Exploring VB .Net from a VFP Perspective (Part II) (by John Koziol)

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Sheesh.  Some of the feedback I'm getting on this series makes me feel like a traitor to the Visual FoxPro community. Nothing could be further from the truth; I love the VFP community and I am a staunch supporter of VFP and have been for many years. I think my contributions speak for themselves (harrumph! - lol).

I'm coming to the conclusion that VB .Net in itself isn't all that difficult and most VFP developers could adjust to the language in a short time. You have to get used to the idea of constructors and hard typing of objects and variables in that we can't just spuriously assign a value or object to "x" implicitly. I think I covered a little of that in my last post.

What's staggeringly complex is the .Net framework itself. I know that most of you have heard the phrase ".Net Framework" and, maybe, been a little in the dark about what that meant. Well, essentially, think of the framework as classlibs installed into your system. In VFP terms: Each classlib belongs to a library that .Net refers to as a "namespace". When the framework is installed, some binaries are installed in the Windows directory that allow for the basic namespaces, for example "System."

You can enhance the number of objects available by including external references into your .Net project. For example, I am working with a DLL that exposes a bunch of methods and properties to my VB app once I add the reference to my project.  This is akin to adding a classlib to your VFP project.

Anyhow, I'm convinced that the winning combination for Fox people to learn .Net is to muck around with the VB or C# language with small tasks, but to really focus on the .Net framework and what it can do for you.

It's not that hard. Really.

Sorry, no code samples this time as I'm mired in fixing an obsolete test driver. Which is actually teaching me a lot, but nothing I can synthesize into absolutes at this time. Duty calls.

I'll get more to y'all when I can.  Meanwhile, there are a few VFP to .Net books out there that are worthwhile. While I'm constrained in giving recommendations to 3rd party products, I'll give you a hint:  One is by Kevin M. and one is by Les P.  Figure it out.