VB.Net ... is it what I need?

[Billy]

Hello,

I'm trying to decide if I need Visual Studio .Net or if
VB .NET will suffice. I've read the guide at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/howtobuy/choosing.aspX
but still have a few questions:

Basically, I'm looking to write a stand-alone application
that is going to need an embedded video control for MPG
playback, a browser object, and other basic tree
controls, and data grids. It is NOT client/server based,
so any data access would be a local database (like
Access) or flat files.

1) It talks about "control libraries" in Visual
Studio .NET. What types of pre-built controls would I
NOT get in VB .NET?

2) Is there any other big gotcha I'm going to miss out on
with just VB .NET? I don't need to update older apps;
I'm writing this from scratch.

Thanks for any advice, or links, you can provide.

Billy

 

[Chris Smith]

Billy,

To reach your goal, you could use either.

The big control that you will get in dot.net that you don't in VB is the
datagrid. You will also get realistic databinding as well. But you will
require your client to install a 25mb .net runtime library.

You are not trying to break new ground with the app you describe. So, I say,
use what you feel works best for you and you can complete the project with.

Best of luck,

 

[Billy]

Great, thanks. One more question that seems silly to me,
but I've been burned in the past.

Without this "data grid" can I still build applications
that retrieve, manipulate, and store data? I come from
the PowerBuilder world, but haven't coded in about 2
years. I think the "data grid" is like its "data window"
which offered binding to the data source and required
almost no code writing to do retrieval and updates. Is
this data grid the same type of thing? And would you
code a data-driven application without it? The marketing
lingo for VB dotnet says "data-driven application
development" but is that possible without the data grid?

Thanks again,

billy