Dynamic arrays and converting VB 6 to .NET

[stickan]

I'm thinking about converting a VB 6 project to .NET but wonders over some things...

I read in a book that VB .NET don't support dynamic arrays (Not in the way that VB 6 do anyway). Is that true?

And some questions that maybee are impossible to answer...

Is there mutch syntax in VB 6 that isn't the same in VB .NET?

If I have some 3:e parts controls in VB 6, will they work in .NET?
(If No what is your experince of trying to use the old code against the newer control in the .NET environmet. Is the properties, methods and events often very different compared to the older one?)

Do the standard controls that I have coded against work in .NET?

Can I open a VB 6 project in the .NET developer environment and it then tries to translate the code, if yes how good does this work?

I use the ADO objects and that works the same in .NET, or?

And what is the main reasons to convert besides it's "more" objectorientated and a newer developer environment?

Does the program run much slower in the .NET Framework?

I know that these are questions that theorists can write thick books about, but I guess some people here have the experince of converting this way and I would appreciate some smaller comments on how mutch work it was... (Yes, I understand that it also depends on someones skills and how big program it is... )

Maybe you have some good links that discuss these questions?

[Grimfort]

Originally posted by stickan
I read in a book that VB .NET don't support dynamic arrays (Not in the way that VB 6 do anyway). Is that true?

No. VB.Net does not support Control arrays (but there are ways around it). It does support normal dynamic arrays however.

Originally posted by stickan

Is there mutch syntax in VB 6 that isn't the same in VB .NET?

If I have some 3:e parts controls in VB 6, will they work in .NET?
(If No what is your experince of trying to use the old code against the newer control in the .NET environmet. Is the properties, methods and events often very different compared to the older one?)

Do the standard controls that I have coded against work in .NET?

Syntax is not that different. The way you use objects is however and is the thing that catchs most VB6 developers out who have never touched an OOP before.

You can use a thing called Interop to use old VB6 controls, which have worked well in my experience. Events are replaced with handlers, which are basically exactly the same idea but a slightly different syntax.

Originally posted by stickan

Can I open a VB 6 project in the .NET developer environment and it then tries to translate the code, if yes how good does this work?

There is a conversion program yes, its about as useful as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition. I used the one with studio 2002 and basically ended up rewriting the whole thing from scratch. There is a newer one tho, that I cant comment upon.

Originally posted by stickan

I use the ADO objects and that works the same in .NET, or?

And what is the main reasons to convert besides it's "more" objectorientated and a newer developer environment?

Does the program run much slower in the .NET Framework?

ADO is similar, I never noticed the change.
There are LOADS of fantastic tools and classes to help you code faster, quicker and much more structured.

As for speed, my software runs 10 time quicker in .Net then it did in VB6. If you recode it correctly using the new features such as inheritance, stringbuilders, collection base then your sorted. Strings have the best impact, if you use them a lot then start gasping at the speed you can get outta .net


As a final note, if you have a very large product that is mostly user view based, then you will find migrating really hard (well, difficult). I moved over a server which was mostly code and the benefits were amazing. If your products functions are changing then it may be an idea to upgrade, but if VB6 does everything you need it to theres not a huge gain in moving over unless you have time. To get you into it, you may want to start a small project from scratch, and just attempt to recreate the funcitonality from your VB6 apps. You may be suprised how quick it comes together, that all depends on your learning speed.
You may find re-structuring your VB6 apps gives benfits itself but obviously thats all dependant on a million and 1 things.

good luck