February 8, 2003

           If you read deeply enough, you’ll find, elsewhere in my writings, a complete description of this building. It is the monastery that Hershel Rosenthal lived in. This picture is just one corner of it. His father had acquired it in a real estate deal and nobody knew what to do with it. So dozens of us crashed there for a lot of years. A museum eventually bought the plumbing fixtures. That is the side fire escape with the lovely Debbie Mah heading out. If you look really closely, Rudy is at the screen door.
           Miami, FL 5:33 a.m. I don’t know if it is a bonus, but I found an original book on Visual Basic at the Goodwill while on the way to Jimmy’s for breakfast. [Visual Basic User’s Guide, MS Excel, Microsoft Corporation 1993-1994.] Now, I’ve still got influenza, and I’m resting in be, lots of liquids etc, but that doesn’t mean I’m watching TV or wasting an opportunity. I’ve sincerely delved into this Visual Basic.
           I intend to read it again tomorrow in the futile hope that there is at least one practical example. So far it is MS all the way, chapter upon chapter of overkill on the fundamentals, then a quantum leap to controlling other applications. Like nothing happens between those two extremes. Throw in the annoying and constant references to “on-line” help [and it is] a cop-out by any standard.
           My conclusions: VB is a bastardization of original BASIC. There are no revolutionary command structures, only a twisted way of naming things. And it is a true MS twist, because those people are notorious for the inability to properly categorize what they mean and are terrified to call anything by its industry standard.
           Further, this book was written just long enough ago that they hadn’t learned to disguise their embarrassment [at writing clearly], so instead of cursing them [like we all do now], you would wonder if you missed something and go back dozens of times to re-read the chapters. It is still the old Ukrainian-Canadian “you’re supposed to know” learning method.
           The real change is the naming conventions. It is the dot notation designed by the same dorks who came up with the Dewey Decimal system. “14” can be a value, a property or a variable – “you’re supposed to know”. It is full of camelhump words. The BASIC command “add” becomes something like “addTableRangeFormulaLocal” which they continually claim is easier and more elegant. Figure that one out.