upgrade to vs2003 or wait till vs2005

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Guest

I'm currently using VB 6 for windows based apps. Should I make the jump to
VS.2003 now, or should I wait till (the final) VS.2005 release comes out
later this year. If I have not started converting any of our code yet, is it
worth while to wait for the 2005 final release to come out. I am not
interested in converting our VB6 apps to VS.2005 beta2 as there will be some
changes between beta2 and the final release that will probably cause me
problems.

I'm just curious if the gains in vs.2005 will be that much better that I
should wait for it to come out, rather than invest dollars into vs.2003 and
then find out that it is quite inferior to vs.2005, if that is the case.

Any specific reasons that any of you can provide me for either case (vs.2003
now versus vs.2005 when the final version comes out) will help me make a
recommendation to management.

Thank You
 
DaVBGuy said:
I'm currently using VB 6 for windows based apps. Should I make the jump to
VS.2003 now, or should I wait till (the final) VS.2005 release comes out
later this year. If I have not started converting any of our code yet, is it
worth while to wait for the 2005 final release to come out. I am not
interested in converting our VB6 apps to VS.2005 beta2 as there will be some
changes between beta2 and the final release that will probably cause me
problems.

I'm just curious if the gains in vs.2005 will be that much better that I
should wait for it to come out, rather than invest dollars into vs.2003 and
then find out that it is quite inferior to vs.2005, if that is the case.

Any specific reasons that any of you can provide me for either case (vs.2003
now versus vs.2005 when the final version comes out) will help me make a
recommendation to management.

Thank You
Click to expand...

If Microsoft still has the Empower for ISVs program you can get both
(for 2 years, then you have to buy). I don't have the link handy but a
quick Google should turn something up.
 
If you mean "UPGRADE" your VB6 skill/code, then it is irrelevant what you
choose: VS.NET (VB.NET) 2002/2003/2005. They are not natural upgrade from
VB6, like MS tried to convince you. They are so different from VB6, no
serious VB project can be "upgraded" to .net without significant re-coding
or completely re-write in order to use .NET technology appropriately. Many
VB6ers did and have been doing is start learning .NET from ground 0 while
keep their VB6 skill refreshed from time to time as long as they have VB6
projects to do/maintain. While some VB6ers were so irritated by the broken
compatibility on VB.NET and VB6 that they have turned their back to MS (at
least for now) and started in Java/C++...

If you want to keep up with the trend where MS goes, start learning .NET
(VB.NET or C#, it does not matter. Actually, many VB6ers choose C# to simply
reduce the confusion, because they have some VB6 code base to maitain. I am
one of them). In the meantime, if you have some VB6 projects to do/maitain,
or foresee that there are still potential clients for you do to VB6
projects, do keep your VB6 skill polished. Othe other hand, do not
expect/prepare to convert/upgrade your VB6 code to .NET easily before you
master .NET very well. Basically, it means re-write in most cases (other
than "Hello World!").
 
DaVBGuy

The upgrade module from VB6 to VBNet2002 was lousy and many people think it
never became better anymore.

The upgrade module from VB6 to VBNet2003 was a lot better

The upgrade module from the VB6 to VBNet 2005 final should be a lot better
than from VB2003. I don't know if it is true, however maybe worth to wait
when that is important.

Just my thought,

Cor
 
I am involved in the Empower ISV Program. Microsoft began this program for
developers who are developing saleable products. Hence I(ndependent)
S(oftware) V(endor). Meeting the requirements can also enable developers to
become Certified Microsoft Partners. A MSDN Universal Subscription is
available to those who are accepted into the program as Microsoft Partners
[1].

As for my opinion regarding Visual Studio I would suggest you consider
starting with one of the Express [2] products and then migrate to Visual
Studio 2005 when it is RTM. My rationale for suggesting this approach is
simple; you are a VB6 developer and have a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, to
learn about VB.NET and developing using OOP in the context of the DNF. Do
that learning with one of the Express applications. Get the VS2005 beta 2
bits and install on a separate machine or use VPC with at least 2G RAM with
W2003 as the guest OS (IIS 6 is different than IIS 5.1 and optimized for
..NET development). You can get familiar with the 2.0 DNF while using one of
the Express applications to learn OOP using the 1.1 DNF. The architecture of
the code model is different between 1.1 and 2.0. You are going to need
competency understanding the 1.1 code model noting the 2.0 model is becoming
increasingly abstract with the object to go as RAD as possible as soon as
possible which brings about my final point.

Since now is the perfect time to reconsider, I would only recommend staying
with VB to my enemies or some of the deadbeats I know despite the arguments
that saying so is sure to attract noting I won't be bothering to respond as
its taking me enough time to respond tghe way it is. The smarter developers
IMO of course, understand that VB is being turned into a push-button monkey
code environment that within a couple years will be indistinguishable from
FrontPage monkeys. The 'management' and without question any 'customer' is
going to hear more and more frequently about how 2.0 requires VB developers
to write 70% less code and in many regards this is true even though it can
be discredited and we all know how shallow such marketing hype actually can
be. Get out your predicate logic books and look up 'fallacy of composition.'
The point being, the head monkeys and customers believe this fallcsious
bullsh!t, you will never get a chance to discredit Microsoft and will be
thought a fool for even bringing it up. You can bet your bippie the managing
monkeys and customers alike will start wondering why they should be paying
100% when it only takes 70% to produce even though some of them may have
development backgrounds themselves.

Finally, all modern languages are being derived from C and by all
appearances all languages developed in the foreseeable future will also
derive from C. Lexical syntax and grammer is C. You can easily verify this
trend if you have any gray matter at all. Try not to be short-sighted. Now
is the time to learn C# and use it to migrate your VB6 to .NET.


<%= Clinton Gallagher
METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://metromilwaukee.com/
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/

[1] http://partner.microsoft.com/
[2] http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/
 
Clinton,

To your knowledge.

With VS2005 you are able to create more (from the view of a dataprocessor)
sophisticated websites than with FrontPage. Although that is from the
beginning a great product, does it support another market.

What is used in VS2005 as serverside program language is for those WebPages
not important. Although VB is of course in that part of the business the
most used language. Let say in the same way as C is it with games.

I thought let me write that, I saw that it was obvious a lack in your
knowledge, when I was reading your message.

Cor
 
Thank you all for your input.

I may have inadvertantly mislead you when I used the word "upgrade". I do
plan on incorporating OOP when I go to vs.2003 or vs.2005. Our existing VB6
apps will likely be redesigned and not just "put thru an upgrade wizard". We
still may leave some applications in VB6, but our goal is to get "onboard"
with DNF.

My original question was more based on, should I begin to focus our
development teams energy on using/learning a more mature product (vs.2003).
Or should we wait a few months an start with vs.2005, a brand new product
that is likely to have more features, but also may contain more bugs.

Also, is there enough enhancements in vs.2005 to justify the wait.

Finally with 64bit O/S and the eventual arrival of Longhorn (18 months?),
are vs.2003 / vs.2005 equally compatible with those upcoming events. I would
not want to tell my boss that we spent all this time re-architecting /
re-designing all these applications only to find out that we will have to do
this all over again once the new O/S or the new 64bit systems come out, which
isn't really that far away.

btw, our team develops only in-house applications that are not re-saleable,
therefore the Empower program that a couple of you mentioned earlier would
not be applicable to us.
 
Download the Visual Studio Express editions for the languages you're
interested in and also order the VS 2005 Beta 2 CD. Start working in Beta 2
to learn the language differences. For VB 6, there aren't as many as the
fanatic VB6ers would have you believe. When VS 2005 comes out, buy it and
install on your development system in parallel with VS 6. Don't migrate
your existing code base unless you have to do a serious rewrite anyway.

Also, skip VS 2003 - the VB 7.x IDE is a major step backwards from the VB 6
IDE.

Mike Ober.
 
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