Rather than commenting, I will forward some information I have received
recently.
>>
Dear Developer,
Microsoft has made an extraordinary concession to current customers by
reinstating a higher degree of backwards compatibility between VB.NET
and Visual Basic 6.0. We want to see what you think of the move, and of
dot-net in general. Take a few minutes to share your thoughts about the
next versions of Visual Basic, Visual Studio and the .NET platform in
a quick, simple, four question poll. We'll gather your results and post
the responses on the VBITS New York Web site next week.
Make your voice heard by visiting
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X13427
More information on the changes in the ongoing evolution of Visual
Studio.NET and the .NET platform in general will be available at VBITS
New York, June 20-23
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X13428
and VSLive! Orlando October 9-14
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X13429
Thanks for your input!
VSLive! Conference Team
<<
>>
MS Restores VB6 Functionality to VB.NET
Microsoft announced today that it's making changes to Visual Basic.NET
to make it more compatible with VB6. Details on the changes, outlined
below, will be presented at VBITS in Chicago and New York
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X11560
as well as VSLive! Orlando
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X11561
While VB.NET includes many features developers have long requested,
including inheritance, better threading, and structured error handling,
the new features come at the price of changes to VB's core syntax.
Given the tremendous pressure felt throughout Microsoft to ship .NET
Framework and Visual Studio.NET, making fundamental changes at this
point is a significant concession to core VB users.
These changes will all be implemented in the Visual Studio.NET Beta 2,
Ari Bixhorn, Microsoft Visual Basic Product Manager, informed VBITS and
VBPJ. Changes include:
*The Value of True: In VB6, when True is coerced to a signed integer,
the result is -1. For consistency with other .NET languages, VB.NET was
going to change the value of True to 1. Instead, it will be left at -1.
Note that when a True value is passed from VB.NET to other .NET
languages, it will be passed as 1.
*Behavior of Boolean Operators: Microsoft intended to change And, Or,
Not, and XOr to logical-instead of bitwise-operators, with new operators
taking over bitwise duties. These have been restored to their previous
functionality, both logical and bitwise, as has operator precedence. In
addition, a planned short-circuiting capability has been removed from
these operators, and has been reassigned to new operators: AndAlso and
OrElse.
*Declaring Arrays: For consistency with other languages, Microsoft
intended to change the way VB declared arrays, so that you would
specify the number of elements in the array: Dim a(10) As Integer would
create a ten-element array, with an upper bound of 9. This conflicts
with the VB style of declaring arrays, where Dim a(10) As Integer
creates an eleven-element array with an upper bound of 10. The
traditional declaration technique has been restored.
Says Bixhorn, "These changes are really for [developers] maintaining an
existing code base and doing new development. They want consistency.
They don't want to have to look at a line of code and have to remember
whether it's correct for .NET or VB6."
According to Bill Vaughn, President of Beta V Corporation and a keynote
speaker at this month's VBITS Chicago
http://www.devx.com/devxpress/gurl.asp?i=0X4305646X11562
"Microsoft is delivering a very powerful toolset in Visual Basic.NET.
By responding to feedback from the Visual Basic community, they will
provide a more seamless transition from programming in VB6 to Visual
Basic.NET."
<<
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Manuel de Aguiar
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 11:44 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Visual Basic V6.0 - .NET & R:BASE
Hello VB Experts,
Mr. Bob Powell's posting motivated me to ask those of you that work and have
invested a considerable amount of time with VB, about what the future holds.
I hear that the new VB.NET is not compatible with the last VB version. Its
incompatibility goes so far as to force developers to learn new and
different
ways in order to continue using this programming language.
Is this true? What is the point in spending a lot of time with VB6.0 if
only a
small portion of your code will be able to keep up with future VB versions?
Do you tell your customer that their applications are stuck on V6.0, doomed
to
obsolescense?
Tell me if I am way off base in my conclusions. I really think that the
ability to use RBase with VB is a powerful and very beneficial option. I am
concerned with MS's attitude of scrapping a platform with little concern
over
end users and individuals that make their livelihood with their product. I
am
very leery of using a product that can place my customers and myself in this
type of predicament.
TIA
Manuel
