load of tosh

Edit-n-Continue will be back later. Quite honestly, once you get used to not having it, it's not that bad, although once I get used to having it again, I'm sure I won't be able to go back.

Basically, coming from VB6 myself, you just get a lot better feeling about what you're doing and have a much more stable and expandable product in the end, than if you were still in VB6. As for switching to C# instead of VB.NET...feel free, but feel free to be a lot less productive! ;) Speaking of productive, that's another good point. You can get a whole lot more done a lot faster and more efficiently (and with "cleaner") code in VB.NET than in VB6.

It's hard to explain though...switching is one of those things where it's hard to actually tell someone why they should switch, but you know you could never ever go back from already being there because it's so great!

I'm not so much a "VB Guy," but my introduction to .NET was VB6 --> VB.NET.

The thing that got me to make the switch was a simple walk through the .NET framework docs. When I saw what could be done in .NET without having to resort to Win32 muck, I got chills up and down my spine.

That, and explain .NET deployment to the guy. If he understood how much easier it is to deploy a .NET app than a VB6 app, it might be reason enough to make the switch.

If he's doing any ASP/COM stuff, then you ought to explain the whole DLL shadowing business to him so that he understands how incredibly easy it is to update an ASP.NET site versus a traditional ASP/COM site.

If he's ever done any embedded development, then show him the compact framework, and how much easier it is to use than eVC/eVB. For me, the CF alone was worth the cost of entry.

If none of this works, then good old-fashioned "You'll be left behind and forgotten" tactics might be in order.

One more thing - As long as chooses to avoid it, there's no reason to engage in any of the VB6 "I'm procedural - No, wait! - I'm object-oriented" mucky-muck.

He might not believe you, but one of the nicest differences between VB6 and VB.NET is that VB.NET doesn't *have* to feel like a weird hybrid procedural/OO language (like Python 1.x vs 2.x).

Nothing like a FileStream to take the place of "Open "blah.txt" For Input as #1" garbage.

VB6's weird procedural hang-ups were one of its most irritating qualities. Things that should never have made it into MS BASIC v1.0 were still found in VB6.

The world is a much better place now.

Multitasking without having to buy unreliable add-ons? Console apps without having to buy unreliable third party add-ons? Visual inherritance?

Things in VB.NET that is better that C# for a VB6 developer...

1. Case Insensitive
2. No braces
3. I am used to typing endif and have the editor make it End If....

There are too many of these small things that we VBers are used to and that VB.NET has and C# does'nt.

As a VB6 developer, I actually started my .Net path with C#. I loved it very much. Then I "discovered" VB.Net all over again. It was a great feeling. I think doing C# before VB.net allowed me to clear some of the "garbage" away in how I worked. The "old ways" are too tempting if you do streight up VB.Net right after vb6. However, once you get the feel for .net through C#, VB.Net looks a hell of a lot better. Let your friend try out C# first. They'll come begging for VB.Net soon :)

Roy, I went straight from VB6 to VB.NET with no problems and none of the "old crappy ways" stuck. Then again, that's probably because I did C++ before VB6 ;)

fwiw, edit and continue coming to a computer near you in 2004: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/roadmap.aspx#whidbey

Don XML just put up a post your friend might want to read: http://weblogs.asp.net/donxml/posts/21904.aspx - Don argues a bit against the need for edit and continue.

Nice feedback, guys. I sent my buddy the permalink. Thx.