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Forum Member
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 12/21/2011 11:40:16 AM
Posts: 70, Visits: 258 |
| | Sorry if this has been asked before, I did a search but I didn't get any hits. I've been using VB6.0 since 2002 and my computer is showing signs of crashing sometime soon. I've had it since 2005. Company still has a copy of VB6.0 but has lost the MSDN help files and samples disk. They list Studio 2005 on their catalog and my question is how much difference is there, how quickly can I adapt to the more recent version of the language? |
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| | | Forum Guru
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Last Login: 9/4/2010 3:34:47 PM
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 12/21/2011 11:40:16 AM
Posts: 70, Visits: 258 |
| | Thanks for your input. I got a similar response from one of our IT people. I have asked if the company has a MSDN Subscription. They are not a nickel n dime operation, but it won't surprise me to find out they don't. Oh well, I will get by somehow. I can get by without the help files I guess, but I am an old dog and not really ready to learn a lot of new tricks or rely on my memory, esp. when looking at some code I wrote a year ago... I just looked a short 2005 vb code sample and I see what you mean. |
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Forum God
Group: Moderators
Last Login: Yesterday @ 8:24:28 PM
Posts: 1,889, Visits: 5,255 |
| | As vb5prgrmr says VB6 and VB.Net are like chalk and cheese. If you don't have the MSDN help CD's then the closest you are going to get is the online MSDN which I don't find very useful. M$ used to have a link to download the sample files for all Visual Studio 6.0 but they have stopped that as they don't support it anymore. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AF0A6060-6566-408F-9F11-EA2C80B8CAA0&displaylang=en You can download MSDN but we can't talk out that on here. 
Keith
I've been programming with VB for 15 years. Started with VB4 16bit Pro, VB5 Pro, VB6 Pro/Enterprise and now VB3 Pro. But I'm no expert, I'm still learning.
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Forum God
Group: Moderators
Last Login: Yesterday @ 8:24:28 PM
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| | I downloaded Visual Studio 2008 Express a few years ago it was 950MB you can still download it but its only 746MB I don't know what is missing. If you want that one then download the - Offline Install ISO image file, click on Visual Studio 2008 Express. WinRAR will open ISO files but it doesn't find anything in that ISO. I use PowerISO and that will burn it to a DVD for you. It also comes with MSDN built in. Or you can download Visual Studio 2010 Express again download the ISO image so you can burn it to a DVD. Again this has MSDN built in and they are both free.
Keith
I've been programming with VB for 15 years. Started with VB4 16bit Pro, VB5 Pro, VB6 Pro/Enterprise and now VB3 Pro. But I'm no expert, I'm still learning.
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 12/21/2011 11:40:16 AM
Posts: 70, Visits: 258 |
| | Thanks Keithuk. I will check that out when I get home. I have submitted a request for the company to buy an MSDN Subscription on my behalf - we'll see what happens with that, too. I don't have the new computer yet but I do have a laptop that has VB6 loaded on it without the help files. Nice, huh? |
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| | | Forum God
Group: Moderators
Last Login: 2 days ago @ 1:42:32 PM
Posts: 1,073, Visits: 9,408 |
| | If your company will let you move to .NET then go for it. If you have a strong VB background you will be able to do a lot of things in VB.NET without a whole lot of difficulties. And when you get stuck on, rest assured, there are a lot of exmples out there for you to work from. |
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Forum Member
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Last Login: 12/21/2011 11:40:16 AM
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| | Thanks Mark. I am downloading the visual studio 2008 express here at home and will give that a whirl. My programming is very specific and not internet or browser oriented; I primarily interface vb or excel vba with the SAP 7.2 software my company uses. I write vba macros for single shot functions my group (or other groups) perform daily and store them in an excel add-in so they have them all in one place on the menubar. For mass updates I compile .exe programs so I can run 2 sessions of SAP and the vb program at the same time on each machine. It doesn't double the efficiency but I often achieve about 150% increase, depending on the complexity of the update. |
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| | | Forum Guru
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 9/4/2010 3:34:47 PM
Posts: 167, Visits: 786 |
| | Well,... One of the best ways in which to deal with having to go back to old code is to comment, comment, comment your code. And seriously, I do mean going through your code three times to add comments to it. That way you will in the future be able to read not only what the following code does, whatever it is, but you will know your reasoning why you did it that way... And yes, I have been in the environment where you goto the emergency meeting, get the requirement, and in the 30 seconds or so it takes you to jot down, make mental note of how you are going to accomplish the task, and then spend the next hour or so coding it up (sometimes in 15 minutes or less  ) but once that is over, go back and comment your code. I believe someone once said that for every line of code there should be 3 lines of comments and while I don't necessarily follow that adage "for every line", I do have paragraphs here and there that explain the procedure. Then in other places I will have only 1 line of comment for up to 3 or 4 lines of code... for example 'set string variable with query, execute, and test Now, I figure that I don't need to supply the code for that comment, that is if you are familiar with querying databases but I hope you get the message of documenting your code thoroughly. Good Luck |
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Forum Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 12/21/2011 11:40:16 AM
Posts: 70, Visits: 258 |
| | Thanks vb5prgrmr, I do use comments, probably not as much as I should. I usually put a comment in before any particularly squirrelly or 'trick' piece of coding, and also I make a list of functions I expect the code to perform in the order they have to happen. I downloaded the vb2008 express last night here at home and did the example project (web browser). I'll continue to work with it here at home and see what happens at work. |
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