The Move.....Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic .NET ?

[Mr Gates]

I'm really scared and etchy about getting VB. NET, as I've just started out in VB 6 and I've gotten pretty used to it. But I wanted to know from experts that used VB 6 before....is it a big change? Will it be hard to get used to after just starting out in VB 6? What code changes are there? Any comments are appreciated, I really don't want to end up paying so much money, then find out that it's really hard and more complicated than VB 6. Please help.

[Tekmaven]

I'm not going to lie to you - it is a big difference. It's a big change, and it will be hard to get used to it - at first.

Over time, you will see how much better VB.NET. I refuse to work in VB6 now - it's crap compared to VB.NET.

Things to love about Visual Studio .NET's Development Environment:
-The same intellisene that we love :-)
-Auto code formatting -> something I love... I hate taking care of tabbing and stuff
-Statement Completion -> If you type "If 4 > 3 then", when you hit enter, it will automatticly put in the "End If"
-Manage SQL Servers

Why to go to .NET:
-Power, Power, Power!
-In the long run, easier development (once you are good at .NET)
-Build once, run optimized on any version of Windows
-Huge community for support
-XML Web Services (this is a whole other post in itself... but its really really cool stuff)

One change that comes up to my head right away is the .caption (or .label, I can't even remember) property from many objects are gone. It's now all standardized on .text (like TextBox1.text = "Mike", Label1.text="John"). This change, although small, shows why .NET is better then VB6 - its all standardized. No guessing :-).

Do a search on +VB6 +VB.NET +migrating you'll get some good sources :-).

One last thing - you now can do ASP.NET straight from VB.NETs IDE. It's really easy, and has gotten me into lots of web application programming projects (including my website - yes, the whole thing is written in VB.NET).

[cscgal]

One change that comes up to my head right away is the .caption (or .label, I can't even remember) property from many objects are gone. It's now all standardized on .text (like TextBox1.text = "Mike", Label1.text="John"). This change, although small, shows why .NET is better then VB6 - its all standardized. No guessing :-).

In VB6 it was txtStuff.text and lblLabel.caption 8)

[Mr Gates]

Wait, so would this type of code work? It's just an event procedure that makes a label visible and not visible, along with changes the text in a textbox.

-------------
Private Sub cmdShow_Click()
lblInfo.Visible = True
txtMessage.Text = "You Clicked it"
End Sub
-------------

Or would everything have to be changed to ".Text" ? In my opinion that doesn't make sense.

[Tekmaven]

Well, yes, but no.

In VB6, a click sub would need to be named with the buttoname_Click(). In .NET, that type of thing is gone. You can name the sub anything you want - it just needs to have a "handles" statement. So it could be, Private Sub mikeiscool() handles cmdShow.Click() -although most of the time it will still use that naming convention (with the handles keyword following it).

The visible property is still there, and txtMessage.Text = whatever will work too.

One last thing, its not a "Command" button anymore - its just refered to as a Button (or btn).

[Mr Gates]

I don't really get it. Wouldn't that just be more typing and make it harder?

[Tekmaven]

Actually it makes a lot more sense. If you wanna check out Visual Studio 2003 (and Visual Basic .NET), Microsoft offers free online sessions into a computer running Visual Studio 2003.

Visual Studio .NET can help you with (nearly) every part of your job. But, don't take our word for it. Try Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Windows Server 2003 for free* online and find out how these products can help you solve the most difficult development challenges you face today. With the Visual Studio .NET 2003 Hosted Experience, for three hours, you will have unlimited access to Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect edition, as well as a library of other valuable tools, resources, and code samples.

It's simpleno complex setup or installation is required to try out Visual Studio .NET 2003 running on a full-featured Windows Server 2003 hosted online. And there is no obligation to buy.

Here is a link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/

I haven't found one change from VB6 to .NET to be bad. They take getting used to - but they are all there for a very good reason.

[Paladine]

IMHO Tekmaven is right. The changes do take some getting use to, and yes the IDE is a little fancier and slicker than VB6, but in the end you will find most of your tools right where you would expect them.

It has long been the bane of VB programmers as VB not being completely Object Oriented, and since the code in both VB and C++ are compiled to essentially the same result, .NET bridges the gap by saying hey...be your favorite language and code it to get the result. Should you want to change languages, it is easy enough now to migrate over since VB.NET, C++.NET and C#.NET are all truly Object Oriented.

Being a VBA/VB6 dabbler, I have found that I can now do things in VB.NET that I found hard or some what difficult, in VB6, to being relatively easy to grasp & do.

That make sense?

Hope that helps...

P.S. Happy 4th of July all you Americans. I just returned from the Western US and enjoyed the entire drive immensely!

[Tekmaven]

If you don't want to purchase Visual Studio.NET right now, you could always try SharpDevelop a free .NET IDE written in C# - you get the source too :-).

You don't need Visual Studio to compile .NET apps - you could even use Notepad to write it and the command line to compile. Microsoft provides the compilers free - just download the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK (the 110mb Framework download).

[Mr Gates]

Thank you all for the adequate answers, I'm sure I'll look into getting it sometime soon. Maybe not Visual Studio, just VB .NET.

One more thing, if I previously installed Visual Studio 6, can I still keep that installed AND Visual Studio .NET? Or will they interfere... :cry:

[Paladine]

You most certainly can. I run VS6 and VS.NET. The nice thing is I can also run MSDN Library CD/DVD for both VS6 and VS.NET.

Good Luck!

[Tekmaven]

Check out www.asp.net and www.windowsforms.com - they are Microsoft websites with lots of information about .NET. They have links to all types of guides.

[jlawton]

I really find it interesting nobody seems to ever talk about or care at all about the way APIs (especially kernel level, like you'd need access to in order to talk to hardware) not only aren't supported but their use is "deprecated" under VS.NET because you MIGHT be attempting to "reference UNMANAGED code" since of course all the Microsoft DLLs allocated heap memory (BAD under the new rules) as well as stack (OK because that's automatically handled by the VS.NET "garbage collector"). I spent THREE WEEKS on hold with (Chinese) "tech support" being BERATED for pursuing program objectives which are "out of line with MS corporate development objectives" - like I gaive a DAMN what kind of program THEY want ME to develop?? As an oldtime hardware DESIGNER I tend to think you folks behave more like sheep than programmers, immediately "fawning" over MS every time they let you type three fewer characters per line and considering it a "technological breakthrough". Are you guys really that ignorant? (No wait I can't SAY that, now I'll just get tons of hate mail and NOBODY who even knows what the heck I'm talking about!) Oh well...

[freesoft_2000]

Hey Everyone,

I agree a 100% with jlawton is that microsoft is trying to make you guys very dependant on their vb.net which is (people may diagree here) not very good compared to alot of the other fantastic compilers out there for example like tkinter and others which make vb.net look like the joke of the century (or millenium)
thus what i am trying to say is there's more life out there than microsoft. And do not
forget about that huge chunk of .net runtime you have to download. From my experience forget vb.net if you want to make commercially viable software and no you cannot make commercial software with vb.net as if could be done then you could directly compete with microsoft (god forbid that should ever happen wink wink). Vb.net can only be used for learning and nothing else. No serious programmer will ever use vb.net for his projects as it is an insult to the programmer.

Basically what i am trying to say is that if you want to do serious programming use microsoft products only to teach you the basic and not as a tool to feed you as i can gurantee that you will go hungry.

Ps: No i have nothing against microsoft but just to my own professinal opinion microsoft products are not that good.

Live long and In Prosper

Yours Sincerely

Richard West

[cypher]

Vb.net can only be used for learning and nothing else. No serious programmer will ever use vb.net for his projects as it is an insult to the programmer.

Without trying to start a feud here, I have to respectfully disagree. In fact, VB.NET is superb for creating business applications, utilities, and (to a significantly lesser degree) small games. And it's perfectly acceptible. I DO agree that other languages allow you more flexibility for performing actions on a lower level (and hence with more control), but when it comes to developing applications on a Microsoft operating system, it is safer (stability-wise) to use Manufacturer-specific techniques. I am a linux user, and I also develop in C++, but the fact of the matter is that right now, the larger majority of software purchasing people (linux people tend to look harder for Free software) use Windows. And Windows development holds the highest chances of making money as a developer. Visual Basic (.NET or 6.0) is not as degrading to a developer if it gets the job done sufficiently. It's not WHICH tools you use that insult you... it's how you use them, or maybe more specific to this topic, your reasoning for NOT using them.

[Tekmaven]

If you people understood the way .NET worked, you would know that a VB.NET program would run just as efficient as a C++.NET or C# program. So, that VB stereotype is false (well, true for VB6 and below). In fact, your VB.NET program can use C# and C++ in it, all because of the beauty of .NET.

And people, stop bitching about the 20mb download for the framework runtime. Once you understand the framework, and see the entire .NET vision, you'll be saying otherwise.

[lkexpert]

Its lots of changes in .net coding
like in arrys,datatype declaration etc.

If your application object oriented base you shoule move to .net

[Bharati Krishna]

Among the many great features, Data Handling is impressive and seems to fit the requirements of web developers perfectly.

Regards
Bharati Krishna
http://www.vkinfotek.com

[dmohanty]

i Agreed with the sentenced .net got POWER POWER POWER
But its not such user friendly like vb6.0