Visual Basic 6: Alive and Kicking - Why VB6 is still alive today
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So here we find ourselves, back in the present day. It is almost midyear in 2007 as I'm writing this, five years since .NET appeared on the scene and many programmers flocked into Microsoft's waiting arms to embrace the new technologies.
So would it surprise you to find out that I, among countless others, with tools such as .NET at our fingertips, STILL choose to create applications in Visual Basic 6?
Some of you at this point might be asking why. Why would you be creating stuff in VB6, when you can just use VB.NET instead? Why use a development platform that hasn't seen an update in five years?
There are many possible reasons for this. I'll actually explain my main reason right now. It's the .NET framework.
I do a bit of consulting, both for web work as well as desktop application development. I have a good number of clients who need custom applications built for them to achieve some business purpose. Some of these might be something as simple as generating project quotes for their customers, or as complex as some sort of database for storing inventory or even customer information. But one thing my customers all have in common is that they are small companies and most of the applications I write for them are fairly narrow in scope. Many of my customers are running many computers, with operating systems ranging from Windows 98 (yikes, I know) to Windows Vista. Many of them only have a dial-up connection to the Internet, as well. So, without any consideration as to which platform my customers are running on, I know that any application download or update (including the VB6 runtime libraries) never exceeds 2 MB of download. I have several utilities I give away for free, and the downloads are all quite quick.
But consider what would happen if I were using VB.NET for these applications. Then I would require that all of my customers install the version of the .NET framework I used on their machines before I could even begin to try running my software. This immediately cuts the Windows 98 users from my prospective user base. Windows Vista users would be lucky, since they should have the current framework already pre-installed. For now, that is, until the next update.
Is that the only reason? No. There are many reasons, but the above is one of my strongest. To many, though, VB 6 is considered to be the last true version of Visual Basic. With VB.NET, the language underwent a huge change, the largest change since the original inception of the original BASIC language. Many VB purists still stick to VB 6 for this reason alone. To be honest, I find that just a tad silly myself, but everyone has their own reasons.
Do I use VB 6 for every project? Nope. I have a wide variety of choices for my projects, and yes, I concede I even use VB.NET when it is appropriate. But VB 6.0 is definitely still in my toolbox. If I need to create an application that VB6 would handle eloquently, I definitely don't hesitate to open the IDE and start developing. There is a still a need for VB6, and probably will be for some time to come.
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