VB6 or VB.Net??

[mizee]

I am not trying to create a debate on which programming language is better. I am actualy on dilemmas to choose either to continue as a VB6 programmer or a Dot Net programmer.

I am being offered as a VB6 programmer with an average pay but convenient workplace such as no heavy traffic and on project basis meaning I'll be doing lots of short terms projects.

Another offer is a web base programmer in dot net with a higher salary but congested area and long term project.

I am preferable on VB6 because of convenient workplace and I'll be gaining lots of experience since I'll be working on so many projects. But .. how can that add in to my programming skills? Is VB6 going to die where I'll be jeorpadizing my career? What will I be doing in the next 3 years?

Please advise anyone and I really appreciate any comments or ideas. Thank you.

[leinad31]

Find another .Net offer.

[Doogle]

You'll have to bite the bullet some day. VB6 is now no longer supported by Microsoft so it's unlikely that many new commercial applications will be developed using it. That means that VB6 jobs will mostly be maintenance of legacy code. Some people are quite happy to maintain rather than develop new code, others get frustrated.

I would guess that in 10 years time, most (not .NET) VB Applications will have been replaced, and the 'niche' you would find yourself in, may not be too comfortable if VB was the total of your skill set and experience. With Vista, Microsoft have said that VB6 will be supported on an "it just works" basis, and to my mind that's an indication that whatever follows Vista will not support VB6 and before. So, 'son of Vista' which will probably be around in 2012 will be the final nail in VB6's coffin.

(All IMHO, of course)

[FishGuy]

It sounds a personal opportunity cost. I doubt it will die completely as there will always be legacy work, I predict however it will get harder to find but possibly better paid as time goes on. Personally I would take the step to .Net as the reason I enjoy this industry is learning the new skills to keep upto date.

[Kasracer]

Yes it will eventually die (as it should). VB was created to be a RAD language so unlike the need for C and C++ today, VB is easily replaced (VB.Net / C#). The only time it should still be used today is for legacy work otherwise there are much better languages and tools for the work.

I would go with the .Net opportunity. VB.Net is a nice language and you don't have to deal with the cruftyness of COM Objects (why won't they just die already?). You'll also get more out of it as learning a true OOP language can help you learn C# or even Java / C++ later on so you'll be more valuable to more companies.

[FunkyDexter]

From a career point of view the .net job is probably better. In my last job search (about 4 or 5 months ago) I noticed that there were almost no VB6 jobs available so it's already dieing. Of course there'll be legacy work available for years to come but it sounds like you've already got VB6 skills so carrying on in it is unlikely to open any doors for you that wouldn't be open if you took the .net job. If you want to do legacy work you can always return to VB6 later.

That said, career and money aren't the only criteria you should be making your decision on. I've taken jobs in the past that had better money or which I thought would be better on my CV and lived to regret it. Probably the most important consideration is, which job do you think you'll enjoy more?

[Hack]

Moved to General Developer and merged with existing thread

Don't worry about creating a debate. Numerous debates have already been created. Just do a search on this topic in this one forum section and you will have enough reading for numerous cold winter evenings.

It is 2008 - go with .NET

[Pasvorto]

I agree. The handwriting is on the wall (in BIG letters). I am in the process of moving all my VB6 apps to VB.NET. I will be eligible for retirement in 8 years. I want to leave the company in a state where they can find a replacement. It would be more difficult if everything was still VB6. It has been, and continues to be, quite a learning experience.

[Tom Sawyer]

Go for .NET.

While it may be more convenient at present to go for the VB6 job, you're shooting yourself in the foot careerwise. While the technology will be around for a while yet, the vast majority of any new development will be on the .NET platform and you'll be building experience on how to maintain legacy programs that are becoming obsolete. There'll be less and less of those jobs as time goes on and regardless of how much experience you gain, you'll always be at the bottom on the pack in whatever department you come into and therefore at the bottom on the salary range.

[Pino]

Just to add another voice to the equation. .Net all the way!

Pino

[Hack]

As if all of this wasn't enough, you would be hard pressed to find a legitimate copy of VB6 these days, and when/if you did, you would have to pay for it.

You can download VB.NET 2008 Express free from Microsoft's web site.

[szlamany]

Have you asked the VB6 company what there plans are for future .Net work? They must realize that the VB6 stuff is drying up as well.

I personally think that VB6 job is better because of the varied experience you'll get with smaller projects. Any language can be learned - it's the on-the-job experience that matters more to me when I hire someone.

Although .Net is truely fun to work in

[Shaggy Hiker]

To me, the VB6 job sounds decidedly superior. First off, I would strongly endorse what szlamany said. It's hard to believe that there is a company out there that has decided that they won't even think about moving to .NET...EVER!. Second, you make the VB6 job sound much more attractive for all reasons except two: 1) Money, 2) New language skills.

However, item 2 might go away because the company may well be thinking about migrating, especially if the job entails lots of varied projects, because that would be the kind of thing where migration is easiest. In addition to that, there is far more to life than work, but work will take up a significant portion of your life, and a tough commute will shorten that life, so the job will become an even larger portion of what life-like thing you have left. Unless you are in such a circumstance where you are absolutely strapped for cash, money alone should not be sufficient justification for taking a job that will be worse in terms of duties.

I happen to be in a job that pays considerably less than other comparable jobs in the area, but the compensation for that is an unbelievably flexible work schedule, which allows me to take month long hikes, and a terrific group of people to work with. When you enjoy the people you work with, enjoy the work you are doing, and enjoy the job situation, that counts for a considerable amount. I could get 50% more money by leaving, but I haven't even considered it, partly because I visit this forum and hear what other peoples jobs are like.

[dilettante]

Ther VB6 work is still out there, lots of it. The problem is if they haven't converted to something else by now it often means they're just cheap and don't want to fund the effort.

The best of both worlds might be a place like your VB6 option where they're interested in starting to convert those existing programs over the next few years.

As for VB.Net, well we've already accumulated a portfolio of obsolete programs. Most of them at 2003 and harder to bring forward to 2008 than you might expect! A big part of this is dissatisfaction with .Net Remoting and Web Services from a performance standpoint. They want to go full 2008 and WCF at once or nothing at all, hoping that'll scoot the snail to a better pace. I have my doubts about that working out as they hope, but I wasn't asked to vote on it. Almost 90% of the .Net is ASP.Net and I don't think the "glue" is eating all of the performance. It's just incredibly bad code.

I'm just hoping the IBM salespeople with their big bag of Java don't make it far past the doors. Their knocking is almost deafening right now though.

[Lord Orwell]

the replacement OS for vista won't be out in 2012. It's out in 2009.

[mizee]

I am not trying to create a debate on which programming language is better. I am actualy on dilemmas to choose either to continue as a VB6 programmer or a Dot Net programmer.

I am being offered as a VB6 programmer with an average pay but convenient workplace such as no heavy traffic and on project basis meaning I'll be doing lots of short terms projects.

Another offer is a web base programmer in dot net with a higher salary but congested area and long term project.

I am preferable on VB6 because of convenient workplace and I'll be gaining lots of experience since I'll be working on so many projects. But .. how can that add in to my programming skills? Is VB6 going to die where I'll be jeorpadizing my career? What will I be doing in the next 3 years?

Please advise anyone and I really appreciate any comments or ideas. Thank you.

In addition to the above...

Surprisingly in my country lots of job hunters are looking for VB6 programmers lately .. well not as many as VB.Net but the vacancies are more compared to previous years.

The offer that was given to me as VB6 programmer is to work in a banking sytem. I guess it must be maintaining or migrating a legacy system. How I wish it could be a migration project. I will ask them more details as some of you have suggested.

I have experience 5 years in VB6 but less than a year in VB.net 2003 windows programming.

The other offer is a web base development for a plantation system. They are doing purely web and no windows(desktop) programming). I had experience in plantation system and had a tough time dealing with the rollout where I had to travel to the estates every month and as a result of that I ended up doing less programming. My desire to be a hardcore programmer

If I were to choose the new technology(web programmer) I'd be getting higher pay because I have 5 years experience in plantation system but I'll be doing the same project. Moreover it's a lifetime project where most of it will be customization and maintenance.

On the other hand as a VB6 programmer, I'll be involve in a totally different environment, banking system. Moreover, it's a short term projects.

I would like to wish thank you and appreciate all your thoughts and ideas .. I guess the main point that I got from all the ideas above is basically choose a career that suits and pleasures you but don't forget to always keep youselft up to date with the new technology.

[techgnome]

Ther VB6 work is still out there, lots of it. The problem is if they haven't converted to something else by now it often means they're just cheap and don't want to fund the effort.

*pulls the blanket statement off his head* OR... it means the application is such a behemoth that it can't be converted overnight. And we've got clients that we have to support. We can't just tell them, "Um come back in 3-5 years after we've rewritten everything." ... there wouldn't be any client to give the new app to if we did that. Any decent sized company that has a VB6 flagship app is going to move slowly and cautiously into .NET. Believe me though, it isn't soon enough. We're actually now in this hybrid 25% .NET / 75% VB6 state right now that is a bigger nightmare than jsut VB6 solo....

-tg

[dilettante]

OR... it means the application is such a behemoth that it can't be converted overnight. And we've got clients that we have to support. We can't just tell them, "Um come back in 3-5 years after we've rewritten everything."

Oh, I hear that. The cases I have in mind are VB6 that they have long lists of enhancement wishes for, but haven't been willing to pay for in almost 8 years though. It's bug fixes only since day one, forget any migration.

The current crises involve interoperation with packages that the vendors won't support anymore... and the new versions don't speak COM.

[Pasvorto]

Amen. I have moved our smaller systems to VB2005 and all new systems will be in VB2005. However, our flagship system is still VB6. I ran it through the Micro$oft conversion estimator. It estimated 30,000+ hours to convert it. I will be retired by then :-)

[Kasracer]

Amen. I have moved our smaller systems to VB2005 and all new systems will be in VB2005. However, our flagship system is still VB6. I ran it through the Micro$oft conversion estimator. It estimated 30,000+ hours to convert it. I will be retired by then :-)

You can get it done before then. Consider it a challenge!

[szlamany]

I googled around - and got nothing...

Where do you find this MS Conversion Estimator??

[KiwiDexter]

Ther VB6 work is still out there, lots of it. The problem is if they haven't converted to something else by now it often means they're just cheap and don't want to fund the effort.

Or it can also mean they are mission critical system hence no risk taking, just ask your friendly local Bank coder who is no doubt still doing stuff in COBOL

On the bad news for vb6 just got back from an Industry conference, legal, and the research there is that vb6 applications are going the way of the dodo however a lot of the new software offerings are now appearing in non MS languages with a heavy emphasis on intranet front ends.

We're actually in the process of recoding our intranet site in CF from the existing .net app that wasn't particularly well written in the first place. Was kind of hoping we'ld go with ruby on rails but what the heck.

Have a final vb6 desk top app that will later this year be rewritten into a CF intranet front end, so bum all those years of learning vb out the window. On the bright side my company is in the process of retraining people into CF and Oracle so guess that's the silver lining.

End of day my advice would be to grab the .net opportunity with both hands, at least downunder there's a real financial incentive to know the technology.

[Pasvorto]

I googled around - and got nothing...

Where do you find this MS Conversion Estimator??

Actually, I got it from the Micro$oft site. maybe it is not there anymore. It is the Visual Basic 6.0 Upgrade Assessment Tool.

[Kasracer]

We're actually in the process of recoding our intranet site in CF from the existing .net app that wasn't particularly well written in the first place. Was kind of hoping we'ld go with ruby on rails but what the heck.

Ahh, you're re-writing a .Net web application into CF? Sorry it's probably not my place but I just wanted to touch on this. ColdFusion is dying and I'm surprised anyone would actually move to it. Sure, ColdFusion 9 just recently came out but ColdFusion adoption rate is abysmal and has been declining since .Net's release so that's just going to lock the company into fewer developers which can mean a much higher cost later on. Also ColdFusion is fairly inefficient compared to .Net (I saw a figure somewhere before saying in some instances, a re-written application in .Net from ColdFusion results in a 400% increase in efficiency but this didn't take into account bad code).

Also, ColdFusion isn't very OO compared to .Net or even PHP. Why the move to a tag based server scripting language?

[techgnome]

Hmm.... I thought he meant CF as in Compact Framework.... didn't occur to me that CF meant Cold Fusion. I guess my clue should have been "CF intranet front end," ....

-tg

[Hack]

Also, ColdFusion isn't very OO compared to .Net or even PHP. Why the move to a tag based server scripting language?

Ain't this the truth.....basically Cold Fusion is nothing more than HTML on mild steroids.

[Kasracer]

Ain't this the truth.....basically Cold Fusion is nothing more than HTML on mild steroids.

Well ColdFusion's backend runs on JRun which isn't too bad but a bit of laying layers over layers over layers. At least it can compile applications instead of re-parsing them everytime (I'm looking at you, PHP).

But yeah the Syntax always confused me as it was using a mark-up like syntax for logic.

Though, I will say ColdFusion has the coolest name out of all of the server-side scripting languages.

[Blakk_Majik]

Wow, people are actually moving to ColdFusion? The trend I've been seeing is in the other direction. If it ain't ASP, it's JSP. I'll agree though, ColdFusion is the coolest name.

Now that I've had working experience with both, I easily choose .Net. I've become so used to the "help" that .Net gives, it's quite a chore to debug and fix the vb6 program I'm working on now. The code is undocumented though (surprise), so I won't place all the blame on vb6. I can say I can't wait until I get this thing fixed and rolled back out so I can get back to good ol' .Net, hopefully a web app.

To OP, I would only take the job if .Net migration was on the company's plate in the near future (2-3 years at most). There is no sense in backing yourself into a corner by sticking to VB6. The mainframers have learned this lesson the hard way.

[mizee]

I guess the scenarios are different among each countries. For example lots of banks in the 3rd world countries are still maintaining their legacy systems wherelese most of banks in developed countries like US has completed their migration from their legacy systems.

Looking at this trend I think VB6 will last another few years before it goes into migration phase and that is where experienced VB6 programmers are hot in the market because from what I observed many dot net programmers out there do not know VB6 codings and they would have a difficult time to start learning language.

[szlamany]

I have experience in the health care world - similar to the banking world - in the US.

They are not leaving legacy systems - they are putting screen-scraper and other variety of front-ends on their legacy systems so as to continue the life expectancy of existing business products. Lots of the backend is still in COBOL and big-iron hardware.

[syntaxeater]

As many before me have said - it would be well worth it to migrate. The .net framework has and is evolving. So far, we have gone through 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and now 3.5. Microsoft has made it clear this is the direction of their development platform. For atleast the next decade, you can find a position as a VB6 developer, but I would advise against it.

The best advice I can give you is to get a job that is converting (or planning on it). You will be a HUGE asset since vb6 is still fresh in your mind. .Net isn't very hard to pick up on - so long as you realize it's built to feel familiar to you, but robust enough to make you a stronger developer. You will have to learn new things; it's not a 1 to 1 conversion, but after 2 weeks of using it - you'll be glad that they are converting.

That said, good luck and (decision permitting) welcome to .Net.

[KiwiDexter]

Ahh, you're re-writing a .Net web application into CF? Sorry it's probably not my place but I just wanted to touch on this. ColdFusion is dying and I'm surprised anyone would actually move to it. Sure, ColdFusion 9 just recently came out but ColdFusion adoption rate is abysmal and has been declining since .Net's release so that's just going to lock the company into fewer developers which can mean a much higher cost later on. Also ColdFusion is fairly inefficient compared to .Net (I saw a figure somewhere before saying in some instances, a re-written application in .Net from ColdFusion results in a 400% increase in efficiency but this didn't take into account bad code).

Also, ColdFusion isn't very OO compared to .Net or even PHP. Why the move to a tag based server scripting language?

Strange that CF is dying considering I went to day long seminar covering features in the new version being developed as we speak. You may need to do some more research CF adoption rates are on the increase in most Western countries.

As to the efficiency of .net coding, I'll pass that onto a couple of php communities who are in need of a good laugh

[Kasracer]

I don't want to derail this thread so I'll try not to comment any further as to CF's adoption rates or lack there of (after this post of course). I'm not trying to hits the bees nest.

Strange that CF is dying considering I went to day long seminar covering features in the new version being developed as we speak. You may need to do some more research CF adoption rates are on the increase in most Western countries.

Not sure why you think it's strange that a seminar related to Adobe or Web technologies wouldn't cover / mention the new features of ColdFusion. All new products do this even if its adoption rates were declining.

The last development house I worked at had a partnership with Adobe which they leveraged to get work from many of their top clients. Know how many ColdFusion jobs they got from that? 0 (within the timeframe I was there). In fact, within the past 6 years [when I was there (left in late August of last year)] they only had about 2 ColdFusion clients and it was only to support legacy code. On the other side of things they had a constant flow of Java and .Net clients coming in with .Net increasing in frequency and complexity. They were labeled as the 5th or 6th fastest growing technology company in America in the wall street journal too so it's not like it was a small house; they were spread all over the United States.

As to the efficiency of .net coding, I'll pass that onto a couple of php communities who are in need of a good laugh

.Net is compiled into a native image after the first site visit. PHP parses and processes each file on each request unless you use the Zend Accelerator (or whatever it's called). Sure, PHP and Apache are more lightweight than IIS and .Net but the compiling on .Net really helps with its execution speed. ColdFusion will compile a page as well but the problem is it still runs on a Java platform which slows down its execution. I've seen real world examples with simple code on multiple platforms and ColdFusion rarely out performans anything

[penagate]

PHP parses and processes each file on each request unless you use the Zend Accelerator (or whatever it's called).

It's called an opcode cache. APC is one.

[penagate]

And both ASP.NET and PHP are (or rather, contain elements of) tag-based server scripting languages.

[Kasracer]

It's called an opcode cache. APC is one.

I haven't seen that one before. Thanks. I'll have to take a look at it.

And both ASP.NET and PHP are (or rather, contain elements of) tag-based server scripting languages.

When we describe CF as a tag based language is it because all of the programming logic is done via Xml style tags. PHP and ASP.Net use either Basic or C related syntax for all logic.

So I would disagree with PHP containing tag-based elements however ASP/ASP.Net does have some very minor elements just for positioning purposes (the code is still modified in a Basic / C like syntax).

[John_420]

You'll have to bite the bullet some day. VB6 is now no longer supported by Microsoft so it's unlikely that many new commercial applications will be developed using it. That means that VB6 jobs will mostly be maintenance of legacy code. Some people are quite happy to maintain rather than develop new code, others get frustrated.

I would guess that in 10 years time, most (not .NET) VB Applications will have been replaced, and the 'niche' you would find yourself in, may not be too comfortable if VB was the total of your skill set and experience. With Vista, Microsoft have said that VB6 will be supported on an "it just works" basis, and to my mind that's an indication that whatever follows Vista will not support VB6 and before. So, 'son of Vista' which will probably be around in 2012 will be the final nail in VB6's coffin.

(All IMHO, of course)

Completely agree. I like VB6 alot but im being forced to do more and more .NET these days. Other programming languages such as C# are pushing C++ and VB.NET out of the water. Heh of course when i started learning C# and did my first Server to client program i was instantly missing winsock haha

[Pino]

Completely agree. I like VB6 alot but im being forced to do more and more .NET these days. Other programming languages such as C# are pushing C++ and VB.NET out of the water. Heh of course when i started learning C# and did my first Server to client program i was instantly missing winsock haha

I'm not sure c# will ever push Vb.Net or c++ out.

Pino

[gavio]

.NET!

I believe .NET languages are quite the similar. The only question i see is which one you prefer.

[John_420]

MS is coming up with a bunch of new crap lanaguges ( well i think their crap ). C# is becoming more and more popular all the time. I've actually known people who quit C++ for C# because more and more companies want new applications done in it.