VS.NET 2003 in the classroom

I'm currently in the process of setting up my course for next week, Programming in VB.NET.  Basically a 5-day class to get VB6 people up and running in .NET land.  Creating more Morts I guess.  Anyways, this is the first class I'm teaching that has a new version of VS.NET out, and I'm not too sure how to handle this in the classroom.  In my previous classes, I had a copy of the beta shared out on my instructor machine that people could install and play around with if they so desired.  I think maybe only 5 people actually installed it in the classroom, and they did so on a Friday just to see if 2003 would in fact run SxS w/ 2002. 

Now, for my personal / company development I'll be using 2003 exclusively.  I'm only doing web stuff, and I have no problem putting v1.1 on the webserver.  In fact, we'll be running Windows 2003 Server shortly I believe.  I do develop some windows apps, but they are mostly for personal use so targeting the 1.1 framework won’t be a big deal.  I try to keep my code pretty normal, so hopefully I won’t get burnt too badly. 

But in the classroom, I'm not too sure how quickly people will be adopting VS.NET 2003.  I highly doubt cost will be a factor, but the 2003 only targeting v1.1 could cause some developers from jumping into VS.NET 2003 as their primary development environment.

This week I’m going to stick with VS.NET 2002.  I’ll judge the response of the students towards moving towards 1.1 and VS.NET 2003.  Plus, I haven’t had the chance to walk through the book to make notes on what has changed from 2002 to 2003 (and from 1.0 to 1.1 on the framework side).  I am hesitant to put both on the machines because that has trouble written all over it, especially for people just learning .NET.  Maybe in one of the more advanced courses…

All very exciting stuff, but it is also a lot of work to keep up with all the new stuff.  Note to self, hone up on changes between the versions and the excellent SxS article by Sean and Scott.  I should probably dig into IIS 6 too in case that comes up.  Our Lady of Blessed Caffeine, don’t fail me now.

2 Comments

  • Interesting points. What book are you using? Or is it material you've developed yourself?





    Marcie

  • I'm actually using Microsoft Official Curriculum. Course 2373 to be precise. It actually quite a good class, and coming from me that's saying a lot. I've been pretty vocal in the past about the quality of the MOC courses (especially on the VB6 side of things), but they've done a great job putting together demos, labs and materials that are actually very useful and informative.





    Past MOC courses I've been known to throw out all of the labs and use my own, and I hardly followed the book at all. So far, I've been happy with all the courses.

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