Application Design

  • Thread starter Thread starter vovan
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vovan

I have VB6 project and I need to upgrade it to VB 2008.
The current project uses SQL Server database, contains about 100 modules
(forms, standard and class modules). It is pretty weak with graphics and has
resolution independence (not good enough to be happy with it).
I know some basic things in VB 2008 Windows Forms area (working with
controls, data objects) and I know nothing yet in WPF. But I've read on
internet that WPF allows to create resolution independent screens much
easier than Windows Forms approach.

I need your suggestion what approach do I have to select for my conversion -
what are advantages and disadvvantages of both of them (Windows Forms and
WPF)?

Thank you

vovan
 
Rule 1, Rule 2, Rule 3... Rule 99
All say
ONLY CHANGE ONE THING AT A TIME

The Conversion wizard is pretty good and you'll be shocked at how little you
have to change. However, You'll be equally surprised at how much time you'll
spend reviewing all the warnings and making lots of tweaks. Don't give
yourself a whole new learning experience unnessessarally. Get it working
with technology you know and love, which you have a sporting chance of
making work before advancing into the unknown. I've heard dark mutterings
that WPF isn't that well integrated into the IDE: sorry, but I'm not
venturing there just yet either.

That's a mighty big project you have there and no-one is going to pay you to
spend the next year or two upgrading it. If you must, get it working under
regular Windows Forms and convert it to WPF in parallell. Keep the two
versions in line - only you know how well structured your code is, grin,
then fold in the WPF technology after the rest is working.

In the meantime convert something small, or develop a small app in WPF so
you can flush out the gotyas and start debugging the bigger conversion with
a little bit of experience under your belt.
A
 
Thank you Alan.
Unfortunately Conversion Wizard produced such a mess from my VB6 project. I
decided not to go with it at all. There are several reasons, such as I need
to switch to ADO.NET, I need to replace obsolete third party controls, and
many other things which are not in the zone of interesys of the conversion
wizard.
So, I need to start either Windows Forms project from the scratch (just
logic and the structure of the project) or WPF.

vovan
 
I have heard it is almost easier to start a re-write from vb-6 than an
import.

But I do not have experience with this. I just converted some dummy apps
from 2003 to 2005 to 2008 without issues.

Maybe you should post another post at this newsgroup about vb6 to 2008 /
2005 importing woe's.
Someone might be able to help you out there with what they went thru.

Miro
 
It's easier to rewrite than it is to convert and fix. Or, you can convert
it, then cherrypick what you want to keep from that (like maybe it does the
forms?) and rewrite the rest. Note that you don't just want the app's syntax
"fixed", you want to redesign the application to use the OO capabilities of
..Net appropriately. Things you used to do in VB6 may work be .Net, but
remember -- just because you can, it doesn't mean you should.

I would start with Windows Forms rather than WPF. .Net's WinForms is not all
that dissimilar from VB6's WinForms. WPF has a steep learning curve and it
not as technologically mature as WinForms.

RobinS.
GodlMail.com
 
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