Till date I have used only VB6 Professional for developing apps.
But recently I have joined a company which owns VS 6 Enterprise (or some such version)
I was just exploring what is available in VS 6 Ent. and I found Visual Modeler.
The tutorial provided with it is not good enough.
I was wondering if there is any detailed tutorial(s) for Visual Modeler?
Is Visual Modeler a cut down version of Rational Rose?
I have never used such a tool for developing apps. What are the benefits of developing apps like this?
The document claims that one can speed up development and modifications of VB6 & VC++ 6 applications. How true is this claim?
My company also has Ration Rose 6.
Which is better Rational Rose 6 or Visual Modeler that comes with VS 6 Ent.?
Yes Visual Modeler is a cut down version of Rational Rose. However, I actually found it more usable than Rational Rose.
Modeling tools can be great for doing some analysis and design work, but do not get sucked into the idea of building apps by modelling and then using code gen to write the code. It is a pipe dream. And the claim that you speed up the modifications of legacy apps using these tools to me is a joke.
If you are only maintaining legacy apps why do you care about modelling tools anyway? Are you considering trying to reverse engineer the code into a model to try and understand the structure. If so I wouldn't bother. You will probably get more understanding in less time with pencil and paper.
If you really want a modelling tool that is easy to use and will not break the bank, look at Enterprise Architect by Sparx Systems.
Related
I really want to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010. But since I do a lot of development for the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile I cannot. (I develop for a Symbol device that does not support Windows Phone 7, so that is not a option.)
Does any one know any kind of time frame of when Microsoft plans to add support for Smart Device Projects into Visual Studio 2010?
Update: Since this is looking less and less likely without intervention from the users, Please go here and vote for this feature.
Microsoft's current public statement says that, apart from Windows Phone 7 development, there will not be Smart Device Application Development added to Visual Studio 2010.
This obviously raises concerns and has implications for a lot of people, and there are more than a few of us lobbying Microsoft very hard to change that plan and to get them to include some sort of support for Smart Device programming outside of Windows Phone.
I'm hopeful, maybe even optimistic, that their stance will change and that we will get something - even if it's only CF 3.5 targeting actual hardware (i.e. no emulator support) - at some point down the road. Right now they've got all hands on deck trying to get Windows Phone out the door, and until that happens, I wouldn't expect much for resource allocation toward other device features.
So what does that actually mean? In my mind I wouldn't postpone installing VS2010 until they have device support. My guess is it won't happen until early next year at the absolute earliest and realistically I would say mid to late next year if it happens at all. Again, I'm optimistic that it will, but I'm also a realist, so I'm not going to base my business decisions and future on it happening.
Add your support to the following Microsoft Connect Item, it's had quite a bit of interest being the 3rd highest voted suggestion so far.
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/595712/no-support-for-windows-ce-and-compact-framework-development-in-vs2010
Through private conversations I've had with the Customer Advocacy Team at MS it would appear that they are really digging their heels in over this. MS reneged on promises to include Smart Device Framework support in VS2010 early on in the product life cycle.
It is really frustrating because at some point the development tools will fragment and you'll end up with having to maintain separate development, source control and build systems for targeting Windows CE. Who is to say that the tools will even work on future versions of Windows either or even if they will live side by side with future versions of VS. Remember this lack of support also hurts people doing unmanaged code on CE too.
MS is doing a great job of remaining silent here, the silence is already causing people to look at alternative platforms. Without a statement of intent no business is going to invest in Windows CE development without knowing the future of the OS and the tools to develop on it.
All recent Visual Studio versions can be installed side by side. You could upgrade now for desktop development, then when smart device support is rolled out, migrate your projects to VS2010.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/setupprerelease/thread/fce95ec7-728d-41d1-ab13-74a2fd3a4136
I am forced to have two VS installations side by side. However, another issue - that is causing me more pain is that TFS 2010 doesn't work with VS 2008 - there is a plugin, of course, but there are many issues with it which make it unusable.
So to have source control, I have installed SVN on my machine.
Microsoft once again, has proven that they have no concern for the devs at all. Their tools don't work together, backward compatibility is not there, all of which makes their dev tools a big load of crap.
MS replied to that connect issue:
Hi folks,
In the first quarter of 2013, we plan to provide tooling for Visual
Studio 2012 to create apps for Windows Embedded Compact v.Next. We’ll
be announcing more details in September, including the roadmap for
.NET CF. You can find more details this Fall in the Windows Embedded
Compact website at http://www.windowsembedded.com.
thanks, Doug Turnure Visual Studio PM
Many applications (like StackOverflow) has been written by three developers (a small team), would have been possible to do the same job using VS Express Edition?
Which would have been the real differences? Whcih main feature is "enough" to justify the use of VS full edition?
i ask this question not for curiosity but because I want to understand the difference of VS Express vs not Express for a small team. Differences that go beyond the feature matrix.
Thanks.
You can build a fully functional web site with the Web Developer Express edition. There are things it doesn't support like plugins (so no resharper), but you can develop Silverlight applications (for example).
So it might have taken a little longer, or certain features might not have been developed straight away, but I would say that you could develop something like Stack Overflow using the Express edition.
There are no restrictions on what you can develop.
Microsoft site
How can I create a setup file in visual basic 6 after completion of my programming work?
Front End language is Visual Basic 6,
Backend : MS Access 2003 and
Report Tools : Crystal Report 8.5. Operating System Windows XP.
You need to be a little clearer about some of this.
"Front end/back end" is really terminology and a thought pattern from the MS Access world. It doesn't really apply to VB6 development in any meaningful way unless you're doing something really odd like automating instances of MS Access.
That's about the only place where any "MS Access runtime" comes in as well. If you're actually using Access Reporting you might be doing this though - which seems odd but anything is possible.
See Deploying Complex Microsoft Office Access Runtime-Based Solutions.
Much more likely what you are trying to say is that you have a VB6 program that is using a Jet MDB as an embedded database, and using Crystal Reports 8.5 for reporting.
There should be no issue about any "runtime" for Jet on Windows XP, since Jet 4.0 is shipped as part of the OS even as far back as XP RTM (gold). It is also extremely unlikely that XP will have an MDAC release any older than 2.7 (see Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) release history).
So this leaves you looking for a way to package your VB6 program, any immediate dependencies such as possibly the VB6 runtime components, and the Crystal Reports 8.5 runtime components. You may also have INI files, etc. to bundle in there.
A long, long time ago (1998?) the PDWizard was replaced for most purposes by Visual Studio 6.0 Installer 1.0, and shortly after VSI 1.1 was released (1999?) which made up for a number of ills. This is a pretty basic tool for authoring Windows Installer packages, but it should meet your needs.
Along with this you'll want the recent merge modules for your dependencies: Merge Modules for Service Pack 6 for Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual C++ 6.0.
Then of course you need a merge module for Crystal Reports 8.5, and for this we have to turn to the community because BO didn't start releasing them until CR9. One place to look for this is InstallSite: Seagate Crystal Reports 8. Your real problem is that CR8.5 is ancient.
If this doesn't work out for you, you can always hope that CR8.5 Dev installed on your machine with a "good enough" set of .DEP files (which tell setup authoring tools what subdependencies each dependency has, among other things). This may still let you use VSI 1.1 to succesfully package your application with CR8.5.
You might also look at for-pay packaging tools as already suggested. If desperate enough you might look at some legacy installer technologies too, just in case their communities have addressed your issues.
If I misunderstood and you really do use your VB6 program to automate an instance of the "MS Access 2003 Runtime" you'll probably have to build some hybrid package.
But normal VB programs do not use Access or Access Runtimes to open and work with Jet databases.
You can search google for package and deployment vb6
and you will find millions of links showing in steps how to do that.
The Package & Deployment Wizard is quite primitive and not well-suited to distributing things like the MS Access runtime and Crystal Reports. You'd be better off using one of the more powerful commercial products like InstallShield or Setup Factory. However, these can be pricey (especially InstallShield).
There are also free products like Inno Setup and Nullsoft, but these may not be as easy to use or may lack some important features.
Bob's suggestion of using Visual Studio Installer 1.1 for a Visual Basic 6 application is sound but the Microsoft link he has given for the download does not work. I guess MS thinks nobody needs VB6 anymore. After searching a little I found a 2008 snapshot of MSDN page in web.archive.org complete with setup files:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080513102621/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa718352.aspx
Good suggestions above.
While it might seem unlikely that VB6 app could possibly be in use, there are those of us in the public sector that keep VB6-like apps and even Access apps alive because public dollars are not in a hurry to replace app that still work. A frequent mantra heard in many places is that you leave it alone if it is not broken. Broken enough that is--otherwise baling wire works just fine as long as VB/VBA developers can still found.
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Currently thinking about pitching the argument for us migration from vs 2005 (winforms) to vs 2008 (wpf). My main point being the new UI design features.
I am slightly worried that we will put loads of work into upgrading everything only for us to have to do the same when 2010 comes along? So this leads to also consider skipping 2008 and just adopting 2010 as soon as its released.
Anyone been in the similar situation?
Also any arguments for and against for welcomed.
Cheers.
Personally I think it will be fairly safe to go to 2008 as 2010 is just extensions on top of it and enhancements for Visual Studio design time support for WPF. Therefore, the transition shouldn't be all that complicated. More like a 2005-2008 upgrade of a Win Forms or ASP.NET project, which is a cakewalk.
I find that it is better to upgrade sooner than later, so that you don't get "bogged down" with the existing framework/system. If you continue building on something that you will ultimately replace, it becomes harder and harder to justify to management to move.
I was in the same situation and opted to go down the MSDN subscription route, where I get all the new development tools as they come out. I have a spare machine the I use for 'the next version' of the compiler, that I use for migration testing, thus I at least know what to expect when the decision has to be made. This works well for me, and I guess if you have a decent virtualisation set-up all the better.
New compiler versions didn't break my build, but did hurt many of my automated tests, and add-in productivity tools. Basically. you need regression tests of some kind to ascertain the damage moving to a new version is likely to cause.
Your question doesn't quite make sense to me. Are you asking if you should migrate existing applications from Winforms to WPF? Or do you just want to start making new WPF applications but still work with existing Winform projects?
Either way, migrating from Visual Studio 2005 to 2008 is extremely simple. Existing Winform projects request a conversion which takes a few seconds and has never failed for me (dozens of solutions and 100s of projects converted over the last couple months).
However, this has nothing to do with Winforms and WPF.
If you want to start building WPF apps there is no reason to wait for VS 2010. VS 2008 has excellent support for both application types.
I agree with those suggesting adopting VS 2008 now. One thing to consider though is that WPF comes with a fairly high learning curve. I've had some limited exposure to WPF and Silverlight and am finding them to be a complete "mind change" from the WinForms model. Good luck.
I'd make the jump now if I was in your shoes. It'll minimize the impact of the 2010 jump down the line by getting you used to the many new features you'll already have to get used to. Additionally you'll get to enjoy many months of better performance and features before 2010 is available.
Winforms vs WPF is a world of difference. It's a much bigger change than looking at migrating from 2005 to 2008. I would not have that as the driving reason to upgrade to 2008. I also have no idea of the scope of your project and if WPF is really the best direction to take your product. Or if expression blend is all the tooling you need to get these UIs going.
Instead of pitching the WPF pitch I would focus on the real benefits you can get immediately. With 2008 you have multi-targeting so you can build all the applications you used to build in 2005 and have them target the 2.0 framework. In my experience I find 2008 faster and the refactoring improvements are a great addition. There are a ton of other new improvements in 2008 which you get out-of-the-box and can start using from day 1.
According to Rico the head architect of 2010 you will get even richer multi-targetting with 2010 which will allow you to adopt 2010 earlier and not force you to use CLR version 4 from get go.
At the moment I've made it a practice to upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible. Although for an application developer it's got its own pitfalls, Ex. .Net Framework 3.5 is not found on most computers, and if I ship the bootstrap installer which is 20 MB it insists on an active Internet connection to download the files needed. The full installer is 198 MBs and though I don't like it, I have to ship it along with the software.
For a web developer though the problem is easier to solve, you only have to worry about making it work at the server and things work automatically for the users. So if you're making a web solution I think Migration is easier.
If you're making an application software, I think you should weigh the advantages that migration offers with the changes it will make to your deployment scheme. I don't know how many people will agree with this, but I believe that application developers should be one upgrade behind.
There is an underlying process question here that I think shouldn't be overlooked:
When is the proper time to upgrade development tools and production environments?
On the one hand you could skip 2008 though this leads to the question of when would 2010 be adopted: Upon first release, first service pack release, or some other milestone? This may lead to creating more legacy code if you stay locked in on 2005 using the 2.0 framework and others move onto other frameworks. Even if you switch to 2008, it can still target the 2.0 framework so that that upgrade of the .Net framework may happen separately which some may like. Another key point in this camp is who does the research to evaluate the differences between versions to see which is worth the shift.
On the other, you could suggest that there be a continuous strategy of preparing to upgrade every 3 years or so as the Visual Studio releases of the past decade were roughly 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 so far. This would seem to me to be the better approach as there is more of a constant evolution going on rather than staying locked in at all. In this case there may be new features that get used since the new tools come quickly compared to the first case where the shift may be viewed as a large step whereas in this case it isn't that big since you are always looking to move in 2-3 years.
Course as I say this my old work machine has Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and 2008, so I am kind of in that latter camp which makes sense to me. I remember 10 years ago my work machine had NT 4.0, Pentium II 333 MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM and a 4 GB hard drive that had to be 2 partitions as it wouldn't let one partition be that big. Now my work machine has 4 GB of RAM alone, a 2.66 GHz dual core processor and a 160 GB hard drive. Could I in another 10 years have a machine with hundreds of GBs of RAM? While that may seem ridiculous, if I were sharing a machine with a handful of other developers, it may make sense to divide up a huge amount of memory amongst us all.
With the upcoming release of Visual Studio 2010, and all the lovely new features in C# 4.0, I would really love to update from 2008. However, over the last few years, I've managed to get student pricing, or even free versions via the MSDN Academic Alliance.
Now I am no longer a student.
I can't seem to justify the $AU500 pricetag of even the Standard version for what is at the moment, essentially a hobby. As much as I may like for it to be, it just isn't paying the bills.
So, I've read on the Microsoft site that there's no non-commercial clause in the Express version EULA which is good because I do the occasional bit of paid work in it. How much is missing from the Express version though, compared to Professional (what I use currently, and what the 2010 beta is)? Am I likely to go through withdrawal pains as I reach for something that just isn't there?
As far as addons go, the only one I've really played with is VisualSVN, and I can live with just using TortoiseSVN manually. Anything else I should be aware of?
Version comparisons can be found here: (For 2008) (Edit: A far more in depth document can be downloaded from here)
The things that leap out to me as features I wouldn't want to be without are:
Extensibility (no plugins like VisualSVN or Resharper)
Source Code Control
Remote debugging
64-bit compiler support (x64) (from the first link, though the document implies you can make 64bit apps...)
SQL Server 2005 integration
No setup projects (for making MSI installers)
Limited refactoring
Some missing debugging tools (especially the threads window)
If you can live without those (and the other limitations that wouldn't bother me personally) then I guess that you'll get by with Express just fine.
Final thought: Express isn't your only option for free .net development, there is also SharpDevelop which has some advantages (SVN integration, compact framework support) over Express. Though I'm sure it has many limitations too.
Do you do any entrepreneurial work? If you're building the next killer app, check out BizSpark: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
There is new program now available from Microsoft to allow web developers to access the Microsoft Stack similar to the BizSpark program.
It is called Website Spark. VS 2008 Professional Edition and SQL Server 2008 Web Editon are some of the tools available through the program.
Of all things I would probably miss the ability to install extensions. Especially tools like AnkhSVN and TestDriven.NET have grown invaluable to me...
I would seriously consider investing some money in purchasing VS especially if you can get some of that back by using it for jobs.
Maybe switching to Eclipse and Java is an option for you?
EDIT:
By the way, investing a few hundred dollars is common among ex-students. If you were a designer you would probably have to invest $1000 on Adobe software.
You won't be able to have solutions with multiple project types (so no mixed language solutions), or solution folders either.
The main thing that is missing is the ability to build an installer for a solution.
The work-around is to build the installer using some open source installer for .NET, e.g. WiX.
And multi-language solutions are more cumbersome (e.g. mixed C# and VB.NET).
I use the Professional version, but I didn't experience any problems with opening and building my project/solution in the Express Edition.