Which software tools do I need for Visual Basic 6.0/8.0/9.0 programming?

Question

I am a new visual basic learner and I already have some difficulties in finding the proper software to start my first programs.

I will have to develop in vb6.0 and 8.0 (.net 2005) and 9.0 (.net 2008), what softwares do i have to use ?

From my search, I will have to use Visual Basic 6.0, Enterprise Edition (or another edition) for 6.0 programming, right ?

And for 2005/2008 vb.net programming, could I use visual studio 2010 for both languages or is that better to use visual studio 2005 and 2008 ?

Well I guess I might be a bit lost in all those different terms ...

Any help welcome!

Answer 1

I just want to verify something that you probably know, yet if you don't - it's very important.

VB (and VBA) are not VB.NET

The VB might look the same but those languages have very little in common (beside the effort to make the syntax feel the same).

VB is a procedural language and vb.net is OOP(object oriented programing) VB is a language that Microsoft sadly dones't support anymore VB.NET and its twin language are the languages that Microsoft supports (and there is no new language that will replace them anytime soon)

Learning one language will not help you learn the other and therefor I thing that you should leave the VB behind and put all your effort on learning VB.NET. (If you will need to convert VB to VB.NET - you will usually find that you can understand the code of VB which as I said before feels like VB.NET)

Don't get me wrong, I've developed in many languages over the years and I've never enjoyed programing in other languages as I do when I program in VB. But tech moves forward and it's not wise to stay behind.

Good luck

Answer 2

If you are starting off learning VB6, then start with the latest version (currently v15, in Visual Studio 2017). Never start new learnings on a legacy tech stack.

VB 6 generates COM-era code (i.e. predates .Net), and you'll need to somehow acquire the legacy VB 6 IDE in order to rebuild your VB6 codebase.

If the components you have written in VB6 are stable, then you can use COM interop to invoke your legacy VB6 components from modern .Net code - i.e. you can deploy and re-use your existing binary components from .Net, until you can phase out all your legacy VB6 code.

i.e. I would strongly recommend that at the first possible opportunity that you upgrade your legacy VB6, 8 and 9 code to the latest version (currently 15, in VS 2017)

For your VB 8 and 9 code, you should be able to open these projects in the latest version of of Visual Studio (Visual Studio will upgrade the projects). VB 8 would have targeted .Net 2.0 by default, and VB 9 would have targeted .Net 3.5. Again, it is recommended that you change the target version of .Net (currently 4.7)

If opening VB 8 / 9 projects in VS 2017 isn't possible, you may be able to use older versions of VS Community Edition or VB Express to do the upgrade in steps.

Going forward, I would recommend that you always stay with the most recent tools, as not only will you be guaranteed support, you will also be able to leverage all the new features that each release offers.

Answer 3

The .NET framework is uniform. If you're using that, Visual Studio 2008 will work fine. I'd just spring for 2010 if you're just now learning, might as well be an early adopter.

Answer 4

If you need to write software to target specific versions of the .NET Framework, 2010 will still allow you to do that. You can maintain projects that aim at earlier versions of .NET from within it, but it'll at least give you the option of using the latest stuff as well.

Answer 5

Correct, the newer versions of Visual Studios won't do VB 6.0, so you also need Visual Basic 6.0.

Answer 6

Well there is not much problem if you using 2010 as they always maintain a backward compatibility with earlier versions but really want to just learn from root then you can use Visual Studio 6.0