RE: Why no serious MS Application in .NET yet ??

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From: CMM (CMM_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 03/04/05 

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:45:03 -0800

Having started with 16bit VB3 and having a C background before that, I can
empathize with you... but I completely disagree with almost everything you
state about .NET. VB6 experts (I am an expert) got almost everything
"advanced" thing done via hacks (subclassing, imitating threads). All that
stuff. Whenever I have to go back to VB6 to fix an old program I'm completely
lost. .NET is definately not a step backwards- the sorely missed
Edit-and-Continue notwithstanding.

Besides all the fantastic OOP stuff (which you won't miss unless you
understand how that stuff might benefit you) here are some things I have
grown to love about .NET.

1) The Hit-you-over-the-head Syntax Error message has been replaced with the
red squigglies. I LOVE that!
2) ALL my compile errors are shown in the Output and Task window... unlike
VB.Classic where you hit RUN, Bang- error, you the fix offending code, hit
RUN, error, fix error, .....
3) Subclassing is a joy to do. In fact, WndProc is built right in and easily
overridable.
4) "Subclassing" via Inheritance is joy. If a control doesn't do or look
exactly like you want it... inherit from it and just override the method you
want to change (OnPaint, OnMouseMove, whatever).
5) Data-binding was considered bad form and lazy... mainly because it didn't
work well in old VB. In .NET Data-binding is a joy to use... and extremely
powerful (once you understand the mysterious BindingContext stuff and such).
6) While I miss the classic B.A.S.I.C. drawing statements (more for
nostalgic reasons than anything else) the Drawing functions in .NET and sheer
perfection. You can literally create a brand new control yourself in pure
.NET code.
7) The IDE is fantastic and eons better than the VB6 IDE.

You don't like the the deeply nested object model and namespaces... Oh well.
Get a book. Learn how to use the Object Browser and MSDN.

P.S. We do however need Edit and Continue... badly... and true code
interpretation in Immediate Window during design mode would be nice too (I
should be able to type ? 2+2 in the Immediate Window during Design mode).

"Scott Pristel" wrote:

> I think there are a lot of reasons. Here are a couple.
>
> Real programmers that earn a living with their craft can't simply drop
> everything and relearn a completely new way of doing what they have been
> doing for years. Especially when the new way is a lot less efficient,
> needlessly complicated, cluttered and verbose. I'm guessing it takes a lot
> more time and effort to get the same results for the majority of users. And
> then it is more difficult to distribute since the end user needs the .Net
> framework installed prior.
>
> I started object oriented programming with Visual Basic 2 and before that on
> big DEC and IBM computers before PCs. It took me a year before I was
> comfortable with Windows object oriented programming but at least the basics
> were the same as traditional programming. This is NOT the case with .Net.
> Gone is everything remotely familiar. It took quite a few years and service
> packs for Visual Studio to get where it is now. Finally, now that we are
> proficient with Visual Studio 6, and can write and redistribute a program
> without too many problems, programmers are being asked to learn a completely
> new way of doing the same thing, with completely new syntax, a ton of goofy
> new constructs and serious constraints to deployment -- like having to have
> .NET installed on the end-user PC prior. Gone is being able to change things
> on the fly in immediate mode -- probably the nicest and most productive
> feature in Visual Basic. There are probably no serious apps in .Net because
> .Net programming is not nearly as efficient as programming in Visual Studio
> 6. It is very cumbersome and immature. In my opinion, .Net is a giant leap
> BACKWARDS compared to Visual Studio 6.

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