You mean “Microsoft” language surely? You couldn’t access DLLs from Perl, PHP, Java, and a bunch other other languages that had been ported to Windows.

And my point wasn’t that VB was special. Just that you could still interface with C++ code albeit only via compiled libraries (you also could access COM objects too).

> my point was that since both were MS products and part of the same package they could have much better integration.

I got that was your point but they weren’t part of the same package. VB didn’t ship with a C++ compiler and nor did Visual Studio support compiling Visual Basic. They were sold as separate products and their IDEs were rather different too. Don’t be fooled into thinking that because they share a similar product name (I mean that makes sense from a marketing perspective) that they were the same package. Having used both, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the similarities were only skin deep.

There were languages that weren't able to call such DLLs, but there were also many that could that weren't made by Microsoft - e.g. Borland Delphi, Power BASIC, a bunch of Smalltalk implementations, etc.

> I got that was your point but they weren’t part of the same package. VB didn’t ship with a C++ compiler and nor did Visual Studio support compiling Visual Basic. They were sold as separate products and their IDEs were rather different too.

I know what they were, what i referred to was what they should have been considering that they were (potentially) part of the same package (Visual Studio as a product, not the IDE that hosted Visual C++, though honestly that shouldn't really matter) and made by the same company who had access to the source code, libraries, etc to make these two programs "know" about each other in a more integrated way than what external 3rd party development tools were able to do.

This was about a what could have been, not about what it was (nor about why it was like that either - chances are they were made by largely different teams that competed with each other and only had to deal with their programs "living" in the same CD :-P).

I know. I’m not saying “only Microsoft languages” could. I’m responding to your absolute stating that not “all” Windows languages could. I’m simply saying that absolute only works with regards to Microsoft languages. I’m not suggesting it’s limited to only Microsoft languages.

You really need to calm down a little here mate because your comments are an over reaction to the replies being made.

> I know what they were, what i referred to was what they should have been considering that they were (potentially) part of the same package

But they weren’t part of the same package. So your argument falls flat on the very first assumption.

> made by the same company who had access to the source code, libraries, etc to make these two programs "know" about each other in a more integrated way than what external 3rd party development tools were able to do.

This is another assumption. If you’d spent any time working for a company like Microsoft you’d quickly realise that different products might fall under different teams who have very little cross pollination. I’ve seen this problem time and time again in larger tech companies and it’s often just as frustrating for the employees as it is for the customers.

> This was about a what could have been, not about what it was

I got your point was about “what ifs” but the problem is your “what ifs” are based on assumptions that don’t hold true. So you’d need to stack up a number of other “what ifs” just to get to the stage that your original “what if” is even imaginable.