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Boulder CO Boring cover artwork was yet again a worry for competitor's publications as the
staff of the VB Twiddler's News team pulled off yet another stunning magazine issue cover,
their ninth so far this year.
"Hell, VB programmers won't know what hit them with this one", said Jim Tap, who
created the award winning magazine. "We've gone to town. In fact we've probably gone
even further than town, probably to the outskirts on the other side of town. And those
VB programmer's won't be able to resist this!", he added. "Hey! Hang on a
moment! Resist- that gives me an idea!" he blurted, and began to sketch a picture of a
VB form at a jaunty angle standing in front of the Tiammenen Square tanks before our reporter was
removed from the room.
Cover Rush
Not to be deterred we tried to question editor-in-chief Jeff Pokedearth about VBTN's winning angle in the
battle against magazine jacket tedium. "I must admit, I thought we couldn't keep it up", said
the well-dressed executive, "but we're blessed with some of the greatest talent in the VB
industry."
"Just last week, for example, we had a member of VB's original developer team stop by
to give us some info. He just took one look at the article that was troubling us and immediately
he knew what we should do - instead of stressing the simple code, we should try to pick down to the
deeper level of the technology and publish the information about that.
"And what do you know, that was it, we suddenly saw through all the problems and we hit it:
the article was about Unlocking databases. Within two hours our artist had a cover
together (a rather amusing combination of a lock and some VB forms at a jaunty angle)
and we knew we were ready to publish. That's why we're the top
VB programmer's publication - we've got that kind of access."
No Shit, Sherlock
Its just this sort of inspiration that keeps VBTN in its number one position. This year alone coders
have been dazzled by the technical prowess of the, erm, covers, with such gems as:
- "Tune Up Your Apps": Picture of Garage mechanic sticking a spanner into a monitor showing a VB form (at jaunty angle).
- "Investigate VB's Secrets": Picture of Sherlock Holmes peering at a VB form (at jaunty angle)
- "Tame the DED": Picture of Man whipping some monitors showing DED forms covered in leopard skin (you really can't make this stuff up, can you?)
"Mind You," he pointed out, "The article I've always wanted to run was something low-level
about the Shell, you know, like the SHITEMID and PIDL structures and stuff. I thought I'd call it..."
Unfortunately our reporter's tape ran out at just that point. But we're all filled with excitement at
the prospect.
This Is Planet Earth
Of course, VBTM isn't universally loved. This year has seen the interesting hardcore coding sections
removed so they can be replaced with more articles about VB's great new ADO and WebClasses support, plus
accompanying editorial about how VB should be more hardcore and that ADO, WebClasses and so on are rubbish
and should not be included in future versions of VB.
To try and get a picture of the rest of the world we asked top VB coder Jane Whitley for beers and
possibly dinner. Unfortunately, she refused, but did provide a quote:
"The only thing I've ever seen that's worse [that VBTN] is that pathetic vbParkingBrake site
on the Internet. At least VB Twiddler knows that the readers just laugh at the covers and it doesn't
matter,
but that guy just goes off on one and tries to fancy up some article about Recursive Subclassing
with Type Libraries and Shit, by sticking crappy bitmaps on that probably took like five days to
create, you know? He's the one with the problem, I'd say."
Our reporter was forced to make his excuses at that point and go off to pretend that that had never happened.
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