[mono-vb] Windows Visual Basic Developer hoping to migrate to Mono...

Redefined Horizons redefined.horizons at gmail.com
Wed Mar 1 20:26:47 EST 2006


I'm currently in the planning stages for an application written in
Visual Basic .NET. This application will be used primarily on the
Windows operating system, at least initially, but I want to support
use of the application on Linux.

I am developing the application for Windows in SharpDevelop. I have a
Debian Linux system set-up, and I will be using it to do some of the
development and testing of the application on Mono. (I'm still a
relative nebie to Linux.) My goal is a single cross-platform
application.

I had contacted the MonoGIS mailing list about my application, and
they mentioned C# might be a better programming language than .NET.
This wouldn't be a problem normally, except that my application is
geared towards developers that are already familiar with Visual Basic
.NET and are coming from a legacy Visual Basic background. I was
hoping to capture a large developer audience for my application and I
fear I will loose many of them if I use C# instead of Visual Basic
.NET.

What type of support will I find for Visual Basic .NET in Mono? What
type of future will the language have on the Mono platform?

If I do decide Visual Basic .NET is a viable language for development
on Mono, how can I help make sure it remains a viable language? I can
probably contribute to documentation efforts, and wouldn't mind
learning about the Visual Basic compiler for Mono. I have some
experience with other high and low level languages, so I'm sure I
could pick it up with time.

Thanks very much for the advice.

Scott Huey

P.S. - The first public release of the application won't be for at
least 6 to 12 months, so I have some time for support of Visual Basic
.NET in Mono to improve.


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