What you think

[Stan Canepa]

I am looking for good documentation to help support rewriting a VB 6 app in
Dot Net. I looking for things like VB 6 being unsupported in March 2008,
general performance improvements, at what point will VB 6 just won't work on
the newest version of Windows. How good is the ajax functionality in 2005?
Can you make a rich UI web base without losing performance? Really anything
you can think of that can be used as a bullet point for moving existing apps
to DotNet. Any links to good articles related to this topic would also be
appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Mark Rae]

I am looking for good documentation to help support rewriting a VB 6 app in
Dot Net. I looking for things like VB 6 being unsupported in March 2008,
general performance improvements, at what point will VB 6 just won't work
on
the newest version of Windows. How good is the ajax functionality in 2005?
Can you make a rich UI web base without losing performance? Really
anything
you can think of that can be used as a bullet point for moving existing
apps
to DotNet. Any links to good articles related to this topic would also be
appreciated.

Having done more than a few ports of VB6 apps (and ASP / VBScript web apps)
to the Framework, I would strongly suggest you consider the following:

1) Don't let anyone tell you that VB.NET is the next version of VB6 - it
isn't, not even nearly. There are syntactical similarities - that's about as
far as it goes.

2) Under no circumstances attempt to use any sort of conversion utility to
magically turn your VB6 app into a .NET app.

3) Consider your VB6 app as merely a prototype, but take a step back and
consider how much of its functionality is still valid for your current
business requirements.

 

[Stan Canepa]

Thanks for the input. I thought it might help if I give a little more
details about what I am trying to do. I have very large VB 6 application
with several modules. And at some point we are going to have problems with
VB 6 apps not running are running proficiently on newer OS, and I will have
to do a rewrite. I am expecting the rewrite to take roughly 2 years, and
don't want to wait until I am forced to do it because of the time required
to do it.

So, I was looking for input as to why Dot Net is better. Some time frames of
when I might start having problems with the OS. Just opinions on when people
feel we may have problems finding VB 6 developers. I am basically looking to
put together case for the rewrite and a time frame as to when it should take
place, so that I can take it to the board for approval.

Thanks again

 

[Mark Rae]

Thanks for the input. I thought it might help if I give a little more
details about what I am trying to do. I have very large VB 6 application
with several modules. And at some point we are going to have problems with
VB 6 apps not running are running proficiently on newer OS, and I will
have
to do a rewrite. I am expecting the rewrite to take roughly 2 years, and
don't want to wait until I am forced to do it because of the time required
to do it.

So, I was looking for input as to why Dot Net is better. Some time frames
of
when I might start having problems with the OS. Just opinions on when
people
feel we may have problems finding VB 6 developers. I am basically looking
to
put together case for the rewrite and a time frame as to when it should
take
place, so that I can take it to the board for approval.

Ah right, well that's an easy one - do it now!

The longer you leave it, the worse it will get. If you really think it's
going to take you TWO YEARS to complete the work, you should also seriously
consider writing it as a 64-bit application - we already have 64-bit WinXP
and there will be a 64-bit version of Vista, but the OS after Vista will
almost certainly be only 64-bit...