vb.net vs. framework

Question

What reasons are there to migrate from vb.net specific language to .net framework language? Examples:

VB.net

ubound
msgBox

.Net Framework

array.getUpperBound(0)
messageBox

Answer 1

backward compatibility

Answer 2

Those functions exist to mirror the built-ins in VB6, to make porting code easier.

The functions in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace are often then wrappers around the .Net functions, with some additional checks before calling the function, so there's a minor performance hit using them vs. the native ones.

Answer 3

VB.Net is a ".net framework language". The examples you showed for .Net work just fine in VB. So, in that sense you would not be migrating from anything. As to why you should prefer the newer .net idioms over the older vb-specific idioms, there are many reasons:

• The newer code is more portable
• It uses more modern programming concepts, and therefore subtly encourages better habits
• The newer code is sometimes faster
• The newer code has more features. For example, you can set more styles on the new MessageBox than you can the old MsgBox.
• Sometimes neither is the best choice. For example, if you're using arrays much at all in .Net 2.0 and later you're doing something wrong. IEnumerable(Of T) and the various generic collection types are much to be preferred.

Answer 4

Also discussed in these other questions...

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/241822/vb-runtime-functions-in-vb-net-for-vb6-programmers
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2030276/utility-to-convert-legacy-vb6-function-calls-to-net
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/226517/is-the-microsoft-visualbasic-namespace-true-net-code