Summary

The media likes to create villains . Despite all the bad press, Microsoft bends over backward to provide assistance to customers. Yes, without an MSDN subscription you have to pay a couple of hundred bucks per incident to get that help, but the company hangs in there, bringing in anyone who can get the job done. Considering the recent developments of corporate irresponsibility ”I can't say this enough ”Microsoft sets the standard for superlative customer service.

Even though it may come to pass that supporting COM through Interop may mean someone exploits the unmanaged aspects of VB6 and COM, Microsoft is paying attention. We have a bridge to the past because Microsoft hasn't abandoned us, even under harsh criticism (sometimes fair, sometimes undeserved ). When I need assistance, there is no resistance, no excuses, and no hubris . I get what I need.

If you need to hang on to VB6 code for a while, you know you can, in one of several ways. You can choose not to port because Microsoft is still supporting VB6. You can use COM Interop to talk to your business rules and reimplement just the presentation layer. You can choose to bridge to VB6 applications with a wrapper, employing .NET Remoting or Web Services, or you can commingle VB6 clients and servers, as demonstrated in this appendix. Finally, the best choice of all is to rewrite the code in .NET.

I have been programming since 1978 ”ROM BASIC on a TRS 80 ”and picked it up professionally in the late 1980s. I am more excited than ever after all these years because things just keep getting cooler .

Bon soir!