Life span of VB6?

[johnb41]

I would like to learn VB, but don't know whether to go with VB6 or
VB.NET.

I have read LOTS of messages saying to not go with VB.NET. I, however,
am fairly comfortable with a part of .NET from my few years experience
with ASP.NET.

My main problem w/ VB.NET is that one needs the .NET framework
installed in order to run a program created in it. That's a major
problem with me.

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

Thanks!
John

[Mattias Sjögren]

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it)

Not true, VB6 also require runtime libraries to be installed, and not
all Windows versions have them included (or not the right version).

Mattias

--
Mattias Sjögren [MVP] mattias @ mvps.org
http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/ | http://www.dotnetinterop.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup.

[Nick Malik [Microsoft]]

I don't know who told you to avoid VB.NET, but IMHO, they are wrong. VB.NET
is an excellent tool, and if you are hoping to work in new application
development, investing in VB6 would not be a good direction.

I'm not jumping on VB6. It is a good tool, and the upgrade path from VB6 to
VB.Net has been frustrating to many folks, leading them to say that they
plan to stay with VB6. That said, new product development is not being done
in a large scale on the VB6/COM platform any more. VB.Net is where the
future is.

There will continue to be many thousands of VB6 programs around for quite
some time, needing maintenance. A little bit of new development will happen
in VB6, but not as much as you may like.

I guess the choice depends on whether you want to write new apps or maintain
old ones...

--
--- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
representative of my employer.
I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
programmer helping programmers.
--
"johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...

I would like to learn VB, but don't know whether to go with VB6 or
VB.NET.

I have read LOTS of messages saying to not go with VB.NET. I, however,
am fairly comfortable with a part of .NET from my few years experience
with ASP.NET.

My main problem w/ VB.NET is that one needs the .NET framework
installed in order to run a program created in it. That's a major
problem with me.

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

Thanks!
John

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

"johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> schrieb:

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

Take a look at the product support lifecycle for Visual Basic 6.0:

Microsoft Support Lifecycle
<URL:http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=fh;EN-US;lifecycle>

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>

[M.Posseth]

well ,,,,, you don`t have to ship a framework of +- 20 megs to get a VB6 app
to work

also lots of success with win 95 and VB.NET

:-)

well i am a Basic programmer for some years now i started on the C-64 (
those were the days :-) and i am currently using VB6 and VB.Net
if you really need to support Win 95 you have no other choice as VB6 (
or Delphi ) otherwise Move to the .Net platform ( for sure )
Or you choose the path of using them both if i have a project that should
be less resource consuming as possible , and should support Win 9.X ichoose
VB6
on the other hand if i have a project where performance and scalability is
the issue i choose VB.NET


--
Met vriendelijke groet
Kind regards,

Michel Posseth
Software Developer
Microsoft Certified Professional

Company : Nohau Systems B.V.
Division : Systems Development

"Mattias Sjögren" <ma********************@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:u6**************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it)

Not true, VB6 also require runtime libraries to be installed, and not
all Windows versions have them included (or not the right version).

Mattias

--
Mattias Sjögren [MVP] mattias @ mvps.org
http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/ | http://www.dotnetinterop.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup.

[Joergen Bech]

>My main problem w/ VB.NET is that one needs the .NET framework

installed in order to run a program created in it. That's a major
problem with me.
Some years ago, people had the same complaint about VB6. Back in those
days, those additional 5+MB runtime files really meant something.

Not to mention the Package & Deploy wizard, which generated a setup
job which could not complete unless the VB6 bootstrap files had been
installed, which meant that a reboot might be required in order to
complete the installation.

Now, we are in the same situation again: A set of runtime files which
means that some machines that were running ok with 256MB of ram
suddenly need to be upgraded if they are to run a .Net application,
just because the .Net framework pushes them over the edge, so to
speak.

I have heard my fair share of "use a real programming language"
comments (Delphi/VC++) over the years, but nowadays, noone
seems to care.

Eventually, the same will happen to .Net. In the near future, most
people will have the framework on their machines (whether they know it
or not). Hopefully the problems with slow app startup will be solved
as well.
Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

VB6 is, in my experience, extremely stable, but all the nice stuff
is hidden from you so you spend a great deal of time using API
calls to get the program to do what you want. Multithreading?
Subclassing? Ha!

As for supporting Win9x: I have reached the point where I simply
do not care. Unless I am forced to, I do not support anything below
Win2K/XP. Eventually people will have to upgrade their systems
anyway. Many programs or hardware drivers don't even support
anything below Win98SE anymore. Upgrade or get left behind.
I don't think I'm the only one who has tried to explain to someone
that their 5-7-year old machine cannot comfortably run the latest
Photo album software - or has the space or processing power for
handling video editing or dvd burning. Sorry. Just my opinion.
I optimize my programs for "lesser" machines in terms of performance,
but I won't be sorry if I never see another Win9x installation again.

BTW: What is the percentage of 9x installations these days?

....
As another poster wrote: The question is whether you want to
write new applications or maintain old ones.

/JB

[johnb41]

Joergen,

Actually, when i said "Win95+" I didn't mean literally just
Win95/98/ME, etc. It also included Win2000/NT/XP. All those OS's can
run a VB6 app w/ not much of a hassle.

But can all Win2000/NT/XP computers run a .NET app? I wonder what
percentage of these computers can run a .NET app right now.

An better question is: what percentage of people (who do not have .NET
framework installed) are willing to try out my demo if they have to
install the .NET framework? That's my worry. Would I be limiting my
audience in a large way?

John

[Joergen Bech]

On 4 Jan 2005 08:52:55 -0800, "johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote:

Joergen,

Actually, when i said "Win95+" I didn't mean literally just
Win95/98/ME, etc. It also included Win2000/NT/XP. All those OS's can
run a VB6 app w/ not much of a hassle.

But can all Win2000/NT/XP computers run a .NET app? I wonder what
percentage of these computers can run a .NET app right now.
The .Net 1.1 framework requirements are listed here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframewo...s/default.aspx

The SDK requires 2K/XP/2K3, but the final product can be run on 98 and
NT4sp6a as well (though 95 is a no-no).
An better question is: what percentage of people (who do not have .NET
framework installed) are willing to try out my demo if they have to
install the .NET framework? That's my worry. Would I be limiting my
audience in a large way?

I (for one) am running SharpReader (RSS newsreader), LookOut for
Outlook, etc. TabletPC owners who have upgraded to XP SP2 might
find that some of the system enhancements are actually written using
..Net. Expect Microsoft to sneak the framework onto more machines
any way they can.

Does it really matter if you lose half your audience if you can write
your products in half the time it would take to write them in non-.Net
languages?

In the end, it really depends on what type of program you have in
mind, what the competition looks like, etc.

But I'd better get out of here before this turns into a flame war.

/JB

[Darious Snell]

Why not java? If you are so concerned with portability it might be an option for you.

"johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...

I would like to learn VB, but don't know whether to go with VB6 or
VB.NET.

I have read LOTS of messages saying to not go with VB.NET. I, however,
am fairly comfortable with a part of .NET from my few years experience
with ASP.NET.

My main problem w/ VB.NET is that one needs the .NET framework
installed in order to run a program created in it. That's a major
problem with me.

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

Thanks!
John

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

"Darious Snell" <nu**@sdlkfweu.org> schrieb:

Why not java? If you are so concerned with portability it might be an
option for you.

Well, if you have a machine that is fast enough to execute Java UI
applications with reasonable performance... I doubt that this is the case
for typical Windows 95/98 machines.

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>

[Brian Henry]

think of VB6 as COBOL, there will always be lovers of it that refuse to
leave and mock anything that isn't it... VB.NET is the new langauge and the
future of VB. VB6 is basicly dead, but will be still used out there in the
existing market, but no revisions to it will be made anymore. All new
versions of windows will have .NET installed in them by default (windows
longhorn) so there wont be a 20MB framework to worry about anymore either
once the integration of the two is complete... go with VB.NET and you'll be
ready for the future of windows programming.

"johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...

I would like to learn VB, but don't know whether to go with VB6 or
VB.NET.

I have read LOTS of messages saying to not go with VB.NET. I, however,
am fairly comfortable with a part of .NET from my few years experience
with ASP.NET.

My main problem w/ VB.NET is that one needs the .NET framework
installed in order to run a program created in it. That's a major
problem with me.

Anyway, i'm seriously considering VB6 (because any Win95+ computer will
run programs made with it), but I am concerned about it's life span....
VB6 is already a few years old (i think). Will it continue to be a
legit language for years to come, or will VB.NET (or .NET in general)
take over soon?

Thanks!
John

[Larry Serflaten]

"Brian Henry" <br**********@newsgroups.nospam> wrote

All new
versions of windows will have .NET installed in them by default (windows
longhorn) so there wont be a 20MB framework to worry about anymore either
once the integration of the two is complete...

You might want to avoid any notion of that ever being a reality. No matter
what version ships with installations of Windows, there will likely be a version
or two difference between what users have, and what developers program against.

While some might target specific versions, the 'latest and greatest' improvements
will still require that users keep themselves updated to the recent versions, something
that may not happen to a large degree. If the users aren't keeping themselves updated,
then application installations will still need to inform them to go get the current version,
which could very well exceed the current 20 MB it now requires...

So, I would just suggest that be set off to the side until there are several years of
actual evidence that XCopy deployment will work in a majority of cases....

;-)
LFS

[Brian Henry]

which is exactly how VB3, VB4, VB5, VB6 runtimes were. All I was stateing
though is that at least one version will be installed by default in the OS,
kind of like how they included the VB runtimes in windows after a few
versions.
"Larry Serflaten" <se*******@usinternet.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...

"Brian Henry" <br**********@newsgroups.nospam> wrote

All new
versions of windows will have .NET installed in them by default (windows
longhorn) so there wont be a 20MB framework to worry about anymore either
once the integration of the two is complete...

You might want to avoid any notion of that ever being a reality. No
matter
what version ships with installations of Windows, there will likely be a
version
or two difference between what users have, and what developers program
against.

While some might target specific versions, the 'latest and greatest'
improvements
will still require that users keep themselves updated to the recent
versions, something
that may not happen to a large degree. If the users aren't keeping
themselves updated,
then application installations will still need to inform them to go get
the current version,
which could very well exceed the current 20 MB it now requires...

So, I would just suggest that be set off to the side until there are
several years of
actual evidence that XCopy deployment will work in a majority of cases....

;-)
LFS

[johnb41]

Thanks for all your replies! It looks like vb.net is what i'll commit
to.

Another question: Instead of having a user separately make sure he is
up to date w/ the latest .net framework, could the framework be built
in to my application installation (invisible to the user)? So their
download would always be 20mb + the size of my app. I realize that
would mean my server could be heavily burdened w/ download bandwidth,
but i was just curious. (maybe the download could be made into a
..torrent, so the load would be spread out among many people. I heard
that Linux is distributed that way. Please correct me if i'm wrong.)
John

[Andy O'Neill]

"johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote in message
news:11*********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...

I would like to learn VB, but don't know whether to go with VB6 or
VB.NET.

I have read LOTS of messages saying to not go with VB.NET. I, however,
am fairly comfortable with a part of .NET from my few years experience
with ASP.NET.

You'd have to be nuts to learn vb6 now.
It'd just confuse you more when you have to learn vb.net in the future.

--
Regards,
Andy O'Neill

[Joergen Bech]

There are already some solutions to this problem:
http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/...a-d187d16f41f1
http://www.franklins.net/dotnet/ (Boot Strapper)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...distdeploy.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

etc etc etc

(Google search: vb.net setup include framework)

/JB

On 5 Jan 2005 06:56:17 -0800, "johnb41" <or****@informatik.com> wrote:

Thanks for all your replies! It looks like vb.net is what i'll commit
to.

Another question: Instead of having a user separately make sure he is
up to date w/ the latest .net framework, could the framework be built
in to my application installation (invisible to the user)? So their
download would always be 20mb + the size of my app. I realize that
would mean my server could be heavily burdened w/ download bandwidth,
but i was just curious. (maybe the download could be made into a
.torrent, so the load would be spread out among many people. I heard
that Linux is distributed that way. Please correct me if i'm wrong.)
John

[johnb41]

Thanks!

John