Hi John,
Don't confuse Windows Vista with anything else below. Vista is simply the
name of Microsoft's new operating system and it is more or less totally
independent of the programming tools to use.
The long term easy to use/powerful tool in AutoCAD will be Visual Studio
Tools for Applications (VSTA) - but we don't know when it's coming. It does
exist in one Microsoft program. The name is not set in concrete and may
change by the time we get it.
The relationship between VSTA and the .NET tools will be similar to the
relationship between VB and VBA.
VBA will continue into the foreseeable future, but with the advent of 64 bit
AutoCAD it will need to run "out of process in the same way that VB '.EXE'
applications do now" which means it will be slower - but then again the
computers will be faster, so that doesn't seem to be the end of the world.
For short term development in Civil 3D, the help available for VBA is so
much more extensive than for any of the .NET applications that only a
masochist or full time professional programmer would move to them yet.
The .NET Express programs (VB 2005 Express and C# 2005 Express) are simply
freeware versions with lesser functionality than the full versions.
The difference between C# and VB in the .NET world for Civil 3D is trivial
and there is no reason to use one rather than the other outside of your
comfort level in learning/using them. That could be changed by Autodesk
providing better help for one than the other, but I expect this will not
happen.
The fact that Peter Funk likes C# is far more likely to be a personal
knowledge thing than a realistic reason to go to C#.
There is some level of capability of clipboarding VB/VBA code into VB 2005
and retaining your code logic structures and some of the code will not need
changing. Although I haven't worked much with .NET yet, I found it quite
easy to write VB style code with it to open a form and do some computations
with data read from text boxes on the form and print the output to a file.
--
Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au
www.civil3Dtools.com
"john coon" wrote in message
news:5420642@discussion.autodesk.com...
Group,
I've seen a lot of messages recently talking about VB, Express tools, Visual
Studios, Vb.net, and Windows Vista? replacing VBA?
I currently work only in vba (about two years) for my routines but want to
be ready in case this should change. I work mainly in AutoCAD and Land
Desktop and soon Civil 3D.
This all seems a little confusing if you not a programmer. Can someone
explain what the differences are or what direction might be best if I want
to be able to continue to create new or update existing routines for my work
as a civil designer. Also If I were to purchase one of the stand alone
programming packages which of those would be best if my focus would be
talking to AutoCAD as an end result. Additionally can any of the stand alone
routines have the ability to import existing vba routine code.
Any insight is appreciated, Have a great day
John Coon
