Actually, there are many points he makes that are quite mis-guided.
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Run-time editing is turned OFF by default
By default, you can't do any editing within VB.NET at run-time... even if you break the execution of your application. You have to explicitly go into the options and set VB.NET to allow you to edit if you pause your program!
But get this, the default for C# is to allow you to edit when paused?! Why would you EVER turn that off for any language?
No run-time "on the fly editing" allowed with VB.NET
You can't pause the execution of your program at run-time, edit your code, and continue. VB.NET forces you to either ignore the changes you made and continue, or restart the program! This is a step backwards with VB if you ask me.
I've heard that Microsoft has said that they will come out with a version that allows you to do this at a later date... WE'LL SEE.
When you run your program in Vb6's IDE, the code is interpreted, not compiled. I've seen A LOT of problems caused by this (especially when using API's like Win32, DirectX, or the Speech SDK). In .NET, the program always gets compiled. Therefore, you cannot just edit it during run (or break) mode, but you won't run into the various problems caused by simply interpreting the code.
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Object browser drop-down not alphabetical
Items in the "Object Browser Drop-Down" in the VB.NET IDE are NOT alphabetical, but the events in the "Event Browser Drop-Down" are?!
All items in the object browser are in alphabetical order.
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No easy way to jump between events of an object within the code editing window
If you are currently in the code editor of an object within an event of that object, you can't click on the "Event Browser Drop-Down" and get a listing of all the events for that object so you can jump around from event to event of the same object like you can in VB 5 and 6. VB.NET makes you first go through the non-alphabetical list of objects in the "Object Browser Drop-Down", find the object you're editing, then go to the "Event Browser Drop-Down" and select the event you want.
Of course there's a drop-down list of events. There are 2 drop-down lists under the toolbar of your IDE. One contains:
'Form1'
'(Overrides)'
'(Base Class Events)'
'Button1'
'Button2'
etc...
If you click on one of the objects, or click on 'Base Class Events', then the right drop-down list box will contain your alphabetically sorted list of events!
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No dividing lines between sub-routines within the code editing window
There are no dividing lines between the functions, subs, and properties in the code editing window.
He acts as though this is so annoying.
Alright, so you dont get dividing lines. He's forgetting about the '#Region' statements that can really clean up and organize your code files.
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BUILD and OUTPUT windows won't go away
EVERY time you run your program, VB.NET pops up the BUILD and OUTPUT windows (even if you didn't tell VB.NET to show them). Then, as if that weren't bad enough, it keeps those windows open after you stop execution of your program! You'd think to get rid of them, all you'd have to do is close them. Well, VB.NET takes the liberty of re-opening them every compile! So every time you run and stop your program you have to close those two stupid windows manually! The only way around this is to make the "Task List" and "Output" windows "AUTO HIDE" by clicking on the little tack icon on the upper right corner of these two windows.
The IDE stores settings for run-time and design-time separately. During runtime, you can close the build and output windows, then they wont come back again during run-time, but you'll still have them in design time. Same if you close them in design time, you wont have them in design time but you can still have them in run time. This seems more like a convenience to me than an annoyance, since your going to be using different windows and tools in runtime than in design time and vice versa. It'll help keep your IDE organized.
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Variable type aligning is not not allowed VB.NET does not allow you to line up the "As String" / "As Integer" / "As Object" part of your variable dimensions like you could in VB 5 and 6. I think that it looks a lot better to write your dimensions like this:
Dim strName As String
Dim strPassword As String
Dim strID As String
compared to this:
Dim strName As String
Dim strPassword As String
Dim strID As String
Having your "As" statements line up makes the variable types easier to read at a glance. VB.NET should at very least allow you the option of doing that!
You can toggle that easily. Goto 'Tools', 'Options', click the 'Text Editor' folder, click the 'Basic' folder, 'Vb specific' folder, and uncheck 'pretty listing (reformatting) of code'. Now, VB wont auto-format the code for you, allowing you to do your own indenting. I prefer the auto-indenting, but I can see why some might not.
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VB.NET makes working with GDI objects hard and inconsistent. The "System.Drawing.Font" object has a "ToHfont" method that returns a handle to the font, and a "ToLogFont" method that returns a GDI or GDI+ "LOGFONT" structure. This is very handy when working with Win32 API calls.
However, the "System.Drawing.Brush" object doesn't have a "ToHbrush" or "ToLogBrush" method.
The "System.Drawing.Pen" object doesn't have a "ToHpen" or "ToLogPen" method.
The "System.Drawing.Imaging.ColorPalette" object does not have a "ToHpalette" or "ToLogPalette" method.
Umm, wasn't GDI+ designed so you wouldn't need to use the Win32 API graphics calls? I've always heard that you should avoid calling unmanaged code whenever possible (forgot why though, I read that a long time ago. I'll go find out today).
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VB.NET doesn't allow <CTRL> + <Pause/ Break> to pause program execution
With Visual Basic 5 or 6, if you put yourself into an endless LOOP (either intentionally or unintentionally), you can just press "<CTRL> + <Pause/Break>" to break out of the loop and edit your code.
In VB.NET, "<CTRL> + <Pause/Break>" doesn't work, so you have to manually go into VB.NET and click the "PAUSE" button (if your loop will allow you to do so).
A lot of times when I get into an endless loop, it's within a very CPU intensive operation and I am unable to interact with the VB IDE at all... <CTRL> + <Pause/Break> is the ONLY way out of the loop. So what this change in VB.NET means is that if you get into an endless loop, you're most likely going to have to <CTRL> + <ALT> + <DEL> and force down the VB.NET IDE to get out of the loop (and hope you saved before you ran your program).
Ummm...... If he gets into an endless loop in .NET, his IDE will crash? How odd!! I always had this problem in the Vb6 IDE (often times, in vb6, I'd have to use CTRL+ALT+DEL to close my application, but then the whole IDE would close down, not allowing me to save anything). In .NET, your program is separate from the IDE, so if it crashes, your IDE will still work, so your still able to click 'stop' to stop the program.
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CONCLUSION: VB.NET in it's current state is hard to work with, inefficient, not very user friendly, and all around frustrating. The only qualities that keep it from being a complete waste in my eyes are it's similarities to VB 5 and 6, it's potential to be cross-platform compatible (which is Java's biggest advantage), it's neat features and functionality (like translucent forms, and control anchoring), and it's rich set of built-in controls, objects, and interfaces (which means no dependencies aside from the .NET Framework... which is HUGE).
He seems to really hate VB.NET!!! Sure, there are some bugs in it (as there was in the VS6 before service pack 5), but its MUCH MUCH better than vb6 any day.
