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Carl Edwards In SA wrote: Program-language snobs are something I cannot understand.
I understand your statement but there is a bit more to it that just that.
Older implementations can have other problems which management is unwilling to address. For example one often gets to the point that the only way you can find maintenance programmers is by finding someone who doesn't know anything about the older language and convince them that learning that language that is unlikely to be used elsewhere is going to be a good choice for them.
To be fair though I have seen a current trend where management has decided that micro-services can be written in any language and with any persisted data store which obviously completely ignores the longer term maintenance costs.
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It depends upon the business you're in. I designed/programmed firmware for telecom equipment (hardware on a 911 call takers desk). It had a minimum life time requirement of 10 years. Heck, one of our customers requested (and got) a firmware change to a product that was over 16 years old.
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Well, NOW would be a good choice. Oh, and moving to .NET 7 or 8 while you're at it.
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Start saving now and retire in 2034!
Yes, boss. All VB6 for all projects!
2 weeks of hand off should be plenty.
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A form is a form. VB6 is usually a (thin) front end to a client server system. No hurry given such a big window. Might even be premature; not knowing what's around the corner 2 - 5+ years in the future.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Now. Even VB.NET is a low priority. I would jump to C# and Dot Net 7.0+.
Graeme
"I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks one time, but I fear the man that has practiced one kick ten thousand times!" - Bruce Lee
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I think VB.Net has a different priority from C#. VB.Net's developers are trying to keep the language stable. C#'s developers continually add features. Their target development environment is different and language stability is important to the VB developers.
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Very recently Damian Edwards[^] was asked about bringing VB in line with ASP.Net MVC, and the response was there is no plan to do it. That is just one example.
Graeme
"I fear not the man who has practiced ten thousand kicks one time, but I fear the man that has practiced one kick ten thousand times!" - Bruce Lee
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Oh my, am I that old already...
I felt nostalgic a few weeks back and started up an old lappie of mine(showpiece on display now). Guess what I found - VB6 Enterprise was still installed, a major folder with many a project. Man, did I have fun for hours on end!
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Please recommend where to switch to. 
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Take your choice. Either C# or VB. Both have their pros and cons. VB might be easier to learn but C# will have more example code on the web for solutions.
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Honestly, can't answer that question without knowing more about the apps. Staying with .net, C# or VB won't make much difference but it's easier to find talent in C#.
But, is that the best solution? Don't know.
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Who knows, maybe by then tech buzzwords will make a full cycle, RAD becomes a thing again and VB7.0 will be released.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I do wonder whether this is in some way linked to VBA. If it is I assume that Microsoft probably don't want to break the back end of Excel. The fallout from that would be significant
It goes without saying
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Those who haven't switched yet are prolly not ever going to.
Personally, I stopped doing anything VB6 years ago and I'm not touching it again.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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A few things, among several, factor into that decision.
1 - MS has a history of bringing .NET changes to C# first, VB second. Bill Gates was the driving force behind keeping VB at equity with C#, and he is long gone.
2 - More .NET developers use C# than VB, so MS markets to the larger customer base first.
3 - VB easily converts to C# with tools that take VB to MSIL and the MSIL to C#.
4 - Too many classic VB programmers ignored MS in the late 90s to use VB6 for object oriented programming instead of the older procedural programming that became obsolete by the time VB5 came out. Converting/refactoring procedural VB6 to OO VB takes as much effort as converting/refactoring procedural VB6 to OO C#, so many chose the latter.
If your context is converting/refactoring VB6 to .NET, start now. There is so much more available in .NET 7 than there was in VB6. Refactoring will take time to make the business rules and UI implemented in VB6 to an efficient design in .NET.
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When to switch? I'd start now. Nothing ever goes as planned, so figuring things out now, well ahead of a complete drop in support, is the wiser choice.
I have no idea where the OP is in his career, but any newer language is a more marketable skill, so starting now also adds to the resume.
What to switch to?
I was a VB developer (among other languages) from 1993 to 2003. At that point there was still a lot of 3rd party support for VB6, but without MS support it was a dead language. Yeah, obviously as dead as COBOL, but as an IT consultant, I had to focus on marketable skills, and VB was no longer "it".
The obvious jump-to was VB.NET, but within a few months I formed the opinion that MS made VB.NET primarily to keep the VB5/6 developer base from jumping ship. VB.NET didn't get the same support and was not graining traction in market share.
Next I investigated C#, and that has been my primary platform since then. It's the MS flagship for programming languages, gets the support, and has a viable future. Market share of the tool matters greatly to ensure continued employment, and C# is ranked 5 or 6 in most surveys.
From the OP's POV? C# is going to be the easiest path. The environment is similar enough and C# has enough similarities in structure that the learning curve should not be too steep.
Jumping from procedural to OO can be a difficult jump. VB6 has some OO, and if the OP has been using classes, the leap may not be a long one.
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OOP's overrated  Seriously though, I use it where needed but depending on the desktop app and the object usage, procedural can be more efficient to build. Doing a complete from scratch rewrite, which these are, requires a ton of thought. I don't start by looking at code, I look at process and functionality. It's a good opportunity to really review processes in many cases.
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I agree with you regarding OOP -- it's A technique, not THE technique. C# is an OO language, so things are pushed in that direction.
Something people don't often consider is that forms are classes. Forms in VB 4-6 are instantiable objects. It doesn't matter that the word "class" isn't there -- it's not a requirement, just a common convention.
Re-writing an application from scratch is not a trivial thing. It can be rather expensive, and management often defers the task to avoid incurring what appears to be an unnecessary cost. Until replacement becomes a requirement, and things are crammed into production.
As the old saying goes, we don't have time to implement correctly, but we do have time to fix it in production.
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Very well said!
Years ago, when converting a VB6 app, one of my programmers told me I had too much code "behind the buttons". My reply was that sometimes a button click is just a button click. An extreme example, but goes to the "THE" mentality.
I don't know about all of you out there, but often times "agile" falls short of design flow. I'd call it more flux-rad. Easy to make the argument that OO is the way to go, but it takes some thought and a couple of lines of procedural code can be a better solution.
And, as you said, cost is very often a factor. The other old saying we use is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
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BryanFazekas wrote: I have no idea where the OP is in his career,
The OP (me) has about 40 years.
And I don't use any version of VB if I can avoid it. My choice is Java or C#.
I was just posting because I found the subject interesting.
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Regardless of the language(s) involved, application replacement is a good topic for discussion. As I said, management typically doesn't want to spend on re-developing an application when there is time, but freaks when there isn't time and they did nothing to help the situation.
A project I was on a while back was replacing an ancient application that relied on old tech. Everyone (customer, management, dev teams) dragged their feet on putting the new system in production, until key tech the old application required was dropping support. We completed the project in 3 months. It's amazing how a bit of heat, or maybe a raging bonfire, can motivate people. 
Personally, I'd have no problem developing in VB again. Prior to VB, I mostly used C and Hypercard (Mac folks may remember that one), and a handful of other languages. VB was fantastic for productivity in creating desktop applications, far better than anything on the market at that time. Honestly, it's better in that venue than anything I've worked with in the last 10 years.
When the only tool ya have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's the case for OO, Agile, RAD (yeah, I'm as old as the OP), and every other paradigm.
Before someone mentions "VB has GOTO" ... C# has GOTO and Java originally did (AFAIK, it's just a reserved word now). Bad code can be written in any language, and I've seen more in C# and Java than I have in VB.
A lot depends on one's POV. My job is not to write code. My job is to solve business problems, regardless of methodology or tools. Food for thought.
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I counted 16 replies to the question of wich I se only two that tried to seiously anwer. I this the normal level of seriousness in this forum?
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