Life after Visual Basic 6.0 — where to go from here

With Microsoftpsilas extended support for Visual Basic (VB) 6.0 ending this year, many application developers are looking for guidance on whether to upgrade, reuse, rewrite, or replace their legacy VB 6.0 code in favor of developing on supported software platforms. VB.NET, the designated successor of VB 6.0, looks more like C++ than traditional Basic, making the move from VB 6.0 less than ideal - but the move may be worth the effort. To develop applications that take advantage of the latest .NET framework, you have three basic options: upgrade/rewrite, reuse, or replace. Upgrading or converting your VB 6.0 code to VB .NET makes your application more compatible with future versions of VB and gives you access to .NET features, but this option requires significant rework. You could also stay with Visual Basic 6.0 for existing applications that run critical tests, and then call this code from new languages. Finally, you could replace your VB 6.0 code with code written in another general-purpose language that supports .NET such as C++ or C# or, you can move to one of several languages specifically designed for test and measurement such as NI LabVIEW, NI LabWindows/CVI, Agilent VEE, or HTBasic.