VB or VB.net ????

[somename75]

I am interested in learning more about Vb to automate some of my mastercam tasks but I was told by a bright guy that VB is on the way out, and that VB.net will be taking its place. He says that they do not have much in common, so I should find out which way mastercam is going before I invest in classes. I am very ignorant about VB or any programming language for that matter, so any help at all would be great. Thanks ahead of time guys

[Bullines]

If you'll be upgrading to X and want to extend beyond VBS, learn VB .NET instead. OOP comes to Mastercam!

[somename75]

Thanks Bullines, I will be upgrading to version X. Your reply confused my simple little mind though is VB.net for more complicated things, and VBS for simplier tasks? And lastly what is OO? thanks for your help

[Bullines]

VBS is an interpreted language and scripts can be written using Mastercam's nice VBS editor (props to Mick) or any text editor. VBS scripts usually don't have a UI (although they can if you create an OCX using another dev tool).

 

I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say at this time, but if you want to have functionality like the C-Hooks have today, look into the .NET languages

[somename75]

Great, that is exactly the answer I needed.

 

Have a good one, thanks for your help

[Mick from CNC Software Inc.]

somename75,

 

Good question.

 

Your friend is correct that VB6 is going the way of the dinosaur; Microsoft does not sell VB6 any longer and is offering only limited support for it for another 5 years or something close to that. VBA is still going strong and MS has yet to release Office or any of its other products (that I am aware of) using Visual Studio for Applications (VSA) that is built upon the .NET framework but you know its coming.

 

So what should you learn today? I feel that learning VB is still viable, if you are going to be doing a lot of VBA and VBS programming then the syntax for each of those languages are almost identical with a just few subtle and perhaps not so subtle differences between them. Looking forward, VB.NET would be the obvious language choice (IMHO) when your back ground is VB, this is what I did.

 

How does this all tie in with Mastercam? With version 9.1 you can write VB Scripts to automate various tasks, so if you decide to learn VB today you can jump right in and get scripting, remember to that if you need to create custom dialogs you can do this with VB6 and have a VB Script interface with it. If you will be upgrading to Mastercam X in the near future then you not only have the option of continued scripting development but also the ability to develop add-in applications (NET Hooks) using .NET, again VB.NET would be the obvious choice.

 

I believe that no matter what language you choose to learn you can’t go wrong and it will certainly not be wasted time.

[somename75]

I will jump aheat to VB.net, thanks again to all, you guys rock

[Rekd™]

:bump:

 

Mick, I believe it was you that mentioned SharpDevelop. I d/l it and have been roaming around in it for a couple of weeks now. I just don't get it. I was able to teach myself Basic and Visual Basic, but this is just un-clear.

 

I also don't have any samples, and the help files aren't much help. (When they decide to run without crashing that is)

 

What's the best way to figure this out? I'm fine with VB, but dang, I can't find many good resources for it.. :grumble:

 

'Rekd teh easily confused

[Rekd™]

And I really don't want to buy VB.net, as I already bought VB6 a few years ago and can't justify the cost for what I do with it.

 

'Rekd teh :shrug:

[Mick from CNC Software Inc.]

Rekd

 

Here is a script to call a sample SharpDevelop VBNET combine (project), the project is on the ftp in the VB_Scripts folder called SharpDevelopVBExample.zip.

 

I only spent 30 minutes or so on it so its a little rought around the edges but basically the exe gets called by Mastercam, the user makes a selection and the script echos back those selections via a text file the EXE creates on the OK button click.

 

 

code:

---

'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

'//

'// Author: Mick George [email protected]

'// Date: 05/04/2004 04:33 PM

'// File Name: SharpTest.vbs

'//

'// Description: Calls a VB.NET exe created in SharpDevelop for .NET

'//

'// Comments:

http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/F....asp?FORUM_ID=5

'//

'////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

 

'///////////////// My Constants /////////////////

Const DEF_SHARPAPP = "MyTestApp.exe"

Const DEF_FILE = "C:SharpTest.txt"

'///////////////// My Global Variables //////////

 

 

 

' -- Start Script

Call Main()

 

 

' ////////////////////

' Sub Declaration

' ////////////////////

Sub Main()

 

 

Dim FSO

Dim fsoSharp

Dim strText, strCheck, strOption

Dim strEXE

 

 

Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

 

' -- Build path to exe

strEXE = GetPathOfThisScript & DEF_SHARPAPP

 

If Not FSO.FileExists(strEXE) Then

ShowString strEXE " is missing"

Exit Sub

End If

 

' -- Show the EXE

Call ShellAndWait(strEXE, True)

 

If FSO.FileExists(DEF_FILE) Then

 

Set fsoSharp = FSO.OpenTextFile(DEF_FILE)

 

strText = "Text = " & fsoSharp.ReadLine

strCheck = "Checkbox was " & fsoSharp.ReadLine

strOption = "Option button was " & fsoSharp.ReadLine

 

fsoSharp.Close

 

ShowString strText & vbCrLf & strCheck & vbCrLf & strOption

 

End If

 

' -- Clean up

Set fsoSharp = Nothing

Set FSO = Nothing

 

 

End Sub

 

' ////////////////////

' Function Declaration

' ////////////////////

 

Function AddBackSlash(sPath)

 

If Right(sPath, 1) <> "" Then sPath = sPath & ""

AddBackSlash = sPath

 

End Function

---

[Rekd™]

Thanks Mick. I'll have another go at it tonite.

 

'Rekd

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Rekd,

 

I was shopping for visual studio.net and found(full versions) the enterprize edition for 750 and the pro for 450 at price grabber. Thats less than the upgrade price.