Coding has been a part of my life since I started poring over my first computer programming book at age 10. From that point on, there hasn’t been a time when I haven’t been working on some piece of code or another, whether I was getting paid for it or not!
I’ve worked a lot on tools that help programmers build things, usually at the intersection between programming languages and data processing. I started out helping to build Microsoft Access, which lets regular folks to build data applications without needing expensive servers or big IT departments. Then I shepherded the Visual Basic programming language and its compiler through a major rewrite and redesign for the .NET platform. Since then, I’ve worked on a variety of programming tools and languages, from JavaScript engines at Microsoft to Meta’s PHP-derived backend language Hack.
Along the way, I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing and improving the performance of applications. How programmers think their code runs and how it runs in reality are often two very different things, and figuring out how things work in practice and improving them has always been a fun puzzle to tease out.
The main theme of all my work has been helping others achieve things they didn’t think they could do, maybe things they didn’t even imagine they could do! Being involved in the community, understanding what people need and what they are doing and why, and then seeing people use what I’ve built to achieve that – nothing compares!
Hi Paul,
I’m interested in looking at your VBParser, but I can’t find it. Looks like it has been removed from the sites it was posted on. Wondering if you can direct me to it?
Thanks!
Dennis,
Sorry for letting this languish so long in my comments! I uploaded the v8.0 parser and the v7.1 parser. Hope they help, those are the latest ones I wrote!
Paul
Paul,
I recently learned you were involved with a lot of the MS VB Language Specifications (from VB6 through 10) – I was wondering if you had a copy of the VB6 Language Specification you can share with me. The language specifications used to be available for download from Microsoft’s website, but after extensive searching I’ve been unable to track down the VB6 Language Spec.
Let me know if you can help me – Thanks in advance,
Brett
Unfortunately, I was only involved in VB7 on. There isn’t a VB6 language spec that’s available anywhere that I know of. Sorry…
Don’t forget that the VB6 programming language and the VBA programming language are not just similar languages, they are the same language.
They have the same specification:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd361851.aspx