VB6.0 to VB .NET

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty sure this question has probably been asked many times before. I
just couldn't find the correct answer. I have a VB application that was
designed using the 6.0 version. Now my client would like to take the same
application online. I was told that VB.NET is the way to go if I wanna put my
stuff online. Now I don't know anything about .NET. Is there anyway to do a
sucessful transition from VB6.0 to VB.NET? Or do I have to redesign the whole
application using the .NET?

Please advise.
Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

Visual Studio does have a conversion tool to convert VB6 to VB.NET. I believe
all you have to do is open up the VB6 project inside.NET and it will start
asking you a series of questions.

I would start there by trying to convert a COPY of your application. Keep in
mind though that VB.NET is much stricter then VB6 and the conversion tool
will warn you of all the items you will have to change to make it VB.NET
compliant. The tool merely recreates the VB forms and tries to update some of
your syntax. Unless you are just a REALLY GREAT VB6 programmer, it will be
many things you'll have to change manually after the conversion.

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Ricky,

I was told that VB.NET is the way to go if I wanna put my
stuff online.

Yes that is one of the posibilities. You can as well use C#. However it is
not a 1:1 tranformation. When your have classes that are easy to convert
where the userinterface is very much seperated from the actual business and
datahandling, than you are lucky and can VBNet be the way to go.

Otherwise it is just starting all new. However one plus you have and that
is the knowledge about the wanted result. although a word as "OnLine" is
very indefinite. That you would first have to know and to describe well. For
that I can think about endless solutions.

Just my thought,

Cor

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your comments. Sorry I didn't explain my scenario well enough
about going online. What I have is an application which I designed using
VB6.0 . Currently its just a standalone application with no network
connectivity and is using a local Microsoft Access database. Within next few
months, my client wants the exact replica of this application to be available
on his website. That way, his customers can just go online to his website,
log in and use the application from a browser. This way all the information
will be saved on a centrally located server and will be easy to backup and
update.

Right now, I am not even a rookie when it comes to .NET. I do not even have
acess to .NET. But by doing some research I found out that the applications
designed using VB.NET can be easily put online. I just wanted to know how
true this statement is.

Thanks

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Ricky.

Right now, I am not even a rookie when it comes to .NET. I do not even
have
acess to .NET. But by doing some research I found out that the
applications
designed using VB.NET can be easily put online. I just wanted to know how
true this statement is.

What can be true when you use a webservice for your databasehandling and
deploying the applications to the clients from your client. However that is
not using a webbrowser. In that case you can maybe use this.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/06/rich/default.aspx

However probably not for the clients from your clients. Both previous called
solutions needs almost full trust from the computers from the clients from
your client.

In the other case it is probably just starting new creating an ASPX
application which can be build with VBNet however is completly different
from a VBNet WinForm application.

(As I assume that you are not using that very soon ended IIS webclass VB6,
that is rarely used).

This is by the way in my opinion not a few months job.

Cor

 

[SP]

Thanks for your comments. Sorry I didn't explain my scenario well enough
about going online. What I have is an application which I designed using
VB6.0 . Currently its just a standalone application with no network
connectivity and is using a local Microsoft Access database. Within next
few
months, my client wants the exact replica of this application to be
available
on his website. That way, his customers can just go online to his website,
log in and use the application from a browser. This way all the
information
will be saved on a centrally located server and will be easy to backup and
update.

Right now, I am not even a rookie when it comes to .NET. I do not even
have
acess to .NET. But by doing some research I found out that the
applications
designed using VB.NET can be easily put online. I just wanted to know how
true this statement is.

Without knowing how sophisticated the current application is it is hard to
tell how long it would take. For someone that already knows VB.Net, has
created web applications and has a code base to refer to from previous
projects then a few months might be feasible if the application is
essentially a data entry type program. Generally a web based application can
take 2 to 4 times as long to create than the equivalent WinForms application
but as a "rookie" there are also the following issues that could increase
the time further:

You are new to .Net
You have not created a web application before so you are not used to the web
model and client side/ server side design considerations
You will probably want to use SQL Server as the database not Access

I would say 2 months to get used to eveything and do some prototyping and
multiply the number of months it took you to write the VB6 program by 2 and
add it all together.

My first web application was "estimated" by the project manager to be
between 3 to 5 months work (he came from a VB background like yourself).
After one year they needed to hire a second programmer because it was not
moving as fast as they thought it would. When I took the job I had just
completed an equivalent style software in VB.Net in about 3 months so I
thought 3 to 5 months seemed reasonable too for the first couple of weeks!!!

Regards,

SP