The recent thread on the best programming language to learn has inspired me to try and learn Visual Basic. I would eventually like to be able to build very simple applications for my own use, and visual basic seems to be the easiest language to learn, plus it appears to do everything I will need for the next few years at least. I've had a look at the syntax for VB 6 and it seems to make sense to me, even after only a couple of days study. My question is: should i start with VB 6 or just try and learn VB.NET straight up. As I will not need any of the advanced functionality for a long time, is it safe to assume that the basics are much the same for both. Or does VB.NET have a few elements that make it quite a bit more difficult to learn for a beginner? Thanks in advance, Runningbear
Runningbear, If you are beginning to learn VB, it will not make much of a difference. Start with what you can get the easiest. Of course, if you plan to build up applications over time, choose the latest version. In my case, I had to deal with very major applications written in VB6. Switching to VB.NET is a real headache, as M$ dropped all compatability requirements with VB6! This is the reason I would not trust M$ any longer. They will probably play the same game again with VB.NET at a future time. If you keep on making things "obsolete" you can try to make a repeat sale. I'll not get caught anymore! Again, for a beginner it does not matter. nononsense
Hi Runningbear,I am starting off with VB.NET,good luck with the study,maybe we should start a VB.NET Programming thread
VB .Net is fast for development. VB6 is perhaps faster. There are major differences. We develop in VB.Net and for some customers, still in VB6 we are helping them coexist with newer .Net code. For your situation I would use the cheapest solution. VB6 works just fine and you can transition to VB.Net when the time comes. The new licensing for VB.Net is more expensive and if you ever want to put applications into production with multiple users the current pricing of Visual Studio and Windows Server licensing just does not make sense given that alternatives exist: Linux / Apache/ MySQL/ PHP.
What is the difference between .NET and VB6? Maybe it is because of my Mac background, but I kind of like realbasic. Under Windows it has support for ActiveX controls and connecting to MySQL is easy. To me it does everything I need and its Simple & fast. But to be honest, I have never tried .NET. Should I?
The difference is in the underlying framework: different classes and structure and thus essentailly, different ways to interact with the system functions: However there are still ways to do things the old way using a wrapper - without leveraging the framework. If what you have is adequate for your needs there is no reason to make any changes ....... Most of the demand for using the .NET framework is generated within the software development community: If you are a development partner of MS then you need to adopt .NET. If you are a corporate developer with no required ties to MS then there really must be a strong business process driving the adoption as existing solutions from MS and other vendors work just fine for most applications.....
It is obvious from the posts in this thread that there is quite a bit of divergence of opinion on all this. Some recommend still using VB6 because it seems to be more handy (simply count the number of CD's in VB6 versus VB.NET). I think that the VB hassle M$ put its customers through going from VB1 to VB6 will not stop with VB.NET. Some say it is the future. Good luck. Many of the blind defenders today don't remember anything from IBM's PL/1 debacle - gone with the wind. The big problem is that with VB there is no standardization whatsoever - no ANSI. Many sophisticated programmers in their search for stability found this for years in Delphi/Kylix by Borland which is multiplatform (Windows, Linux/Unix) On top Kylix is free for Linux. In fact historically M$ copied its Visual family after Borland's. It is well documented, no VB6 to VB.NET jumps, interfaces with practically all current databases directly. VB is generally limited to ODBC if you want to go outside M$ databases.
Wow, you've got to love the myopic implication in that sentence - that VB/VC++/.NET users aren't "sophisticated" (or at least they aren't as "sophisticated" as those who saw the light and entered the Elysian Fields of Borland).
They got there before the VB/VC++/.NET users! That's a simple historical fact. As to the present API situation, you may take a look at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TWSAPI/message/2505 and related posts. nononsense