Worthwhile Upgrade for all?

I am a longtime VB programmer, who has spent the last several weeks evaulating VB.Net.

I can see the value of VB.Net for those creating Web/HTML projects for use with ASP servers, and I can see that Microsofy did some "cleaning up" of the language. However, my conclusion thus far is not to upgrade, since my primary canvas is Windows and not the Web.

It seemed to me that the .NET compilations were slower (sometimes MUCH slower), the overhead larger, and more code is required to accomlish the same task (minus the API calls of course).

That being said, I like some (not all) of the changes (sure do like the new IDE), but I am wondering if there is something else I am missing? With all the hype on how the .NET thing is so wonderful, I find myself not getting it (is it because I am not doing Web programming?).

I am interested to hear from some of you, letting me know what else I may find under the hood here that may sway me to upgrade. My applications would have to be written from scratch (about 12 - 18 months worth of coding for me), but I don't mind if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Please "show me the light".

Thanks

It all depends really..Some things take less code..some more..some operations maybe faster, some slower..As far as overhead..ive noticed my .NET apps take up ALOT less overhead..I can do endless looping without it hogging up my CPU.

There is also some newer faster ways of doing common tasks..it is all about finding the right class for it. For example ..normal string concantenation is a bit slower in .NET ..especially with huge loops to build a string...but .NET offers a StringBuilder class that is big time faster and cleaner.

also you have threading now..So if you have a big looping process , you can stick it into a background thread to reduce the overhead and be able to run other tasks in your app while the loop occurs.


I hope this gives you some thoughts on the positive side of .NET.

All in all...the best thing I can tell you is to comapre what you need with what you have..If .NET has something you really need/want then go for it..otherwise sticking with VB6 is fine as it still has alot of life left before .NET really takes over.

oh and you would not have to upgrade your apps. You can have VB6 and .NET at the same time..No point in upgrading an app of that size..just keep it as a VB6 project.

I agree with Cander, don't upgrade a massive app just to do it. If your app is working fine in VB6, then keep it there. Even MS says this. But maybe just do future programs on the .Net Framework. If your a hard core VBer (is that a word), it will take a little bit of time to get used to. If you know other languages like C++ or Java, you shouldn't have such a hard time, because you have already delt with object oriented programming.