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Make a Smooth Transition to .NET
Your most important issue isn't VB.NET or C#, it's deciding when your developers should use VS.NET instead of VS6.
by Josef Finsel

It's been hard to ignore Microsoft's .NET initiative, and a few months back I was finally able to free up time to work with the technology. After using Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) for a couple of small projects, I discovered ways to make the implementation simpler and more cost effective. In this article, I'll cover important points to consider as you make your transition to .NET and will provide tips on how to make the move a smooth one.

.NET is designed to make it easier to implement the third generation of the Internet. The first generation of the Internet provided simple interconnectivity through static Web pages, the second generation provided dynamic Web pages, and the third generation is the programmable Web. In the programmable Web, a program can run on any platform and is accessible to any other program that has the appropriate permissions. To facilitate building the programmable Web, Microsoft provides VS.NET. This package also includes a new language, C#, and a new version of Visual Basic (VB) called VB.NET. Although there are a plethora of issues you'll need to address when moving to .NET, one of the first ones you and your development staff need to consider (and one near and dear to their hearts) is: Should they use VB.NET or C# to develop for the .NET Framework?

Ask the Right Question
There's currently a raging debate going on in the programming community that pits VB.NET against C#. Some programmers argue VB.NET is so dissimilar to VB that it makes more sense to learn a totally new language such as C#; others dismiss C# and insist VB.NET is the only way to go. The simple truth is that there's only one .NET language: the Common Language Runtime (CLR). No matter which language you use—VB.NET, C#, Eiffel, COBOL, or any of the other languages that support .NET—they're simply syntaxes you can use to create the CLR version of the code .NET actually runs.

Unfortunately, the language dispute tends to obscure an underlying dilemma that should be of far more concern: how to get your staff up to speed on .NET. For a majority of programmers, the .NET Framework represents new challenges and it will take some time to learn to use it effectively. To understand why this is the case, take a look at how Microsoft's programming languages have evolved since Windows first came on the scene.