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A Brief History of VB

The history of Visual Basic stretches back to the late 1980s when Alan Cooper developed a drag and drop design tool called Tripod. This was subsequently linked up to the Basic programming language, further developed by Microsoft and released in 1991 as Visual Basic. VB was developed through the ‘90s and a version of VB called Visual Basic For Applications (VBA) was to become the ‘built-in’ programming language for Microsoft Office. The final release of the Win32 Visual Basic product line was Visual Basic 6 which was released in 1998. A new flavour of VB for the .NET Framework, VB.NET, was launched in 2002. This is an object oriented language which is substantially different from previous releases of VB. While many people argue that the language provides a long-overdue overhaul of Visual Basic, it lacks (in spite of, or thanks to, an inadequate ‘migration wizard’) an easy migration path for existing VB projects. In March 2005, Microsoft ended standard support for VB6. Extended (paid for) support will end in March 2008. That means that, from March 2008 onwards, VB6 will no longer be supported at all by Microsoft. More detailed information can be found here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/support/vb6.aspx.
A campaign for continued support of ‘classic’ VB was launched by long-time users but Microsoft has not responded positively to this.

What are the options for developers who are currently coding in VB6?

- Sign the ClassicVB petition to save VB and hope Microsoft relents
- Convert your code with help from Microsoft’s VBRun Resource Centre
- Bite the bullet. Rewrite your code from the ground up in VB .NET
- Switch to another .NET language such as Microsoft’s C#?
- Adopt a different solution such as IBM Workplace Designer
- Use a VB-like language such as REALbasic (with a VB conversion tool)
- Recode in Borland’s Delphi which continues to support Win32 and .NET
- Convert code to Delphi using Delux Software’s migration tool
- Cross your fingers, carry on using VB6 and hope for the best

What plans should you be making for future program development?

Here are some comments from some of the movers, shakers and VB users on the way forward for VB6 developers

"With the recent announcement that Microsoft is dropping support of Visual Basic 6 and moving it to .Net, the VB community is faced with a choice. If they want to move to a scripting environment that will support J2EE, this [IBM Workplace Designer] would be a seamless move for them."
Dirk Nicol, program director of IBM Workplace Application Platform on IBM Workplace Designer
IBM - makers of Workplace Designer (among other things) http://www.ibm.com

“The REALbasic language is very similar to Visual Basic, so porting your applications will likely be a straightforward process. REAL Software provides a Visual Basic Project Converter that will assist you in the process. Most developers find that their projects port in hours or days, rather than the weeks or months required in other environments.”
REALbasic - an alternative Basic for VB users? http://www.realbasic.com

“The decisions of if, how, and when to migrate code to .NET should lie with the customer. Some may choose to remain with unmanaged VB, especially for legacy code bases. Some will use only VB.NET, others a mix. A future version of VB6/VBA should treat all these options as valid, while making it easy to move among them.”
ClassicVB.org - campaigning for traditional VB http://classicvb.org/petition/

“If you’re willing to spend a little bit of time with VB .NET, Stay the Path can show you how to use your existing VB6 expertise to really take advantage of VB .NET.”
Microsoft’s VB6 Resource Centre hosted by VB Product Manager, Jay Roxe http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbrun/default.aspx

“Recently Microsoft announced that they weren't going to do any more work on VB 6 or beyond for Win32. That really everybody should develop to .NET. That's their decision to tell their customers. What we're telling developers is, you can still use Win32 development and .NET development at the same time. That we know the reality is developers and users are going to be using native code and managed code for many years to come.”
Borland’s VP of Developer Relations, David Intersimone, in a video interview with Bitwise http://www.borland.com