Greg Over the years, there have been some discussions on this, eg Joel Spolksky at http://tinyurl.com/26x7xg5 - and Microsoft does have some words in several places (I haven't chased them up).
Erik Meier's explanations might be worth looking for. The joelonsoftware discussion is from 2006, and goes into the VB6/VBA origins of the idea of modules. A module is just a class where Shared is implicitly understood for each member, and the module name does not need to be supplied when the members are used. I'd agree that classes should be used, and to your approach to immediately delete the Module1 when a VB.NET project is first created. I would guess (Bill McCarthy would know better than I) that the CLI is ignorant of Module because the compiler transmogrifies to classes or equivalent. It's often said that Module was a kludge or aid and inducement for VB6/VBA people to transition to VB.NET. _____ Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia _____ From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Greg Keogh Sent: Sunday, 6 June 2010 3:19 PM To: 'ozDotNet' Subject: RE: Vb.net Modules or classes Hi Tom, is it quiet in here or is my email on the fritz? "Modules" were weird and unclear abstractions in the old VB days that irritated and confused me. They still do, so whenever I make a new VB project I delete the Module and I create classes. I'm probably biased here because I come from a C/C++/Java background in the 90s. I'm a bit rusty on this, but can VB boffins confirm that a Module is similar to a static/Shared class of methods, but you see an unqualified "flattened" view of what they contain? Can someone also confirm that the concept of a Module is meaningless to the CLR? I'd run with your feeling on this that Modules are "wrong". My console apps always have a class with a static/Shared Main method, which seems natural to me, not overkill. Cheers, Greg Ps. I recommend that you put all of the core functionality of what your apps do into a library and consider the Console app just a thin wrapper around that functionality. That way you can create Forms apps, services, etc that wrap the functionality. Pps. No coding over 0.05 or with a hangover.
