What's in it for me?

[Seth DK]

Currrently I'm using VB 6.0 Pro and I use it very often. I have read some stuff about VB.NET and I have tryed out the Beta 2. It seems so much different from version 6.0 - in a good way.

But before I spend money on this baby, I would like to get some questions answered. I sincerely apologise if this may sound stupid to you, but I am a complete newbie to .NET!!

(1) What are the major advantages of switching to VB.NET?
(2) What are the major disadvantages? (if any)
(3) How much different is the coding standards and syntax?
(4) I heard that DDE is gone - is this true?
(5) I have not studied the IDE that much, but have it become easier to make cool GUI elements? Like docking windows, toolbar, icon menus etc.?
(6) What about my current projects? Can they be converted or will I experience tonnes of incompatibility issues?
(7) How many Windows platforms currently supports the .NET framework? When will they all?
(8) Do you think I should upgrade from VB6 to .NET?1?

I hope you can spare 5-10 minutes to help me out here! Thanks in advance...

[Cander]

1) Full object oreiented language with thing like inheritance. Ability to use any object created in any other .NET language in your .NET language of choice. In other words, found a great thrid party control written in C#? No problem.

2) Hmm well the framework is certainly bigger than tyhe runtimes you are used to so getting your users to download a 21 meg framework just to use your program can be a hassle for people on slower modems..at least until the framework becomes more common and ships with service packs, upgrades, new software, etc.


3) Pretty much the same although there are some thing you will have to leanr to do differently as some old stuff isnt supported anymore, like gosubs.

4) Never used DDE so dont really know what it is, but Im sure it is gone as it is probably related to COM and COM isgone, although still supported throuigh COM interop services.

5) Dont know about thta but multi hierarchy menus are easier and controls have an anchor property that removes some of the resizing code you may have used before.

6) You are likely to run into way to many things that could not be upgraded due to difference in VB6 and .NET, so dont even bother. If it works in VB6, no reason to upgrade.

7)98,NT,2000, ME, XP...and all future version. 95 will never be supported

8) You can have VB6 and .NET on the same computer so that question is moot. But yes you should definatly start learning VB .NET..