Help me before I take the VB.Net plunge???

[Alan Mailer]

I'm thinking about FINALLY making the transition from VB6 to VB.net.
A couple of questions first:

1) Is VB.net 2003 the latest edition? If so, are there any rumors
that a newer version will be available shortly?

2) Does VB.net still not allow you to alter code while a program is
'running'. In VB6 you could set a breakpoint, hit it, and then
actually re-write code on the fly. My limited experience with VB.net
2002 was that you could NOT do this. Has this changed? If not, how
have you VB.net fans gotten around this?

Thanks in advance for any feedback you'd care to share!

 

[Sean Hederman]

I'm thinking about FINALLY making the transition from VB6 to VB.net.
A couple of questions first:

1) Is VB.net 2003 the latest edition? If so, are there any rumors
that a newer version will be available shortly?

It is the latest version, and a new one should be coming out this year
(touch wood).

2) Does VB.net still not allow you to alter code while a program is
'running'. In VB6 you could set a breakpoint, hit it, and then
actually re-write code on the fly. My limited experience with VB.net
2002 was that you could NOT do this. Has this changed? If not, how
have you VB.net fans gotten around this?

Nope it still doesn't have Edit & Continue, although this is coming back in
the next version. I got around it by getting more careful with my coding,
and heavy use of Debug.WriteLine

 

[Peter van der Goes]

I'm thinking about FINALLY making the transition from VB6 to VB.net.
A couple of questions first:

1) Is VB.net 2003 the latest edition? If so, are there any rumors
that a newer version will be available shortly?

2) Does VB.net still not allow you to alter code while a program is
'running'. In VB6 you could set a breakpoint, hit it, and then
actually re-write code on the fly. My limited experience with VB.net
2002 was that you could NOT do this. Has this changed? If not, how
have you VB.net fans gotten around this?

Thanks in advance for any feedback you'd care to share!

First, you should take the plunge, IMHO, despite any temporary
inconveniences (see below).
To address your questions:
1. 2003 is the latest *production* version, but freely downloadable betas of
Visual Studio 2005 and related products are available here:

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/default.aspx

My best guess for 2005 release is ~ September 2005.

2. 2003 works as you describe 2002. VB in VS 2005 (Beta), however, does
allow code changes while debugging.

So, go for it!

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

I'm thinking about FINALLY making the transition from VB6 to VB.net.
A couple of questions first:

1) Is VB.net 2003 the latest edition?
Yes.

If so, are there any rumors
that a newer version will be available shortly?

About 6 months is the general guess - probably second half of 2005,
anyway.

2) Does VB.net still not allow you to alter code while a program is
'running'. In VB6 you could set a breakpoint, hit it, and then
actually re-write code on the fly. My limited experience with VB.net
2002 was that you could NOT do this. Has this changed? If not, how
have you VB.net fans gotten around this?

I would hope they've gotten around this by debugging in a more stable
fashion - writing unit tests, etc. That way there's less guesswork
involved, IMO. (As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of edit and
continue.)

However, E&C will be available in VS2005.

 

[Guest]

Hello and welcome to .Net world.

I believe transitioning from VB to VB.Net should be less painful than to C#.

1) And the rumours are based on true fact that Whidbey the new .Net version
is around the corner(But nobody knows except very few privileged how far is
the curve of the corner!!!)

2) Yes. you cannot do on the fly changes while in debugging mode. You might
be surprised by this as an earlier version had this facility while a later
version do not.

It all goes back to the technology behind .Net. Since the IL is generated
after compiling and since this IL code is what is running, when we change
code in middle of debug, a new IL need to generated on the fly and this is
not possible as the IL is already loaded in memory and running and so you
cannot replace with new IL

Thats the reason we cannot change code and run it on the fly.

There is NO workaround for this at the moment.