Leave Visual BASIC 6 for Java and Keep Your Existing Applications

Moving to the BBj programming language (Business BASIC for Java) is easy for VB6 programmers, because BBj and Visual BASIC share many identical structures and commands from their shared historical roots.

Microsoft Development of VB6 Discontinued

Estimates indicate that several billion lines of Visual Basic 6 code are still in use. Microsoft quit developing VB6 in 2008. It is not known how long MS operating systems will continue to provide runtime environments in the future. This issue will arise again with the introduction of Windows 8, and the answer is not known. Whether short- or long-term, developers will have to move.

Visual BASIC: Quick and Effective

It is no wonder that VB6 developers hold on to their love. VB6 was easy to learn thanks to its self-explanatory commands and easy to read. Data types were liberal and VB6 offered fast turnaround times. All of the processing steps, from writing the code to compiling, testing, debugging and re-starting required mere seconds. Programmers could achieve results quickly, because they could concentrate on the business logic for their programs.

New Operating Systems cause Problems

Working with the newer generations of Microsoft’s operating systems is causing an increasing number of problems, of course. Many older VB6 components are really the problem, because they can’t function properly with the stricter security provisions of Vista or Windows 7. If old Visual Basic 6 programs have become a desert of spaghetti code over the course of the years due to their procedural structure and ongoing development over the years, searching for old VB6 components has also become an insurmountable hurdle for migration.

VB.Net Structure Completely Different

Microsoft is advertising their own VB.Net product as the migration path. However with the exception of a couple of key words and structure, it has nothing in common with its predecessor. A heavy culture shock is waiting for the VB6 programmer.

BASIS Offers Many Advantages

If programmers have to start again from nothing, they also have the option of looking beyond the world of Microsoft for other alternatives. While they are doing that, they should have a look at BASIS, because the BASIS tools give them a number of advantages with a minimal learning curve.

The foundation of the BASIS family of tools lies in the world of BASIC. It has been designed so that VB6 applications can be easily migrated to BBj. They will run on the Java platform under BBj and can be deployed independent of operating system. > Learn More.

We have even taken the Java maxim, “write once, run anywhere” one step further. Application source code can be ported directly into Java-script using GWT, making it available under every Java-script-capable browser as a Web application, without the programmer touching the source code or having to write a new application. > Learn More.

This means that with BASIS, you can move your VB6 application to a platform of the future without any problems and save yourself the effort of developing a new application, which often implies an unfamiliar development environment. You can maintain your migrated application in BBj and continue its development step-by-step.

Moving to the BBj programming language (Business BASIC for Java) is easy for VB6 programmers, because BBj and Visual BASIC share many identical structures and commands from their shared historical roots.

You can program the same application either using a procedural or object-oriented paradigm using the BASIS tools. That opens a number of options for continuing software development. Furthermore, the opportunities for integrating VB6 programmers and young developers in your team are much better.

There is even the ability to develop applications graphically with BASIS. There are even more tools available in BASIS for helping with the move from line-by-line programming to fully automated application generation from a database (Rapid Application Development). Programmers will find the best solution for them based on the job at hand, personal preferences and prior knowledge. The results from development can be combined, independent of how they have been developed.