Remaining Lifetime of VB6

[Marky123]

With the arrival of VB.NET VB6 and the COM architecture is now essentially obselete. Microsoft claim that VB.NET will work with COMponents (written in VB6 or whatever) but surely it's just a matter of time before COM is completely killed off.

Is it worth writing any new code with VB6 and COM or is it worth ditching it now and moving to .NET? ... I'm interested in people's views on this forum.

I've spent the last 2 years writing a fairly big app in VB6 which I don't much fancy porting to VB.NET.

It also used late binding (with CreateObject) quite a lot ... does anyone know if there is any equivalent technique in VB.NET?

Cheers,
Mark.

[TPR25]

The actual life cycle (how long microsoft will support via bug fixes, etc) is ending fairly soon (a year or two I think). However, I wouldn't be too worried about COM dissapearing in the near future. Too many legacy applications are developed utilizing the COM architecture and would require substancial revision to port to the .NET framework. Moreover, since very few individuals have this framework (I believe Office 2003 will be the first major application built with NET), very few developers will even spend the time developing on this platform for wide release. In my own case, I use .NET soley for local and vertical market solutions. Anything that goes to the public at large relys on more traditional programming standards.

[Shaggy Hiker]

There's alot of legacy code out there, but I think it depends on your timescale. The year 2000 seemed a long ways off in 1990, but now it is well in the past. Think back to what was state-of-the-art in 1990, and you can see that what is now current will be beyond legacy in a few years. For new projects, .NET is probably the only way to go, but for existing projects, it may still be worthwhile to stick with existing code.

I'm going to be moving all my on-going projects into .NET over the course of the next year, but only as an upgrade kind of thing.

[Muddy]

Here is what MSFT has to say about it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/support/vb6.aspx

mainstream support ends in 2 years and extended support ends in 5 years.

I think you can only use COM objects with dot net by using a "wrapper" (some kind of interface I would guess). So, I guess that with these "wrappers" you will always be able to use COM objects.

[TPR25]

For new projects, .NET is probably the only way to go, but for existing projects, it may still be worthwhile to stick with existing code.

I guess too, it has to to with what your projects look like. While I like the relatively easy of GUI creation found with VB and Visual C++, I always use other tools like C, PowerBasic or MASM to produce my time sensitive code. For this type of design structure, .NET is simply an added layer that I'm not willing to deal with right now (since for me, there is no benefit).

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yeah, if it is time-sensitive, like real time graphics, I wouldn't want to use .NET, or any managed code languages. C++ plain and simple (simple, not that language!).

[Marky123]

I'd guess there's about another 2 years development required for the project I'm working on (which I'm doing in my spare time) ... so I think I may begin conversion to .NET.

I'm using the VB OpenGL API 1.2 ... do I have to wait for a .NET version of this??

[McGenius]

Apparently, MS will support VB6 until at least 2008.
here is a link to some additional information: http://www.fawcette.com/reports/tech-ed/041102/support/

[crpietschmann]

Originally posted by Marky123
I'm using the VB OpenGL API 1.2 ... do I have to wait for a .NET version of this??

You can use COM / ActiveX components in .NET. I've heard from others that some features of some components aren't available to .NET. It's a compatibility thing, but I've haven't personally seen any of those problems.

I would say try it, and if it works, then port your code to .NET.