[RESOLVED] Taking the plunge Vb6 -> 2005 Seeking general advice

[5applerush]

Hi folks,
Here is my situation in short:
I am not an application engineer by trade (or any stretch of the imagination!) I work as a cad designer for the auto industry. I began VB6 programming 2 years ago for Catia (cad design system) which supports the VB6 language for automation. Recently I decided to switch my programming focus to a more affordable cad package (Rhino 3d V4) which supports VB2005. Learning both a new cad system and a (somewhat) new language has me scared to be blunt, but I see a much better future down this path. I thought I would throw this out there in the hopes that some of the more experienced people here might care to share some thoughts/opinions/advice on this.

My skills in VB6:

• I've gotten through most of the general language chapters of "Programming Visual Basic 6.0" by Francesco Balena (great book!!!)
• I've written a small (unfinished) app for Catia that utilizes custom object classes, a collection class with (pseudo) constructor methods, and an interface class.
• I've fiddled around enough with forms and controls to feel fairly comfortable
• I've used a few simple API calls here and there also.

My hope is that my lack of expertise in VB6 will make for an easier transition to 2005 while still affording some advantage through familiarity of the concepts at hand. I ordered three books from Amazon this morning:

- Visual Basic 2005 Programmer's Reference (Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback] By: Rod Stephens

- Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005: The Language (Pro Developer) [Paperback] By: Francesco Balena

- Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook: Solutions for VB 2005 Programmers (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) [Illustrated] [Paperback] By: Tim Patrick (Author), John Craig (Author)

Sorry for the long vague post, but this forum is where I've always found the best advice from knowledgable people, and I feel compelled to check my logic before going too far down any path. Any comments greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Danny

[RobDog888]

Actually having VB 6 experience (like I do) makes it a bit hard to transition from a non-oop language to a full oop one like .net.

I would recommend not converting any vb 6 projects as the converter is more trouble then its worth and usually never works completely. Always rewrite your vb 6 apps in 2005 pure .net code. Go over the learning videos and sample demo projects at the ms site.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/learning/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/ex...b/easytolearn/

[Shaggy Hiker]

All I've got to say is: You're doing the right thing, and doing it in the best possible way.

I wrote in VB6 for years, and loved it. I, too, initially avoided .NET because it was significantly different. However, once I moved over, I found I liked it even more, and would never go back willingly.

The things you need to move are:

1) Motivation-You have that because of the work you are doing.
2) Sources of Information- A few good books are good, and this site will take care of the rest.
3) Some project to work on - There's no better way to learn, and you have that now.

[5applerush]

Thanks guys,
Do you think I'm in for a larger amount of work to accomplish the same tasks I did in VB6? My programming needs will center around application add-ons (non-web related apps) and frequent interaction with routines written in fortran (by my associate). I don't think I'll be dealing with any web related apps. I'm a bit worried by occasional comments I've read about the .net language requiring more code to accomplish the same task as VB6 as far as stand-alone apps go.

Having used both languages, do you feel this is the case, or just observations of those in the struggle to transition?

Thanks,
Danny

[stimbo]

I learnt a bit of VB6 (3 years with absolutely no other programming experience and completely self taught). Moved to .NET and struggled for a while but now I wouldn't go back.

I'm not experienced enough really to answer but I can't see how that many tasks could be done quicker or more robustly in VB6. The error handling alone in .NET is worth the change. People freak when they see something like this to load a form in .NET:

Dim frm As New Form2
frm.Show

They see it as bloat that they have to include another line but I've slowly begun to have a far better understanding of programming in general since i moved. I'll stop rambling. Just saying you may have a tricky settling in period but nothing that a bit of digging around doesn't solve. And there's always the forum.

[5applerush]

Thanks Stimbo. I came back to mark my thread as resolved, but have to say that I am experiencing exactly the same thing as you when you say that vb2005 is giving you a far better understanding of programming. As I learn 2005, I see many of the new concepts are actually concepts that have always been there in vb6, they were just masked, glazed over, or out of reach in that language (maybe for simplicity's sake). So whereas 2005 forces one to dive deeper into the language than previous versions, it more than makes up for the time with added functionality, power, and convenience in almost all areas.

I'll be back to post more comments (and questions!) periodically.

Danny

[Shaggy Hiker]

2005 also has default instances, which makes it more like VB6. If you want to understand code better, don't use them. A default instance is pretty much any form or object that you can create an instance of without using New().

Otherwise, I would say that you don't need more code in .NET than in VB6, you just have more options.

[Lord Orwell]

There are plenty of examples making your code much easier. Just having new form properties like transparency and setting a standard on text instead of caption. Reading byte arrays. Another that impacted me recently is .net has a built-in function for generating color gradients! my custom routine for this was about 60 lines long.

[Lord Orwell]

Truth be told, though: I see vb.net as microsoft's way of phasing vb out altogether. It is almost exactly like c#.
Next release (aftor orcas), you might have to learn c#. Already some of their add-ons require you use c# or c++.

[Shaggy Hiker]

C# and VB.NET are currently diverging. I'm of the opinion that in the future, VB will be more targeted to one type of application, while C# will be targeted at another. What the types will be I couldn't say, though.

[5applerush]

Interesting. all the documentation I've seen makes C# look so much like VB, I entertained the idea of switching to that instead (but had already bought VB books). Even my VB book from Microsoft Press says they're practically the same difficulty.

[Lord Orwell]

they use the exact same functions. .net is .net no matter what it is in, with a couple of odd exceptions (example: usage of the image list control)

[RobDog888]

The reason they are similar is because of the .NET Framework. Its a common framework to all .NET languages. So once you know the framework the rest is simply syntax formatting and a few other differences all of which are minor.

[Shaggy Hiker]

However, the VB.NET team is different from the C# team within MS, and they advance each language in different ways. Some things like generics have been handled differently, as have Delegates, and a few other things. The differences are forgettable at the moment, but that's not to say that they may not diverge further over time. C# appears to be headed more towards embracing the generic nature of the C++ STL, which can be both a blessing and a curse. VB.NET appears to be taking a more user friendly, but less free-wheeling approach.