Magazines...

[Pasvorto]

I get, what has evolved into, Visual Studio Magazine. It appears to have left the VB6 world behind. Do you know of any magazines like it that focus on VB6?

[gavio]

VB6 is dead (if you concider Microsoft)... and if you concider Microsoft, you can also concider other companies.

[Pasvorto]

I have VB6 and all my company's apps are in VB6. It is alive and kicking here.

[gavio]

Yes... it's alive for us But Microsoft "ditched" it. Now, .NET is their main... it seems that their ONLY focus. I have read that they will provide full support for VB applications in Vista, but they don't know about the future. Support for Visual Basic 6.0 should last 5 years with 5 extended years (as i read) - that means that their support stops at 2008. You can contribuite something by checking the link in my signature

[Pasvorto]

I went to the M$ site and did a search on VB6. Looks like the only thing there is how to get off of VB6. They have cut the cord alright. I took a beginning class in VB.NET (2003) and a beginning class in C#.NET. I don't think the learning curve would be all that different. The migration tool with VB2005 was disappointing. So, it would mean a rewrite. I am not prepared for that now. That is why I was hoping to find a magazine that specializes in the "trailing edge of technology" :-)

[gavio]

We can just hope that one day Visual Basic 6 development licence will be bought by some millionaire and will be re-released with some modifications perhaps (64-bit app development...)

[Hack]

I get, what has evolved into, Visual Studio Magazine. It appears to have left the VB6 world behind. Do you know of any magazines like it that focus on VB6?

I used to get that magzine as well (for years). I still do, but, unfortunately, I can't make as much use of it as I once did.

I don't believe there are any more magazines devoted to VB6, at least none that I've been able to find.

VB6 is dead (if you concider Microsoft)... and if you concider Microsoft, you can also concider other companies.

Only for Microsoft. I'm a commerical software developer and our VB6 products are stilling selling very, very nicely. In fact, I'm not sure if we have sold any of our .NET versions yet. I would have to check with Sales.

Moved to General Developer

[Pasvorto]

I hear ya. Maybe this is a golden opportunity for a publishing person to tap an unsatisified market...

[mendhak]

Wishful thinking, however, does not translate into business opportunities. In order to still cater to VB6, you'd need a large section of businesses still interested in it. And since companies care about continued platform support, something that VB6 will not have soon, it is a 'loss' or lack of interest that will prevent such a thing from happening. Money matters, we live in a capitalistic world.

[Al42]

And since companies care about continued platform support, something that VB6 will not have soon

The next platform is Vista, and it will have VB6 support. Most companies won't even be switching to that for 3 or 4 years.

Money matters, we live in a capitalistic world.

And that's why - if it works, companies aren't going to spend money switching to something that may not work.

So I think we have about 10 years of VB left - maybe more in some companies. Certainly a good run for a magazine - but I get all my "magazine-type" stuff right here. You guys are almost as good as the authors I used to read in Dr. Dobbs, back when it was a hackers' journal.

[jmcilhinney]

I think the main issue with VB6 is that there will be very few new people coming into the community and plenty of existing users leaving. VB6 still has legs due to its large existing base of expertise and apps but there's nothing new for a magazine to write about, and hasn't been for years. It's all been said and done before so why base a publication on what could only be a rehash? As for what sells, how many end-users do you think ever even know what langauge an app was written in, never mind care?

As for MSDN have you checked out the VBRun section? I haven't looked at it too carefully and I'm sure that there is information on switching to VB.NET, but I think that there would still be other useful information too. Given that the third generation of VB.NET is almost a year old now I really don't think that it's unreasonable that Microsoft are not directly supporting VB6 anymore. The writing has been on the wall, and all over the Net, for years.

[Slaine]

I subscribe to a magazine called Visual Systems Journal (www.vsj.co.uk) but increasingly they have also moved away from VB, towards the .net products - I also think it is a UK only publication. Thankfully our company has also finally dropped all our VB6 applications and completely migrated to the .NET platform.

I feel your pain though. Even though MS has retired v6 there are a lot of houses out there that still use it in anger - heck they said COBOL was dead decades ago and it is still going strong.

Here in the UK we have an organisation called the VB User Group (http://www.vbug.com) that provides support to VB developers - one aspect of which is magazine subscriptions in a number of areas. It might be worth finding out if you have and equivalent in your area of the world, and if you do perhaps they can advise you on a replacement subscription. If not, then I see no reason why you could approach the UK guys and ask them for some advice.

[Pasvorto]

Thanks for all the input, folks. Very helpful.