Major VB.NET Changes

VB.NET introduces major changes to the VB language. Some

are modifications to existing ways of working, whereas others

are brand new. This chapter will cover some of those

changes, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of all

changes from VB to VB.NET. First, you’ll see some of the

features that have changed. Then you will see some of the

new features.

General Changes

There are a number of general changes to be aware of when

moving from VB to VB.NET. Among them are topics such as

the removal of default properties, subs and functions requir-ing

parentheses, ByVal being the default method for passing

parameters, and changes to the logical operators. These

changes, and others, are detailed in this section.

Default Properties

In VB6, objects could have default properties. For example,

the following code is perfectly valid in VB6, if you assume

that Text1 is a text box:

Text1=”Hello,World ”

This code takes the string “Hello,World ”and sets the

default property of the text box, the Text property, to the

string. The major drawback to default properties is that they

require you to have a Set command in VB. For example, take

a look at the following block of VB6 code:

CHAPTER 3

Major VB.NET Changes