This month, Microsoft announced that VBScript is being deprecated. In future releases of Windows, VBScript will be available as a feature on demand before its removal from the operating system.
So it will still hang on for a bit on life support it seems, but clearly the end is near.
Last updated there years ago, the site isvbscriptdead attempts to answer the question, as you might guess - is VBScript dead?
I'd be curious to hear whether it will continue to run in the form of Classic ASP - I'd be somewhat surprised if there wasn't still plenty of usage out there.
Back in the day, around the year 2000 or so, I remember working with ASP to develop websites like prvademecum - which is still functional to this day!
We provided forums and some other custom modules backed by SQL Server, and access to some free-text searchable and cross-referenced articles on medications and active ingredients. The latter were backed by some pre-indexed custom-format data files, very much ISAM-inspired, and made available to ASP VBScript through a Delphi ActiveX library.
I remember spending many days improving the data processing pipeline and file format, and eventually being able to generate new client applications (distributed via CD-ROMs!) in about five to ten minutes, including the generation of an installer.
Thinking back on this now, those were days full of learning and trying things out and mostly having fun at work. The combination of a powerful language for data access and processing along with scripting to quickly iterate on user interfaces made for a very productive environment.
Happy scripting!
Tags: history