Merrion
02-12-2002, 06:47 AM
We have a number of legacy applications developed in VB 5 that we probably won't move to .Net
At the same time we have a number of highly qualified VB5/VB6 developers and new work coming on stream. Should we steer the new work towards VB.Net so that we can all gain experience of same or should we play to our (and the wider developer community) strengths and develop them in VB5/6?
Thanks for your input....
Flyguy
02-12-2002, 06:54 AM
My personal opinion is to wait with developing core .Net applications until .Net becomes/has become main stream.
Ofcourse we are going to expiriment with .Net, but I'm not going to use until there is a very good reason (advantage over VB6) for it.
divil
02-12-2002, 07:37 AM
And just how do you suggest .NET will become mainstream if developers are scared to move to it?
It is useful to be one of the first to adopt a new technology, but at least prepare yourselves by becoming familiar with it and what it's all about.
Flyguy
02-12-2002, 07:47 AM
I just can't be an early adaptor.
One of my applications is used by at least 30 different companies. Forcing them to upgrade their machines so they can use the .Net framework will only possible if it has some serious advantages.
So I'll have to wait for the natural process of replacing hardware and OS...
reboot
02-12-2002, 07:55 AM
Bah... that's not very real world. There's no way we'll move to .Net for at least a year or two (probably closer to the latter). Our customer base simply won't allow it. I mean, we're discussing getting .Net sometime in the forseeable future, but even if we do, we won't be writing any apps in it for some time to come.
Merrion
02-12-2002, 09:53 AM
If we take a baseline productivity in VB5 and call that 1.0,
then realistically our current .Net productivity is 0.5
Thus if we can solve a particular problem twice as fast in .Net then we really break even.
However as we do more of this our .Net efficiency will increase, making it more profitable to do .Net stuff.
Meanwhile (because the same developers do both VB5 and .net) out VB5 baseline will be degraded (although I'd hope not to less than 0.9).
The solution we have knocked together is a bit of a compromise. Do .Net development for the small low risk projects for now until we have enough .Net experience to tackle the higher risk stuff with it and offer to take the hit for the customers that can be seen as Guinea pigs - i.e. VB.Net rates half of VB5/6 daily rates for now.
Not ideal...but I think it's the least nasty to any given party...
Thanks for your input,
Duncan