I am amazed by the longevity of the VB6. Microsoft's support for the IDE has stopped 17 years ago. It is long overdue to let it go completely.
The main reason is that 32-bit support might disappear completely. See my previous 32 bit thread. VB6 does not know anything about 64 bit, of course.
Yes, there large code bases around and it is an investment to port to anything else. There are options though. Lots of code can be converted automatically. We can also provide help with converting KernelCAD/DGK code.
The conversion can be done in stages with old parts of the application running as old VB6 and new as .NET or native C++, etc.
Development is so easy and productive these days with tons of good documentation and examples, great debugging and testing tools..... The fully functional Community edition of Visual Studio is free for businesses with up to five developers. It is a shame not to try.
Sure, older developers love it, but after trying VB .NET or C# VB6 code feels super quirky. It should be banned as inhumane by the UN.