Are VB & VB.NET the same?

[Advice Pro]

If not, then how can I covert them and is more like a different kind of VB like VBA?

[keystone_paul]

Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, but when someone says "VB" to me I assume they mean Visual Basic 6 or earlier. VB.net followed VB6 and generally people tend to refer to later versions as (for example) VB.Net 2005 or VB.Net 2008. I would imagine as VB6 becomes a distant memory to today's developers the .Net part will get dropped more.

You can import a "classic" VB project into .Net via Visual Studio, however it won't necessarily convert perfectly and you may need to tweak some things manually. You are highly unlikely to be able to convert .Net to VB.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Microsoft dropped the '.Net' part in 2005 so vb is not referring to a .Net version of it and not vb6/vba or previous.

But like keystone's said vb from a vb6 programmer's history/point of view would refer to a non .net version of it, whereas I consider 'vb' to be referring to a .Net version even though I started in vb6 and I constantly work in vba at work.

[keystone_paul]

Microsoft dropped the '.Net' part in 2005

Good point - hadn't noticed that. Having used VB since VB3 I've always mentally viewed "VB" as being versions up to 6 but always been aware that recent converts may use the term "VB" to mean the latest version. Wasn't aware that Microsoft themselves had "re-assigned" the term VB from 2005 onwards!

I still think its worth checking the context though - there are a lot of companies still using "classic" VB (and the current count on these forums has 50% more people viewing the "VB6 and Earlier" board than the .Net one), so if a "newbie" is using the term VB its probably .Net they mean, if a slightly more senior citizen like myself uses it, they are probably meaning "pre .Net". Somewhere in between : probably worth asking!

[Hack]

Moved to General Developer

Having used VB since VB3 I've always mentally viewed "VB" as being versions up to 6

I also started with VB3 and as far as I'm concerned that is exactly what it means, i.e. VB means up to VB6...after that it is VB.NET

[Jenner]

Yea, I've only started to begin to call "VB.NET" as just "VB" and retire what I used to call "VB" as "VB6".

[JuggaloBrotha]

Yea, I've only started to begin to call "VB.NET" as just "VB" and retire what I used to call "VB" as "VB6".

As have I, vb6 = vb6 and older, vb means .net 1.0 and up

[Shaggy Hiker]

To get back to the original question, VBA is far more similar to VB6 than VB.NET is. You could think of it as "being a different kind of VB like VBA", but only if you are very loose in your categorizations. The syntax is largely the same, but everything else is different. This makes conversions both possible and seriously error prone. Therefore, most folks here recommend re-writing when moving from VB6 to any of the .NET versions, though I would also add that you can copy and paste individual functions from one to the other, if they are small and can be easily altered to a more .NET style.

[JuggaloBrotha]

To get back to the original question, VBA is far more similar to VB6 than VB.NET is. You could think of it as "being a different kind of VB like VBA", but only if you are very loose in your categorizations. The syntax is largely the same, but everything else is different. This makes conversions both possible and seriously error prone. Therefore, most folks here recommend re-writing when moving from VB6 to any of the .NET versions, though I would also add that you can copy and paste individual functions from one to the other, if they are small and can be easily altered to a more .NET style.

I can back this up, the newest version of VBA (Office 2007) is still just a stripped down version of vb6, which if I might add, is a really f-ing annoying language to program in.

One of my two jobs has be programming in vba in Access 2003 & 2007. Very tedious.

[techgnome]

Juggalo - rest assured that at some point (yet to be defined I might add).... VBA will be replaced by .NET in all of the Office products... and not a "light" version of .NET.... it's been promised to be the full and complete framework.... We'll have to wait and see. I know that it's already possible to build Add-Ons and extension for Office in .NET... but inside of the app itself, not yet.

-tg

[JuggaloBrotha]

Juggalo - rest assured that at some point (yet to be defined I might add).... VBA will be replaced by .NET in all of the Office products... and not a "light" version of .NET.... it's been promised to be the full and complete framework.... We'll have to wait and see. I know that it's already possible to build Add-Ons and extension for Office in .NET... but inside of the app itself, not yet.

-tg

I know and when it does happen I'm sure I'll be the one assigned to upgrade the 200+ apps currently in use when the time comes too.

[Shaggy Hiker]

When that time comes, it'll put a stake in VB6, too. I learned VBA before I learned VB5 (back when Excel was the first and only to use VBA). I would guess that there are lots of people who started with a macro language in Excel, Access, or some other, then migrated to the full language. If you start in VBA, you migrate to VB6, but if you start in .NET, you will migrate to .NET.

[JuggaloBrotha]

When that time comes, it'll put a stake in VB6, too. I learned VBA before I learned VB5 (back when Excel was the first and only to use VBA). I would guess that there are lots of people who started with a macro language in Excel, Access, or some other, then migrated to the full language. If you start in VBA, you migrate to VB6, but if you start in .NET, you will migrate to .NET.

That's basically how I look at it, minus the migrate from .Net to .Net (I don't believe in the migration from where you are to where you already are).

But I actually learned vb5/vb6 then .Net 1.1 and it wasn't until I got an actual programming job that I got slammed with the learning of vba in access 2003 (which eventually became access 2007 when it was released)

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's basically how I look at it, minus the migrate from .Net to .Net (I don't believe in the migration from where you are to where you already are).

To quote the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass:

"Sometimes you have to run as hard as you can just to stay in one place."

[JuggaloBrotha]

To quote the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass:

"Sometimes you have to run as hard as you can just to stay in one place."

I forget who's sig the quote is in but here's the quote "I like treadmills because at least then I know I'm running nowhere."