{"id":1833,"date":"2009-07-06T04:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T04:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/2009\/07\/06\/im-a-vb-mark-harr\/"},"modified":"2024-07-05T12:48:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T19:48:59","slug":"im-a-vb-mark-harr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/im-a-vb-mark-harr\/","title":{"rendered":"I'm A VB: Mark Harr"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Blog: <\/font><\/span>http:\/\/www.harr.us\/markblog<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>How long have you been using VB?<\/p>\n

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Since shortly after VB 1.0 came out.  <\/span>I was looking for a new development environment to rewrite an application written in Easel that did not cost $12K and have a $600\/PC runtime license.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What industry do you work in?<\/p>\n

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Software Development Consultant. I work in whatever industry my client does. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>How big is your development team?<\/p>\n

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Depends on the client, but often just 1 (me).  <\/span>Sometimes 2 or 3, and occasionally a team of 5-7.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What kind of apps do you most commonly build?<\/p>\n

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Mostly web applications, internal and external.  <\/span>Sometimes SharePoint, some server services.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What’s the most interesting app you’ve ever built?<\/p>\n

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I built an entire enterprise system that did mobile medical exam scheduling, for a new and quickly growing company.  <\/span>It had with 6 front-end applications (3 desktop and 3 web-based) using common web service middle-tier and database, incorporating credit card payments, inbound and outbound faxing.  <\/span>And most interesting, from requirements-gathering to implementation, it took 10 weeks with team of 4 developers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>Please tell us about an app that you’re working on at the moment.<\/p>\n

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It’s a marketing literature website for a manufacturer. It’s like an ecommerce site, except there are no payments since all products are free and can optionally be downloaded (PDFs and software apps).<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What other technologies do you most commonly use?<\/p>\n

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Frequently SQL Server; sometimes I’m a DBA on the side.  <\/span>I do use C# if a client requires it, but I prefer VB for quicker\/better development.  <\/span>Occasionally Win Mobile, if I can find a reason to integrate it into the solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What are some of your favorite VB features?<\/p>\n

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#1, by far, is case-insensitive coding. I can’t understand why any development language is not case-insensitive anymore.  <\/span>I also prefer the implicit typecasting of VB vs. C#; it makes for more productive code-writing sessions.  <\/span>Visual Studio intelliSense just makes writing code so much easier; I can’t even think how I used to code before it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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·<\/span>        <\/span>What do you like most about VB as a programming language?<\/p>\n

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Besides the features I mentioned above, VB in general, since Day 1, seems to be all about getting applications done.  <\/span>Any other language seems to be about tricking developers into making mistakes, whereas VB feels like it is helping me get the app finished as quickly as I want to.<\/p>\n

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For other interviews in this series, please visit <\/font><\/span><\/b>http:\/\/imavb.net<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/a>. <\/p>\n

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Are you a VB, too? Submit your story <\/font><\/span><\/b>here<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/a>!<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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    Blog: http:\/\/www.harr.us\/markblog   ·        How long have you been using VB? Since shortly after VB 1.0 came out.  I was looking for a new development environment to rewrite an application written in Easel that did not cost $12K and have a $600\/PC runtime license.   ·        What industry do you work in? Software Development Consultant. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":260,"featured_media":8818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,195],"tags":[73,119],"class_list":["post-1833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-im-a-vb","category-visual-basic","tag-im-a-vb","tag-pages"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

    Blog: http:\/\/www.harr.us\/markblog   ·        How long have you been using VB? Since shortly after VB 1.0 came out.  I was looking for a new development environment to rewrite an application written in Easel that did not cost $12K and have a $600\/PC runtime license.   ·        What industry do you work in? Software Development Consultant. […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/vbteam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}