Crossroads for VB6 Users

Computerworld - Christopher Pesola was so eager to see how well the upgrade wizard Microsoft Corp. supplied would migrate Visual Basic 6 applications to its new .Net development environment that he tried a beta release in early 2002.
Pesola, associate director of application services at Learning Care Group Inc., would eventually learn that the tool could convert 75% to 80% of the VB6 code in the Novi, Mich.-based company's lightweight applications -- those with fewer than 1,500 lines of code. But it would fare much worse with the major VB6 application that its 470 day-care centers use to run their operations, migrating just 20% of the code.
"That just wasn't worth it for us," Pesola says.
Increasing numbers of IT shops are confronting the decision of whether to modernize their aging VB6 code. In some cases, that's because Microsoft ended the free mainstream-support phase for its VB6 tool as of March 31. Over 7,000 people -- including more than 250 Most Valuable Professionals that Microsoft has honored for their contributions to technical communities -- have signed an online petition since March to urge Microsoft to continue to support, develop and update the core VB language.
The uproar, at least in part, stems from the substantial changes between the old and new VB development environments. VB.Net makes use of a different runtime, different class libraries and a different object model. And developers often face a moderate-to-steep learning curve to master the .Net Framework and shift to the object-oriented programming model that will enable them to reap the full benefits of the new environment.
Microsoft has shown no signs of caving to the demands of the protesters, maintaining that they represent a minority of the millions of VB developers. More users prefer the new tools, especially for building Web-based applications, the company says. Nonetheless, Microsoft has pledged to improve its migration tools and the interoperability between VB6 and VB.Net, which will be called VB 2005 with the next release, due in November.
Companies will continue to weigh their various options in the interim. They can run their VB6 applications until they lose their usefulness. They can use the .Net upgrade wizard and rewrite code that does not automatically convert. They can migrate parts of an application to .Net and leave parts in VB6. They can rewrite an application in VB.Net or another language, such as C# or Java. Or they can replace it.
Microsoft says an IT shop is likely to try each of those approaches at one time or another, with the decision