Alex Rock
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Remember kids, if you’re not writing your web apps in VBScript and ActiveX then you’re going to be left behind!
Arik
gaytabase@david_chisnall i know you're joking, but i'm old enough to have done both of these.
I did as well, and I was told that IE was so much better for web experience that any web app that didn't use these features would seem primitive in comparison. It turned out that ActiveX was a security nightmare and most companies started blocking it entirely except for intranet sites with allow-listed GUIDs, and VBScript ended up being harder to use than JavaScript and less maintainable. Both locked you into an ecosystem entirely controlled by a company that did not have incentives aligned with yours.
Sounds similar to some other technologies I could mention.
@david_chisnall ah but the best bit was after i'd already ditched both, i went and worked at nokia and they bought coverity and it was still activex!
@dysfun I didn't use Coverity until about 2010, and it wasn't by then (though it was a web app that tried really hard to pretend to be a Windows app, irrespective of what your underlying platform was).
@david_chisnall hmm let's see. that would have been around the same time i went to nokia. maybe it wasn't coverity but something similar. anyway, big fucking activex control for the entire "site"
Leeloo@david_chisnall @dysfun
But Javascript didn't allow you to do things like
Dim ConnectionString as ...
(For the uninitiated, the connectionstring was used to connect directly to the database server from the browser, with no back end web server or web service in between. And yes, when used over the internet, it would contain plain text username/password. For intranet use, it could use Windows authentication instead).
Space Hobo@david_chisnall @dysfun I actually had some ActiveX on my Web site in the 90s.
It saved the user's bookmarks file to the locations of the Win95 and NT OS kernel files.
What do you mean you can't reboot? Microsoft listed this function as "SECURE"!
Oriel Jutty 
@spacehobo @david_chisnall @dysfun What was the website? I vaguely remember a page where someone described doing just that. IIRC he had included some angry e-mail from visitors who had their Windows PCs rendered unbootable (one blamed malicious "Java code", I think). This would have been around 2000 or 2001, maybe?
@barubary @david_chisnall @dysfun Yeah, that was likely mine, and I am so embarrassed at missing what a horrid dogwhistle the name was that I just scrubbed it. We grow up.
@spacehobo Hah, that would explain it. I tried looking for the site years later (unsuccessfully), but I don't remember the name or how I found it originally, only that the owner may have been a "Rick", so it remained a vague memory until today. 😎
@barubary Heh, we created absurdist mythology around @unixmercenary back in the day, but I'm a Nick.
Skyglobe@david_chisnall ah the late 90s/early 2000s when excessive optimism lead to countless RCE vulnerabilities in Windows that plagued the following two decades.
The worst instance of this was South Korea. Due to export restrictions on crypto, they were locked out of using TLS for online banking early on, so mandated that every bank used a specific ActiveX control that would handle the encryption.
mike morris@david_chisnall I thought we'd all been replaced by Expert Systems by that point in history... ;)
Sharkfie 
@david_chisnall I apologize if I make anyone feel old but I had no idea VBS was used for web.
ducks
Jernej Simončič �@sharkfie @david_chisnall Internet Explorer supported VBScript as an alternative to JScript.
@jernej__s @david_chisnall I have heard the tales of OLE components roaming the pages of deprecated APIs on MSDN but never saw it used
@sharkfie I've recently read that some Server components still rely on in-browser VBScript, even on Server 2025 (I think it was the CA, but I'm not sure).
@jernej__s I know some programs rely on it, only because of issues I had disabling Windows Script Host. I had completely forgotten about slmgr.vbs too 
@sharkfie This is worse – it's VBScript inside web pages, so you need to use IE compat mode.
@jernej__s that's just a campfire story, I'm not that naive
Tristan Colgate-McFarlane@david_chisnall reminds me of my dark history, writing ASP (the OG, not whatever ASP.net is), JS for the browser side, VBScript on the server side. The horrors we brought into this world would make Lovecraft cower behind the sofa. (it was a slight upgrade from writing CGI handler in C).
Simon Hewison@tmcfarlane @david_chisnall ah yes, when there was no easy database parameter handling and there was an SQL injection before you could say "Bobby Tables". I never did VBScript on client side though, because that, and ActiveX was just too proprietary even back Windows was everywhere.
Dr. Bruce Simpson
Henrik Pauli@tmcfarlane @david_chisnall What a coincidence that I just mentioned to a coworker that I used to know someone who wrote some CGI (and basically his web site, I don't remember what it was) in C
Ah the horrors of the olden days :D
Chris Gervais 🎸🥁💻@tmcfarlane @david_chisnall Oh, I did this for a bit as well. Except I had a custom IIS plugin written in C++ that went along with it for ✨extra special ✨ ridiculousness. Even worse, I had written custom XSLT that generated portions of the ASP pages from database values that were then interpreted. It was so ridiculous that I barely speak of it
@chrisgervais @david_chisnall hey man, it was the '90s, why not throw a little XML on it!
@tmcfarlane @david_chisnall XML everywhere! We were definitely bracketmaxxing 😆
Claudius@david_chisnall MS Silverlight is going to kill Flash!
withinity@claudius What even happened to SilverLight? So glad I haven't seen it for many many years
@withinity I'm not entirely sure, I think it got discontinued in the 2010s as well.
Laura@david_chisnall I firmly believe that losing built-in BASIC (not necessarily VBScript) on most home computers did lasting generational harm, robbing children the potential to program a little on the computer. Although I was older, my programming career on Windows 98 started with Office macros, I had no access to any compiler that could make an .exe.
We've only recently started recovering from this, just in time for the next wave of platform lockdowns (for the children™, of course) 🤦♀️
lemgandiOr you could just guide your kids through their first Linux install.
@lemgandi @david_chisnall I'll be sure to let any parent know who doesn't even know what Linux is. What a simple, elegant solution!
Please do. And any child as well.
James Carr@david_chisnall Psh, when Perl CGI comes back, I'll be ready.
Olivier@jcarr LAMP OR DIE! 
Nuclear Oatmeal 
Oh, it's still around. I worked at a place about 6 years ago where the Web site and all the cron jobs and email scripts were Perl. A buddy of mine was part of the 3rd round of trying to convert everything to Python. That apparently didn't work as of a year ago, so everything is still in Perl.
Jason Stuart@david_chisnall But I just upgraded to flash! 😭
Martin Weber@david_chisnall what about Silverlight?
Oliver VanderbNormally I write my pages in flash...
SeanBurlington 🌈 🕊️@david_chisnall remembering when I wrote Active Server Pages (ASP) in Jscript because I wouldn't use VBscript and microsoft tried to fork JavaScript ...
JennyFluff 
💾@david_chisnall Remember to make sure your website has a Java Web Applet
Fluff@david_chisnall I thought I was supposed to be using Silverlight!
@fluff That was later. When the people left behind by failing to adopt VBScript and ActiveX (or Flash) tried to catch up.
Gaëtan Perrault@david_chisnall wait, I thought the future was Silverlight?
thepwnicorn@david_chisnall Microsoft Access anyone?
@thepwnicorn Oh, Access was an amazing RAD tool for CRUD applications! It's such a shame that they bundled the worlds worst database with it.
I did some consulting for a company that used Access as the front end for a bunch of SQL Server databases. Their back end was written by people who knew what normal forms were. Their front ends were all written by people who knew what data they needed for their job.
@david_chisnall you're not wrong. Unfortunately the one I had to work on was developed by people who were experienced at neither.
panu@david_chisnall
Nooooo ActionScript FTW!!
Nooooo ActionScript FTW!!
René SeindalFlash is the way forward. Entire websites in Flash.
It's inevitable! Go with it or be left behind.
Rafael Pérez 🌱@david_chisnall ActiveX, oh boy.
ghosttie@david_chisnall Silverlight
Nate Cox@david_chisnall You're all fools, the future is Java Applets. Whole sites in Swing and Metal. HTML is dead. If you don't adopt you won't have a job in 5 years.