If you're one of the many who have VB6 code, you have three basic options:
stay with VB6, convert to .NET, or rewrite from scratch. In this article, we
will look at converting VB6 code to VB.NET and C#. I'll discuss when it makes
sense to convert versus staying with VB6 or rewriting from scratch. I will
cover what converts well and what does not, different ways to do the
conversion, how to get code ready to convert, and handling issues after the
conversion.
Executive Overview
First, let's get an executive-level overview of where VB6 and VB.NET are at
in their life cycles. Note that when I mention VB.NET in this article, I mean
all three versions (2002, 2003, 2005). When I talk about a specific version,
I will specify the version (such as VB.NET 2002). With the advances in VB.NET
2003, as well as its compatibility with VB.NET 2002, there is little reason
to migrate ... (more)
August was Mono's biggest news month ever: the Mono Project's sponsor,
Ximian, was bought by Novell, a draft road map to the version 1.0 release was
drawn, and Mono version 0.26 was released. In other news of open source,
DotGNU plans to release version 0.1 of Portable.NET at the end of September.
Novel Buys Ximian
When I heard the news, I sent Miguel a congratulatory e-mail; he replied that
it was fantastic news. Indeed, it does look like a fantastic merger. Novell
historically has not been a player in open source, but in the past year or so
has committed to open source. By porti... (more)
This is the third and final installment in a three-part series. In the first
installment (.NETDJ, Vol. 2, issue 9), I covered general conversion issues,
in the second installment (Vol. 2, issue 10), I finished general conversion
issues, and covered issues associated with database conversions. In this
final installment, I will cover ASP Web page conversions, converting to
VB.Net 2005, converting to C#, and finally, I will cover some arguments for
converting.
Converting ASP to ASP.NET
Converting from ASP to ASP.NET is probably the easiest of all .NET
conversions because ASP Web pa... (more)
Portable.NET
Portable.NET has released version 0.6.10. It has been three months since the
release of 0.6.8. Support for several OSs, including Solaris, HP-UX, BeOS,
and 64-bit CPUs, has improved, and a new CPU, CRIS (an embedded network CPU),
is now supported. Threading, sockets, marshalling, and XML navigation have
improved. XSharp has seen a lot of work, and JScript now has better sample
programs and improved math functions.
Much work was done on adding .NET 2.0 functions, including
security/cryptography and new classes for System.Windows.Forms, especially
VisualStyles. The cu... (more)
This column begins its fourth year. In the past I haven't done any
year-in-review articles mainly because there was always too much news. But
now that the Mono project is half-way through its fifth year and nears its
third major release, version 1.2, I think it's time to look back at some of
the major milestones that the project has passed, and mention a couple of
milestone that it should reach in the near future. I will start this month
with the Top 3 and then finish up next month.
Novell Buys Ximian
In October 2003 Novell bought Ximian. This was such a big boost for the Mono
p... (more)
Dennis Hayes is a programmer at Georgia Tech in Atlanta Georgia where he writes software for the Adult Cognition Lab in the Psychology Department. He has been involved with the Mono project for over six years, and has been writing the Monkey Business column for over five years.
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