Re: VB6, VB2005, or Something Else?


Correction:

"the .NET platform is NOT good for shareware"

Saga



"Saga" <antiSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eT$4%23%23LOGHA.4052@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just to share...

I was hired in 2002 to maintain and develop new apps in VB6. The
company
where I am at has all their application code in VB6. Although I have
written
new apps, they use a certain amount of logic that already exists in
VB6 code
so all new devs have been made using this language.

The IS dept is considering VB2005 for this year, although I gather
that the
move will be sluggish at best. It is always pain to work with two dev
platforms, especially when code reuse is the soup da jour. At this
time, 4
years after I started here, the company can't move out of the VB6
platform
for the simple reason that the rewrite would be a herculean effort at
least.
In a time when resources are scarce (time/money) effciency is the key
point and doing a rewrite just to get back to square one is not a
feasible
option. The IS dept is aware though that VB6 has been phased out and
we need to move on.

I saw in your post that you referred to shareware.. I read somewhere
that the .NET platform is the good for shareware. Unfortunately, I
have
no first hand experience on this.

Regards,
Saga



"Anthony" <Anthony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:47D55D9C-1F71-4F4B-823C-7B9F0E3D7248@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am hoping this is a subject suitable for this newsgroup, since I
know it
can be a sensitive one. Hoping to avoid namecalling here, I have a
question
which I could really use some opinions on.

I work for a a small software company. Our entire application suite
is
written in Visual Studio 6 (primarily VB6). We looked at VB.NET when
it came
out, but decided against it because (1) our code wouldn't convert,
(2) the
framework seemed overly large for shareware downloads, (3) anyone
that wanted
to could decompile our code, and (4) the final application seemed
very
sluggish (slow) compared to a vb6 app. Seemed to us the .NET
framework was
great for corporations, but not so great for small companies selling
software.

Now VB 2005 is out, we have looked at it, and it has some nice new
stuff,
but still suffers from the same items above.

We now know that Vista will support VB6 apps (good news of course).
This
buys us 6 or so years to start a long-term migration to another
coding
platform. Our dilema is whether or not we should keep coding in VB6
from this
point foreward. We wonder if Microsoft will somehow purposely kill
the
functionality of the VB6 runtime in the os after Vista. Should we
hold out
hope that some company will save the day and revive VB6? What is
their
history of supporting the VB 1,2,3,4 and 5 runtimes?

If we SHOULD NOT continue with VB6, should we consider moving to VB
2005? I
personally hesitate to move there based on the issues above. What
else is a
viable option? C++? Java? Delphi? It would take us 2 years to just
get our
apps into a new system (and thats just maintaining what they already
do - not
really upgrading any functionality - essentially 2 years to get back
to
square one). If we are going to make a move, I don't want to EVER
have to do
this again. I hesitate to go to a microsoft platform in fear they
will pull
the rug like they did with VB6.

Anybody facing the same dilema? Any food for thought?

Thanks -







.

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