin wrote:I will suffer forever from the good old VB6-bashing which is so ridiculous to everybody who knows a little bit about programming, but how to kill a myth? It's a bit like racism. Fools talk, fools believe.

I'm so fed up with this, I tried something here, it's a first draft, please have a look:
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=VB6

Looks good to me.
Only thing, I would probably expand the explanation on 64bit a bit with the missing (and most likely never going to magically appear) 64bit compiler.

OK, I extended it quite a bit.

Nice read!

Btw,
is it possible that the FAQ overview is missing this (and other) entries?
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq.php

E.g. these don't have an entry in that list:
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=tweak
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=VB6

Yes, I wanted this list to be short, a MFAQ (Most FAQ). But I think I will add some and give it some structure.

admin wrote:I'm so fed up with this, I tried something here, it's a first draft, please have a look:
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=VB6

Good summary, might help with some moanings.

I haven't voted, since I don't want to register with another site just for that.

I'm very surprised how few people voted. < 40 in one week?! Not exactly a mass movement. Not sure yet what to make of this. Certainly less than inspiring.

... (comparing other stats on Slant) ...

Okay, it's not that bad. The highest number of "Recommendations" I could find on Slant is 310 in a ranking that runs much longer than the file manager ranking (https://www.slant.co/topics/67/~best-programming-fonts), so these small numbers seem to be normal on Slant.

(And personally I think it's totally okay not to register just for voting. It's really the clever thing to do. Sure, the need to register is a troll wall, but just as sure your email will be sold and your voting and texting will become a part of the eternal big data.)

Filehero wrote:

admin wrote:I'm so fed up with this, I tried something here, it's a first draft, please have a look:
https://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=VB6

Good summary, might help with some moanings.

I haven't voted, since I don't want to register with another site just for that.

You can totally feel Don's feelings emanating from that page

I've posted my 2¢...

The title of the book I'll never write is "The Software Works but No One Can Use It!" There are lots of programs out there with fabulous code and algorithms, but totally unusable user interfaces and interaction models. XYPlorer, in spite of its complexity and completeness, is VERY usable. Features are obvious. And where they're not obvious (hey, you can only put so much at the top level of menus or UI) they are discoverable. I've yet to find a feature I wanted that was not already there. And, if I really want something different there's the scripting language built right in. (A bit daunting for a designer, but cool for a programmer.) Many other programs would do well by studying the way XYPlorer has crammed so much functionality into an uncluttered and simple presentation.

Enternal wrote:You can totally feel Don's feelings emanating from that page

Well, I'm certainly bored by the repetitiveness of the argument. I'm worried that some people might be scared away by it. But I'm also happy (and proud) that this point is obviously all the competition has got. So I'm hopeful that people draw the right conclusions and recognize even before testing it: XY has to be the best tool on the market.

GUIguy wrote:The title of the book I'll never write is "The Software Works but No One Can Use It!" There are lots of programs out there with fabulous code and algorithms, but totally unusable user interfaces and interaction models. XYPlorer, in spite of its complexity and completeness, is VERY usable. Features are obvious. And where they're not obvious (hey, you can only put so much at the top level of menus or UI) they are discoverable. I've yet to find a feature I wanted that was not already there. And, if I really want something different there's the scripting language built right in. (A bit daunting for a designer, but cool for a programmer.) Many other programs would do well by studying the way XYPlorer has crammed so much functionality into an uncluttered and simple presentation.

Thank you! That's indeed one the the top features in XYplorer (and one that can't be copied easily by the competition, hehe).

"...But then somebody tells you the construction plan used to build the machine is written in Latin! Is that a problem?..."

Yes!

Don, your comparison with the coffee machine actually proves the problems with VB. Latin does not contain the words to describe the construction of the machine; plastic, electric, heating element (element would have a very different meaning in Latin) even coffee! Hence the instructions would be very long winded (attempting to describe, in Latin, words that did not exist), ambiguous, difficult to understand, and hence prone to errors. I can't even imagine how to describe what plastic is in Latin (I studied Latin at school) and calling it "plastic" would not be a solution since the word would mean nothing to a Latin reader. Would you would know what I meant if I asked you to buy me some fadge! (not Latin, but a common Irish word).

VB has the same problems. When it was written many of the instructions required for a modern system weren't in existence, and you have to find a round-about way of executing them. Long winded, time consuming, prone to error (by the processor, not necessarily you) and generally not efficient. You have done an excellent job, it amazes me that XY even works! Why it will not run on my 4 & 5 Ghz systems you may find out one day - when you update to a faster machine.

These round-about ways of creating instructions are probably the reasons bugs "disappear" without anybody doing anything. Remember, computers don't make mistakes. The mistakes are due to either the user or the programmer. If a computer fails, it fails terminally, and doesn't mysteriously recover and work again. Yes, I know freezing hard disks can allow recovery of data (I've done it), but it's short term.

There, that's my rant for to-day. Have a good day.

You're saying you have a Windows machine that's not compatible with VB programs? That would be a first AFAIK.

Concerning the Latin: It refers to the source code, not the machine code. No worries, the machine itself is made from the same materials as all the other machines. There is no VB in XYplorer.exe.

44 votes? Really? That was it? Come on, you can do better!

https://www.slant.co/topics/2404/~file- ... or-windows

I just tried to give XY a vote but I don't use Facebook nor Slant and as a privacy advocate I don't link my gmail account to either of these, so in reality I was unable to vote. But in Virtual Reality I AM able to vote, so I gave XY 10 votes, giving XY a comfortable lead (though virtual). Remember, virtual is in the eye of the beholder.

Keep up the great work!