Should I move to VB.Net? 3

[CPUCurt]

Help,

My boss is uneasy about moving to vb.net. I need some supporting evidence justify making the move.

We are currently developing in VB6.

Any supporting articles or testimonials would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Curt

 

[ThatRickGuy]

Well, a biggie would be that VB6 is no longer supported. If it doesn't work with Long Horn, or any other future versions of windows, MS won't help you.

Converting to .Net opens up a lot of posibilities, but comes with a big learning curve for VB6 developers. VB.Net is NOT VB 7. Let me repeat that: VB.Net is NOT VB 7. If you approch VB.Net in the same manor that you worked with VB6, you will run into many headaches.

Also, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You can't just click a button and upgrade your existing VB 6 apps to .Net. Most will require complete technical redesigns.

If you are looking at a new project comming up, or an overhaul of an aging system, I would recommend doing it in .Net though.

.Net is much more Design Pattern friendly. It's taken a while, but I now have a complete data teir, business logic teir, and presentation teir in place. The great part of that is that I can add functionality in blocks. All I have to do is come up with the business logic, a control for the interface, and the data objects and I have the new system in place.

That sounds like a lot, but the GUI code for the App is fully designed, I litterally make a panel with the controls needed for any process and add it to the system that's in place, everything else is taken care of. Same with the business logic, we have base functionality in abstract classes, so I can just stick in the specific code I need to a child class, and it's all set to work with the GUI and threading. And the data side is a real brease, with a code writer all I have to do is create a table in a database, add descriptions, then fire off the code writer and blammo, all stored procs, code and comments are created.

That allows us to take a new request and depending on the process complexity, have a module ready for it in a few days to a week or two. Since so much of the code is inherited/abstract and already in use and tested, our error rates have droped significantly.

We still have more to do on our framework, but it definitaly produces a more professional appearing interface with less bugs in a shorter period of time. Expecially when compared to VB6.

-Rick

VB.Net Forum forum796 forum855 ASP.NET Forum
I believe in killer coding ninja monkeys.

 

[earthandfire]

Well you've convinced me, Rick

 

[chrissie1]

Yep me too. But remeber getting your own framework in place and working could take a while (from a couple of years to never).
one thing to remember LEARN OOP.

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

If you want to get an answer read this FAQ faq796-2540
There's no such thing as a winnable war - Sting

 

[sqlsamurai]

If you decide to make the switch i recommend you invest in some sort of multimedia training instead of a book. Because there is such a big learning curve i found it next to impossible to comprehend the new concepts from a book and there is so much to cover it was overwhelming.

I invested in VB .NET training from AppDev. It cost around $1000 BUT i came up to speed very quickly. I DEFINATELY recommend it. A book or books might be cheaper but when you consider your time and wages spent reading, its worth it.

 

[ThatRickGuy]

Yep me too. But remeber getting your own framework in place and working could take a while (from a couple of years to never).

Agreed, here we have 3 (mid/senior) programmers who have been involved in the design of the framework. It's we're going on 8 months now and have it pretty solid, but we still have a lot left to go (Security and dynamic module loading). Taking something like this on as a first project in .Net would be incredibly difficult.

And like Chrissie says, Learn OOP. It is nothing like VB6 which was an event driven sequentially structured languange.

And as SQLSamari said, invest in training. The syntax is very similar, but everything else is vastly different. I had a heck of a time switching from VB6 to .Net, but I took a break to learn Java. After learning about OOP in Java (with out the squew of VB6 expectations), I jumped back to .Net and haven't had a problem since.

-Rick

VB.Net Forum forum796 forum855 ASP.NET Forum
I believe in killer coding ninja monkeys.

 

[chiph]

Antoher vote for "Learn OOP". And additionally, spend more time on learning the framework than the language. VB.NET is just another iteration of VB, so there's really not that much there to learn. However there are thousands of classes in the framework, many of which will save you days of development time, so it pays to know it.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[chrissie1]

And the best classes are very well hidden and kept in a secret vault somewhere in the MS headquathers.

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

If you want to get an answer read this FAQ faq796-2540
There's no such thing as a winnable war - Sting

 

[RiverGuy]

The best supporting evidence is to pick an example which you would use that would be more time consuming in VB 6 than in VB.Net that would actually translate to dollars. Perhaps there is even something that cannot realistically be accomplished in VB 6 that may be accomplished in VB.Net. But don't switch just for the sake of switching. Don't go into it wanting to rewrite tried and true apps. Only switch if you have new development which would be easier and more profitable in VB.Net.