I hate VB .net

[MKing]

Is it just me, or are there any other VB programmers out there who just can't get there head round this new VB/C thing called VB.NET?

[Thinker]

You have come to the wrong place to complain about .Net. It is

a serious improvement over any earlier version of VB. There

are pieces still missing, but it can only make good programmers

better (while making bad ones worse).

[wyrd]

Those who have not programmed in a pure OO language before (ie; Java) may find the sort of flexibility .NET offers a bit overwhelming at first and even frustrating at times because it works so differently then previous versions. You really have to change your whole way of thinking when it comes to OO programming compared to linear programming that VB6 pretty much offered. To be honest I was about to give up on VB until I got .NET. I was unpleased about the way VB handled OOP, especially since it was very slow.

 

.NET just offers way more flexibility, speed, scalability and RAD options. VB is finally a real programming language that can compete with C++ in a serious way. Not to mention that it's probably going to kill Java (it may take a few years, but I can see it coming).

[divil]

Microsoft knew when they made the decision to go the whole way with VB.NET that some less competant programmers would be left wondering what on earth was going on. It takes even the best programmers a while to get their heads around the different mindset that is VB.NET, but once you have you will see just how good it is.

 

Complaining about it here won't do you any good, however. Microsoft have said they'll support VB6 until 2008 so it looks like you have plenty of time to learn.

[Volte]

VB.NET took me about half-an-hour to pick up. Seriously. The concept

is really not that hard, if you understand VB6. If you don't understand VB6,

it will take you a bit longer, but is still an excellent place to start learning

the OOP concepts and stuff.

 

I felt the same way as you at one point, but once I actually tried

learning it, it came to me quite easily. The MSDN system is great,

as is the new highly-documented intellisense system.

[Robby]

I'm with Volte, I felt like a total newbie the first couple of days, then I started with a few walkthroughs, and well I really don't want to go back to VB6.

 

BTW, I'm also loving C#.

[Guest wild wolf]

hello,

 

Take this from a java freak, after i learned the power of C#.NET, i stopped working on java coz it offered me everything i liked about java and it made my work much faster. i converted all my codes to C#.net

 

asrar

[Neil Fallon]

hello,

 

Take this from a java freak, after i learned the power of C#.NET, i stopped working on java coz it offered me everything i liked about java and it made my work much faster. i converted all my codes to C#.net

 

asrar

 

C# was written for Java developers in an effort to get them to move from Java to a Microsoft product. After Microsoft lost the Sun suit they didn't have a choice but to come out with a language that was similar to Java. C# applications are also compiling on Linux under Mono. That is the major step (cross platform programming) that had to happen for Java developers to make the switch.

[Neil Fallon]

You have come to the wrong place to complain about .Net. It is

a serious improvement over any earlier version of VB. There

are pieces still missing, but it can only make good programmers

better (while making bad ones worse).

 

Actually, I think anything to do with vb.net (good or bad) should be heard. If it's a VB developer having problems and venting then there shouldn't be any restrictions on them doing it in the Random Thoughts forum. Isn't this section here for peoples thoughts on VB.NET or just for the good thoughts?

[Derek Stone]

there shouldn't be any restrictions

I don't see anyone telling him he can't express his opinion, however his argument is slim to nothing.

[MKing]

I am sorry that the argument has so far been too slim!

 

The problem is that VB.NET is a product that is so far removed from the previous versions of VB that it is hardly fair to use the VB name at all.

 

It is however much closer to C or Java. I can understand why so many people believe this is a good thing. If you are a developer who has used a range of languages then VB.NET probably feels like a very comfortable language to use. However, if you have only used VB then VB.NET is a mamoth departure from traditional VB.

 

Many of the new concepts are very strange. Up to Vb.NET we were told by Microsoft not to bind data to forms as this was inflexible and innefficient. Now they are saying that binding data to controls is the best/only way to display it. I find this really incredible and totally unrealistic. Maybe in the sample applications or very simple projects it is feasible to bind data to controls, but in real world complex apps this is totally unacceptable.

 

ADO.NET is another example of where something changes totally, but by keeping the same name Microsoft pretends it is the same thing!

 

Ruby forms were great! they were flexible enough to do everything I ever required of them. They could act as a nice simple form object, or as a class when required. We seem to have lost a lot of usability by going to Win Forms, but gained very little.

 

My basic gripe is this; In an attempt to make it easyer for VB programmers to do web development, and in making VB a 'first class' language, Microsoft have removed all that made VB great in the first place. Its simplicity and usability are gone.

 

Customers do not care how good we are at programming, what they want to know is does the application deliver what they want on time and every time. With VB6 we could do that with .net we cannot.

[Volte]

None of these concepts are "new" at all (at least not most of

them.) They have all been around in C++ for a very long time, VB.NET

has just integrated them very deeply into the framework.

 

ADO.NET and ADO are not the same thing, nor do they have the

same name. BASIC and Visual Basic are not the same thing, yet

they share a similar name, and the same goes with VB and VB.NET.

 

We have lost no functionality with going to WinForms; we have

gained an absolutely insane amount. You can do 10x what you

used to be able to do with forms now; Forms in VB weren't classes

in VB's eyes, so they were hardly expandable at all. In the case of

VB.NET's eyes, every object is a class making it very expandable

indeed.

 

One point I do agree with is that VB's simplicity is gone. But the usability

is still there; you just have to know the language. With VB6, any

newbie programmer could sit down and make a pseudo-decent

program (albeit probably filled with redundant code and broken

coding standards), but with VB.NET you have to learn and

understand the language in order to get the most out of it.

Complaining that VB.NET isn't good because it takes a little bit of

effort isn't a strong argument at all.

 

As for your last point.... you're..... well.... wrong. VB.NET makes development

much faster. With the new OOP style of VB, you can do what

you need to do in a much shorter time than with VB6. You

just need to know how to do it. Just take a look at C++, the most

popular language for large-scale apps; you think it's easy making

programs like Word or Adobe Photoshop in C++? A program like

Photoahop would be unthinkable in VB6, but attainable in VB.NET.

 

You just have to put some effort into it.

[Robby]

The problem is that VB.NET is a product that is so far removed from the previous versions of VB that it is hardly fair to use the VB

name at all.

A couple of years ago I read the White Paper that MS released, and yes, I agreed with that statement. I was under the impression that they kept the name just to entice VBers to pickup this new language. If they named it something else, how many of us would've jumped on it.

 

Well I picked it up earlier this year, and I haven't looked back since. Ok I have a used Java and C++ many years ago but never professionally and nothing I can remember.

Ruby forms were great!

I don't know what that is.

My basic gripe is this; In an attempt to make it easier for VB programmers to do web development, and in making VB a 'first class' language, Microsoft have removed all that made VB great in the first place. Its simplicity and usability are gone.

I find ASP.NET the easiest thing, I re-code my entire web-site last week. It took less than a week, I made one aspx page and one vb class. The classic ASP version took a month, it had 20 asp files and 20 html files.

Customers do not care how good we are at programming, what they want to know is does the application deliver what they want on time and every time. With VB6 we could do that with .net we cannot.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find it easier and faster as I do.

[MKing]

I am sure you are right to say that these new concepts have been around in C for a long time. That is what made C so good. It is also quite possible that the reason VB was so good was that it did not have to deal with some of these concepts.

 

One of the most amazing things about VB3/4/5 and 6 (probably 1 and 2 as well, but I never used them) was that it was very simple to learn and new programmers could write useful programs very quickly. This importance of this strength should not be underestimated. It is unlikeley that VB would have been any kind of success if it had not been to simple to use.

 

I am probably expecting too much to think that an experienced vb programmer could start writing production code in .net straight away. I am however, quite worried about the number of bad reports of the current training being offered. I cannot currently see any reason to move to this platform. The investment in retraining would be huge, and I cannot see where any productivity gain is likley to come from.

[Volte]

One of the most amazing things about VB3/4/5 and 6 (probably 1 and 2 as well, but I never used them) was that it was very simple to learn and new programmers could write useful programs very quickly. This importance of this strength should not be underestimated. It is unlikeley that VB would have been any kind of success if it had not been to simple to use.

This isn't necessarily a good thing. It's because of its simplicity and

ease of use that it is widely considered a "newbie language". Of

course, the people that call it that are obviously uninformed, they

do have a point that it is a very beginner-like language.

 

I am probably expecting too much to think that an experienced vb programmer could start writing production code in .net straight away. I am however, quite worried about the number of bad reports of the current training being offered. I cannot currently see any reason to move to this platform. The investment in retraining would be huge, and I cannot see where any productivity gain is likley to come from.

It took me less than half-an-hour to learn the concepts of .NET, being an

experienced VB6 programmer. It may be a bit advanced for the rookie

programmers, but it's still an excellent place to start. If it's business

you are concerned about, then you do have a point. The time may

not be right to switch now, because of the lack of experienced .NET

programmers. If the system that you have now with VB6 works, there's

no point switching. But that's no to say that you shouldn't still

persue .NET; it'll get more popular very fast.

[Answer]

i have to say that at first i was VERY reluctant to move to .net. Infact i hated .NET. But due to advice from the forum i bought a book and read 2 chapters out of the book, and now i LOVE .net.

 

I will never go back. :)

[divil]

Humans, by nature, have a tendancy to oppose change. When I began to see how much I'd have to re-learn, I was skeptical too, it's just natural. Everyone is different, but I like to plunge in headfirst with a big project and then be forced to learn it all as I go through.

 

I find some people's biggest hurdles with learning .NET is trying to do things the way they would in VB6, whereas there are now developments which make it either totally different, or even totally unnecessary to write the same code.

[Iceplug]

I recently downloaded and installed the .NET on my computer... I have so far learned everything that I ever knew in QBasic in terms of VB.Net & C##. Now, I have to search for the other concepts that I've been missing. It's quite fun... I love .NET programs...

* Iceplug hugs his version of .NET

[John]

C# was written for Java developers in an effort to get them to move from Java to a Microsoft product. After Microsoft lost the Sun suit they didn't have a choice but to come out with a language that was similar to Java. C# applications are also compiling on Linux under Mono. That is the major step (cross platform programming) that had to happen for Java developers to make the switch.

 

Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that is what J# was for. I also thought from reading about C# in a word document downlaoded from Microsoft (whish is actually from 2000 so may be outdated) that C# is a kind of .NET replacement for C/C++ with the development speed of Visual Basic. Meaning that C# would be the succesor to C++ (in .NET terms anyway). Although I do know how similar Java is to C/C++, I think it is a little bit of stretch say that C# was written for Java developers.

 

Here is the starting part of this document:

From Microsoft's C# docs

C# is a simple, modern, object oriented, and type-safe programming language derived from C and C++. C# (pronounced �C sharp�) is firmly planted in the C and C++ family tree of languages, and will immediately be familiar to C and C++ programmers. C# aims to combine the high productivity of Visual Basic and the raw power of C++.

 

C# is provided as a part of Microsoft Visual Studio 7.0. In addition to C#, Visual Studio supports Visual Basic, Visual C++, and the scripting languages VBScript and JScript. All of these languages provide access to the Next Generation Windows Services (NWGS) platform, which includes a common execution engine and a rich class library. The .NET software development kit defines a "Common Language Subset" (CLS), a sort of lingua franca that ensures seamless interoperability between CLS-compliant languages and class libraries. For C# developers, this means that even though C# is a new language, it has complete access to the same rich class libraries that are used by seasoned tools such as Visual Basic and Visual C++. C# itself does not include a class library.

 

[edit]Added links[/edit]

Microsoft's C# Overview, Microsoft's J# Overview

 

Orbity

Edited December 21, 2002 by John

[Thinker]

No, the focus has changed since the release of J#, but C# isn't

a replacement for C++. They wouldn't have gone to all the

trouble to upgrade C++ for managed code. C# is still the main

focus, J# is to make it easier for Java and especially J++ users to

make the transition.

[John]

No, the focus has changed since the release of J#, but C# isn't

a replacement for C++. They wouldn't have gone to all the

trouble to upgrade C++ for managed code. C# is still the main

focus, J# is to make it easier for Java and especially J++ users to

make the transition.

 

Thanks Thinker. I know that C# isn't a replacement for C++, what I'm trying to say is that from what I have seen in C# it seems to be like C++ in many ways but makes development quicker.

 

For fear of sticking my foot in mouth I'll just stop there :D

 

Orbity

[Tribalx]

This is a cool-sucky thing VB is

 

What sucks for me about the whole VB .Net thing is the fact that I find myself wandering back and forth between VB .Net and Visual Basic 6 and getting nothing done. Don�t get me wrong I�m really like VB .Net it�s just I�m lazy and don�t want to code my own auto redraw to persist graphics. Then there is VB6 love it but it�s weak without populating it with workarounds but there is a power to it that attracts programmers I think. I don�t care how I program, how good I am at it, or what language I use as long the end product comes out working excellent and I certainly am not in competition with anyone. But I think that Microsoft could have found a way to preserve some of the features VB6 has

And VB .Net lacks. Like I said to my wife after working with VB .Net for one week.

�Man leave it up to MS to give me some really cool stuff and then take away all that was already cool�. Well, I hope soon I can produce my first release in VB .Net soon but so far as of yet I�m still banging away at VB6 and playing with VB .Net.

[Volte]

Lazy programmers are not good programmers. There are no "features"

of VB6 that are not in VB.NET, although they may have taken out some

less-functional, dumbed-down-for-the-lazy-programmer elements.

Everything that you need to create just about anything you need

is in VB.NET. They really haven't taken away anything.

[divil]

Adjusting mindsets to the newer ways of doing things can be difficult at first. For some things, you have to completely forget about any techniques you might have picked up in VB6.

 

For instance, you have access to the whole of GDI+ through a great system of managed classes, not least of which is the ability to create resolution-independant bitmaps and draw on them, blt them around and change their properties. And you complain about not having AutoRedraw :)

[Iceplug]

Wow... that post count seems to suit you, 'divil'. :D

 

I find myself wandering back and forth between VB .Net and Visual Basic 6 and getting nothing done

That usually happens when you learn any new language with knowledge... when I learned C, it took a while to remember to put semicolons after every line. ;)