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VBspeed © 2000-10
VBspeed


SpeedCore

You are hardcore, fine. But, are you fast enough?

This site is not about "How to ...", but about "How to do it as fast as possible!" And, yes, it's about VB, V=i=s=u=a=l=B=a=s=i=c. Anybody said VB is lame? Well, go home and write a file manager in assembly code and let's meet again in 10 years. Anyway, listen: if you do it right, IF YOU ARE SPEEDCORE, VB can be a rocket!


The Challenge

The idea is simple: it's a competition in writing speedy code in Visual Basic. No money to win, but the honor to be among the fastest, and a lot of good code to look at, copy, and paste.

Check out the rules of the game and get busy!


The Disciplines

The individual disciplines/competitions are organized into a bunch of chapters:
  • VB6 to VB5: VB6 introduced 7 new (mostly string) functions. This chapter is about emulating these functions in VB5. As it turns out, the new VB6-functions are not only superfluous but also very slow.
  • String: string manipulating code is likely to be the bottleneck of a typical VB-application. This chapter features some everyday string functions which demonstrate everything you always wanted to know about making strings in VB fast.
  • Array: array manipulating code, highly useful but mostly missing from VB. Nice to have it fast.
  • Colors: pixel manipulating code, should run at the speed of light because it is likely to be called millions of times.
  • Language: even the most elemental parts of the VB language, like For-Next loops and operators, can be made faster. This chapter shows you how.
  • Bits: this chapter deals with data type conversion and related low-level stuff. While these functions are usually totally trivial and extremely fast, it's still a good idea to search for the fastest since they are typically employed a very large number of times, so every nanosecond counts.
More disciplines will be added continually. If you got an idea, tell me all about it.


About this site

The VBspeed site was born on 10-Sep-2000. I'm proud to say that, thanks to the commitment of two dozens speedniks, some terrific up-quality code has found a home on these pages.
If you're new here there's probably a lot for you to look at and study, before you can even think of writing something faster. The others: keep on sending me your supersonic VB-voodoo! I will update the charts about once a month.

BTW, this is a one-person project, absolutely non-commercial, and committed to nothing but code.


Donald Lessau, Cologne 01-Feb-2006