Visual Basic .net Standard Edition 2003 - Too old?

Hello I have the Visual basic .net standard edition 2003. I was wondering,does anybody think this version is getting too old? I'd really like to upgrade,but you can't upgrade the standard edition. I'd really like to get the upgradeable proffesional edition but it's just a little too expensive. I think the standard issue is a good deal, although you get limited use of direct x components,and other short comings,such as it appears, checking the system registry, amongst many other things. Sometimes I think I should concentrate on Python for desktop applications.I'm a little rusty with vb .net I've been concentrating on php again,for the last year and a half. Anyway, is vb .net 2003 too old? What do you think? For example. I've never ran any of my applications on Vista. I assume the first net framework version should be okay on Vista. Any feedback?

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VB is getting old. really do not use it much though. but with how coding and site standard are changing do fast now a days, I would think of looking more into something more new and up to date.

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Really, there aren't a lot of changes between different versions, that I've noticed.

About your VB though, I would toss it altogether and go with the *Free* VB .net 2008 or whatever it is that Microsoft gives(Search for Visual Basic Express)

Not only is it up to date, it's 100% free. You can also get C++ and other programs like that.

 

 

 

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I've looked at the vb express editions.
No offence,but compared to the standard edition it's
pretty basic.No pun intended.

As far as I can see, theres not many code changes at all in the netframework
from 2002-2009.I'm just worried about Microsoft pulling something.
2003 is a long time ago for them.
C++? For strictly windows applications VB .net is on about a par with C++.
I think a lot of it seems to boil down to the intptr type.
With the intptr type I'm hoping you can have full access to all the Windows api
functions that C++ had for years.
I haven't done api programming as much as I would like to.
I want to get into that again soon.

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If you keep with the old versions I highly doubt that Microsoft will ever stop supporting them. We can still run games from the 90's on today's PC's(with "Compatibility Mode" set). There are just too many things that are old and still useful. Microsoft stopping support on them would force anyone using those older programs to re-program them, which is really too much work.

I'm mostly thinking about games here, but programs would fall into that as well.

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Hi!

I think anything older than Visual Basic .NET 2005 is quite old. It's mostly because there was a pretty major shift when Microsoft went past .NET 2.0 - they chose to keep the Base Class Library as-such, and built upon it, so .NET 3.0 is actually .NET 2.0 plus additional libraries, and the same goes for .NET 3.5.

I would say .NET 3.5 change quite a bit with the introduction of new language features in C# and VB.NET. The Language Integrated Query (LINQ) is the coolest addition to the framework, if you work with data.

There's always new stuff happening on the web front (ASP.NET). With Astoria Data Services, you can easily expose the database to external applications via web services, though you'd have to consider the security implications of implementing such a thing. The new ListView control also gives you more control over how data is displayed via the browser - think of it as a Repeater with the functionality of a DataList.

You can get a whole lot more information about the web development features in .NET at http://www.asp.net .

Regards,
Nitin

PS: As you can tell, I strongly push for .NET for web apps & plain business apps (PHP is great; let's leave the ASP.NET vs PHP argument for some other time). For windows apps, I'd suggest you still stick with C++.

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