Which is the best choice for migrating a CTD application - Visual Basic or .NET?

In the past year, many companies have started offering tools and services to migrate users away from Centura Team Developer (CTD) applications. The first migration companies offered the ability to migrate from CTD to Visual Basic 6.0 (VB).

The next wave, where SibAnts Software pioneered as the first company to offer an automatic migration of CTD applications to a 2 Tier Java solution, we could then offer a manual conversion from a 2 Tier Java solution to an N Tier Java solution.

SibAnts Software was the first to offer an automated conversion from CTD to Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET) and C#

In this page we seek to advise our customers why they would benefit a migration of their CTD applications to a .NET solution rather than a migration to VB.

Why choose .NET?

There are dramatic advantages in using a .NET language as compared to VB. Some of the basic changes would include the introduction to some object oriented features such as namespaces, true inheritance, free threading.

In CTD applications the architecture included inheritance and although VB has had interface inheritance since version 4, true implementation inheritance will only be available in a .NET language with the main benefit being the ability to create new applications more quickly. With implementation inheritance, you build a base class and can inherit from it, using it as the basis for new classes just like in CTD.

The debugger in CTD was very primitive, even in version 2.1. If you referenced a C++ or VB function in CTD there was no way to debug this. We would also agree that the debugger in Visual Basic was very basic. In a .NET language there is one debugger that allows you to debug any language that targets the .NET framework so a C# application can be debugged in a .NET language.

With VB you are stuck in the old technology of ASP and using Visual Interdev and interpreted VBScript code. In a .NET you can build ASP.NET pages with a .NET language and they are compiled for better performance in a web world. When migrating from CTD, one of the main options that become available is the ability to have web pages on secure technology as opposed to Centura Web Extensions.

It has also been suggested by numerous sources on the Internet that VB6 will no longer be supported after June 2004. Imagine going through an entire migration process from CTD to VB6 only to find out that your new language is no longer supported and the only option is to migrate from VB6 to a .NET language. Not only would this be an expensive option it would waste your development time even with automated tools.

What are the advantages of VB.NET over VB6?

• Seamless Deployment - Windows-based applications can be installed and executed simply by pointing a Web browser to a URL.
• Less Errors in IDE - Visual Basic .NET delivers the feature most requested by existing Visual Basic developers-fewer bugs in the code they write. Enhancements to the Visual Basic language, such as strict type checking and structured exception handling, enable developers to write code that is more robust, maintainable, and less prone to run-time errors.
• More powerful window based applications - Visual Basic .NET is the most productive tool for constructing powerful Microsoft Windows®-based applications.
• Powerful, Flexible Data Access - XML-based Microsoft ADO.NET. With ADO.NET, developers gain access to more powerful components, such as the DataSet control.
• Simplified Component Creation - Developers can use non-visual toolbox and server explorer components to easily incorporate resources such as message queues, event logs, and performance counters into their applications without writing a single line of code.
• Enhanced Control Creation - Developers can easily extend pre-existing user controls and Windows Forms controls as well as design their own controls that generate custom user interfaces.
• Complete, Direct Access to the Platform - the new Windows service project template enables rapid application development of real Microsoft Windows NT® Services.
• Integrated Reporting with Crystal Reports - reports can be generated for the entire array of Visual Basic .NET application types, including Windows, Web and mobile applications.