VB6 was the worst and best kind of software. You were NEVER (even as a professional) sure if it ran on the other/target machine, so you just hoped for the best.
Also, I quite like the cat-and-mouse analogy you mention, because I feel it was (mostly) a harmless way to hone skills, to level up knowledge essentially, with a (at the time) reasonable amount of risk involved, which kept it exciting enough to learn more. It would be cool to see schools have a bug-bounty type of environment here or there, just for those few kids who actually want to spend their time on getting better at networking.
Luckily the school was rather new so all of the PCs across the entire school were identical, whether they were for a teacher's use, the programming class, or the graphic design and yearbook clubs so I was luckily able to avoid any of those shortcomings.
Cant say my school had anything of the sort (they'd prefer to punish and force you back in line with other students) and while I like the idea, I know that in HS it'd feel too akin to snitching on my classmates to participate in that.
Also, I quite like the cat-and-mouse analogy you mention, because I feel it was (mostly) a harmless way to hone skills, to level up knowledge essentially, with a (at the time) reasonable amount of risk involved, which kept it exciting enough to learn more. It would be cool to see schools have a bug-bounty type of environment here or there, just for those few kids who actually want to spend their time on getting better at networking.