Active X Development: VC++ or VB or Other technologies

Question

We are in the process of creating active-x controls used within our application.

Since Microsoft stopped supporting classic Visual Basic, is it wise to use Visual Basic to develop the Active X control or the latest VC++/ATL/MFC libraries provide more feature where we can create controls faster by leaving Visual Basic flexibility?

We will not be able to use .NET/VB.NET/C# since the application is supposed to work inside containers and containers may not support latest .NET runtime.

Any other language is best fit for Active X control development other than VB and VC++?

Answer 1

I, personally, would recommend using Delphi for this. It is still actively developed, and has the control you get with C++, but a rapid development environment more like VB.NET.

Answer 2

Here is a good example on how to create ActiveX Controls with C# .NET http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/CreateActiveXDotNet.aspx

Answer 3

@nobugz: If you are really interested what is ActiveX in Delphi, look at docwiki. Normally it is 100% source code (yours + VCL, VCL is also available as sources) with autogenerated COM wrappers. So all potential security problems are also in source code. If you find a security problem in VCL, please send a bug report to Quality Central.

Answer 4

By all means VB6 is the best language. After reading your question I feel that you are a VB6 developer. If you know VB6 and use it then why hesitate using it for producing ActiveX controls.

I program in Delphi as well as VB6 along with VB.NET and C# but creating ActiveX controls is the easiest in VB6 compares to all other development tools.

If you are hell bent on not using VB and if you are looking for an alternative then try out PowerBasic (commercial - very costly) or PureBasic (commercial but affordable) Get it from here or better still MinGW (a GNU C++ compiler).

I have to say that VB6 with a good book like Developing COM/ActiveX Components with VB6: A Guide to the Perplexed you will be up and running faster.