VB.net has no benefit of VB6.
It allows me to program .Net in a case insensitive language that
doesn't use "{" "}" as block delimeters or ";" as statement terminator.
=)
VB 2005 won me over also-- for a couple of months.
when I realized that I couldnt' deliver projects in the same ballpark
as VB6; i fell off the wagon.
yes; it has some nice features.
but I don't see any compelling reason to buy into MS .Net strategy.
The only benefit is that you're tied to Windows.
*I am* tied to Windows, all right -- at least here, at my job. VB.Net
is clumsy, the compiler is slow, edit n' continue is ridiculous
(compared to what VB.classic provided), but, on the other side, I have:
a) A powerfull object oriented language. Inheritance rulez, I'd say, if
I was not this old. This alone would have been a reason to migrate to
VB.Net if it wasn't for the childish approach to naming the related
keywords... I hate the "MustInherit", "NotInheritable", etc
mambo-jambo. I'd really prefer the "official" terms, such as
"Abstract", "Final", "Virtual", etc. I guess the actual creators of
those abominations regret them now, but then, again, shite happens.
b) Generics. This is really great, and -- having some experience with
C++ -- something that I really missed. All that copy pasted code in
collection classes, argh... When VB.Net addopted generics, I knew it
would be hard not to try the language.
c) Multithreading. Not having to use DoEvents, PeekMessage and company
to keep the impression that the UI is alive while a lengthy operation
is going on -- and most of the things I must accomplish with coding are
lengthy opperations -- boy, that is liberating...
d) Delegates. Even though I allways preffered VB, I didn't refrain from
activelly using other languages -- mostly Delphi (because -- Turbo --
Pascal was my second language), and C++. The possibility allowed by
function pointers that these languages provided was something the VB
programmer in me allways envied. Not anymore. =))
Yes, there are inconsistencies in VB.Net that make me shiver whenever I
stumble on them -- and they're all over the place -- but I still prefer
this mutant -- and more powerfull -- language than any of the
alternatives presented so far: Delphi.Net, C#, managed C++, J#, Java,
IronPython, Ruby, PHP.Net, Boo, F# (m.f.g., when the "#" trend will
end?)
<snip>
I *use* PHP, thank you. wamp really rocks. But notice that I started
using PHP for web apps much before .Net and AspX. The out-of-the-box
experience of creating an ASP site doesn't come near to what
Dreamweaver + PHP + MySQL + Apache provide. Notice also that I still
didn't -- nor am intending to -- try AspX. But if the necessity
arrives, who knows?
Regards, and have fun.
Branco.
