C# developers going back to vb.net

[Kevin]

I don't know if I should even start this topic but here goes.
I'm an ex vb6 developer, now developing in C#.
The reason why I started developing in C# is because the company that I
worked for at the time standarised on C#.

Many of my friends working in previous companies that I worked for are
starting to move back to VB.Net. When I asked them why, it seems that
the next release of VB.Net seems very promising and they kinda see
themselves in the same position I'm in. It seems that at the time when
..Net was first released many companies basically forced developers to
work in C# because as in my case the company they worked for
standarised on C#, why these companies did this is beyond me because
most of their developers were vb developers, I think it's because it
was marketed that C# was the main language to use on the .Net
Framework.

Now many companies as well as management in these companies are
starting to realise that vb.net is not that different from c# and are
starting to give their developers a choice and thus obviously the move
back to vb.

The reason why I'm posting this topic here is because I'm wondering how
many developers using c# are ex vb developers and would actually like
to develop in vb.net. I have actually convinced my superiors to use
vb.net as another language choice and they have agreed.

We have just started a new project in vb.net about 3 mths ago and I
must say that it's still a damn fun language to work in, I'm actually
enjoying my work again. Productivity couldn't be higher as other c# (ex
vb6) developers in my department have also wanted to go back.

Wondering how many of you out there would like to move back to the
lighter side of life?

[Kevin Spencer]

Well, yes, if you want to be perfectly literal about it. Even MS DOS was
"multi-tasking" in a technical sense, and this amounts to nit-picking, which
may make one subjectively feel superior, but contributes nothing to the
topic.

The point I was making was that C++ was developed at a time when low-level
programming was much safer, and programming in general was much simpler. I
wrote programs in C for DOS that performed interrupt calls back in the day,
did direct disk writes, etc. This would be catastrophic today, for the vast
majority of programming tasks. That is inarguable, and topical.

Forgive me, but I am much too old for geek swagger. At this point in my
life, I prefer to be creating powerful software, rather than comparing the
length of my "hardware."

--

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Big things are made up of
lots of little things.

"Cor Ligthert [MVP]" <no************ @planet.nl> wrote in message
news:Or******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...

Kevin,

C is almost equal to Unix an OS made especially to let a lot of students
use one computer (multi tasking) at the same time whithout having the
change that happens what students in that situation like to do the most.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28pr...ng_language%29

:-)

Cor

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Kevin,

May I ask you if you did understand the message from Adam and did you think
he was right in that.

I did not want to pick on every row as you forever do.

I showed him a place to investigate what he wrote in advance, something that
your message as shown in this thread lack as well very often.

Cor

[Larry Lard]

Kevin Spencer wrote:

Do you know Wikipedia, there is a lot stated wrong in your message
Well, Cor, by your own nit-picking standards, your English *sucks*.

I rather think Cor was referring to content rather than form. And I
daresay his English is better than your whatever-his-native-tongue is.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/home.htm

Get over it, dude. There are more important (and helpful) things to do in
life than nit-pick. If you have a self-image problem, don't compensate. You
will only end up hating yourself even more. If you want to feel good about
yourself, try to make others feel good about themselves. What goes around
comes around.

Physician heal thyself!

--
Larry Lard
Replies to group please

[Kevin2]

"Kevin" wrote:

I don't know if I should even start this topic but here goes.
I'm an ex vb6 developer, now developing in C#.
The reason why I started developing in C# is because the company that I
worked for at the time standarised on C#.

Many of my friends working in previous companies that I worked for are
starting to move back to VB.Net. When I asked them why, it seems that
the next release of VB.Net seems very promising and they kinda see
themselves in the same position I'm in. It seems that at the time when
..Net was first released many companies basically forced developers to
work in C# because as in my case the company they worked for
standarised on C#, why these companies did this is beyond me because
most of their developers were vb developers, I think it's because it
was marketed that C# was the main language to use on the .Net
Framework.

Now many companies as well as management in these companies are
starting to realise that vb.net is not that different from c# and are
starting to give their developers a choice and thus obviously the move
back to vb.

The reason why I'm posting this topic here is because I'm wondering how
many developers using c# are ex vb developers and would actually like
to develop in vb.net. I have actually convinced my superiors to use
vb.net as another language choice and they have agreed.

We have just started a new project in vb.net about 3 mths ago and I
must say that it's still a damn fun language to work in, I'm actually
enjoying my work again. Productivity couldn't be higher as other c# (ex
vb6) developers in my department have also wanted to go back.

Wondering how many of you out there would like to move back to the
lighter side of life?

I started in vb.net and moved to a company that uses c#. I've been here for
almost 2 years and cannot see myself wanting to go back to vb.net. I have
nothing against it, I've just become very comfortable with c#.

[Kevin Spencer]

Cor,

Afraid not sense make of you what I know. Headache is shown, dizzy forever
make me.

--

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Ambiguity has a certain quality to it.

"Cor Ligthert [MVP]" <no************ @planet.nl> wrote in message
news:uL******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP12.phx.gbl...

Kevin,

May I ask you if you did understand the message from Adam and did you
think he was right in that.

I did not want to pick on every row as you forever do.

I showed him a place to investigate what he wrote in advance, something
that your message as shown in this thread lack as well very often.

Cor

[Kevin Spencer]

You daresay a lot, Lard.

--

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Ambiguity has a certain quality to it.

"Larry Lard" <la*******@hotm ail.com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ o13g2000cwo.goo glegroups.com.. .

Kevin Spencer wrote:

> Do you know Wikipedia, there is a lot stated wrong in your message

Well, Cor, by your own nit-picking standards, your English *sucks*.

I rather think Cor was referring to content rather than form. And I
daresay his English is better than your whatever-his-native-tongue is.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/home.htm

Get over it, dude. There are more important (and helpful) things to do in
life than nit-pick. If you have a self-image problem, don't compensate.
You
will only end up hating yourself even more. If you want to feel good
about
yourself, try to make others feel good about themselves. What goes around
comes around.

Physician heal thyself!

--
Larry Lard
Replies to group please

[Roger Boyer]

Well, a lively discussion, that's for sure.

As a conciencious manager getting ready to embark on a GUI development
project I would like to launch my developers on the best path and platform.
This is "blank sheet of paper" development and primarily new grads. They
will accept whatever language I place in front of them, and, unfortunately, I
haven't been able to gleen much from this conversation on which of the two
would be best. (I won't go too deaply into my programming background other
than to say that I still prefer assembly language - protected, unprotected,
object oriented, ... it's all op-codes).

Anyway, I want to get my newbies started on the right path. Is there REALLY
a difference between the two? Will I hit a dead end with one or the other?
When I read the code snippets, they look *structurally* identical - is this
not the case? Is VB.NET more like C# than it is like VB6?

Help me do right by me coders!

"Kevin" wrote:

I don't know if I should even start this topic but here goes.
I'm an ex vb6 developer, now developing in C#.
The reason why I started developing in C# is because the company that I
worked for at the time standarised on C#.

Many of my friends working in previous companies that I worked for are
starting to move back to VB.Net. When I asked them why, it seems that
the next release of VB.Net seems very promising and they kinda see
themselves in the same position I'm in. It seems that at the time when
..Net was first released many companies basically forced developers to
work in C# because as in my case the company they worked for
standarised on C#, why these companies did this is beyond me because
most of their developers were vb developers, I think it's because it
was marketed that C# was the main language to use on the .Net
Framework.

Now many companies as well as management in these companies are
starting to realise that vb.net is not that different from c# and are
starting to give their developers a choice and thus obviously the move
back to vb.

The reason why I'm posting this topic here is because I'm wondering how
many developers using c# are ex vb developers and would actually like
to develop in vb.net. I have actually convinced my superiors to use
vb.net as another language choice and they have agreed.

We have just started a new project in vb.net about 3 mths ago and I
must say that it's still a damn fun language to work in, I'm actually
enjoying my work again. Productivity couldn't be higher as other c# (ex
vb6) developers in my department have also wanted to go back.

Wondering how many of you out there would like to move back to the
lighter side of life?

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Roger,

I have seen in the newsgroup dotNet.General the in my opinon best answer on
this over and over again asked question.

http://groups.google.com/group/micro...cce63bb7?hl=en

I hope this gives an idea

Cor

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

<"=?Utf-8?B?Um9nZXIgQm9 5ZXI=?=" <Roger
Bo***@discussio ns.microsoft.co m>> wrote:

Well, a lively discussion, that's for sure.

As a conciencious manager getting ready to embark on a GUI development
project I would like to launch my developers on the best path and platform.
This is "blank sheet of paper" development and primarily new grads. They
will accept whatever language I place in front of them, and, unfortunately, I
haven't been able to gleen much from this conversation on which of the two
would be best. (I won't go too deaply into my programming background other
than to say that I still prefer assembly language - protected, unprotected,
object oriented, ... it's all op-codes).

Anyway, I want to get my newbies started on the right path. Is there REALLY
a difference between the two? Will I hit a dead end with one or the other?
When I read the code snippets, they look *structurally* identical - is this
not the case? Is VB.NET more like C# than it is like VB6?

Help me do right by me coders!

There are a few reasons why it's worth using VB.NET in some situations:

1) If your coders really prefer VB syntax (eg if they've been using VB
for years, don't like C#'s "symbol" approach, and are happy to learn
the differences between VB6 and VB.NET)

2) If you need to use a lot of late binding - it's a pain to do it from
C#, but with VB.NET you can just turn option strict off, and so long as
you get everything right, you'll be fine. Just don't complain when it
doesn't give compile-time errors :)

3) If you're doing the kind of COM interop where optional parameters
would be useful
Aside from those, I would suggest using C#, for the following reasons:

1) As it was designed specifically for the .NET framework, it's more
closely aligned to it. It doesn't have a load of legacy quirks - about
the quirkiest it gets is in the switch statement. Compare this with the
various oddities of VB.NET which are basically there for backwards
compatibility, for instance the String "Nothing" handling.

2) It encourages you to do the right thing, by and large. None of this
"Option Strict Off" stuff (by default, no less!). No passing properties
by reference. More explicit event handling which makes it crystal clear
when you're subscribing to an event and when you're unsubscribing. The
"using" statement (coming to VB.NET in VS 2005, I believe).

3) It uses more standard terminology than VB.NET - null, internal etc.

4) XML doc comments (coming to VB.NET in VS 2005).

5) The language is smaller, and thus easier to learn. You need to learn
the .NET framework, of course, just as you do in VB.NET - but without
all the extras which are basically there for backwards compatibility.

There are specific things you can do in C# that you can't do in VB.NET
(just as there are some the other way round, as shown above) but these
aren't generally very important - unsafe code is very rarely useful to
most people. Operator overloading can occasionally be nice, but it's
more that it's great on some of the system types (TimeSpan, DateTime)
than that it's important to be able to overload yourself.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.co m>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

[Steve Walker]

In message <MP************ ************@ms news.microsoft. com>, Jon Skeet
<?@pobox.com.in valid> writes

Aside from those, I would suggest using C#, for the following reasons:

<-- Snip -->

Another consideration; my former employer migrated from VB6 to C#. I was
involved in the process of reviewing CVs and interviewing candidates for
developer positions, both before and after the migration. We had great
difficulty finding VB6 developers of the calibre we wanted. Lots of
applicants, very, very few of them any good. Conversely, when we
advertised C# jobs we had fewer applicants but ended up choosing between
a number of superb candidates. We weren't offering any more money for
the C# guys.

Now, I realise that at the time C# was very new and that the people who
had acquired those skills were a self-selecting group. They were mostly
ex-C++ people or else people who were sick of banging their heads on
VB6's limitations and wanted a change. Things may have changed since
then, but I suspect that a lot of the people we rejected for those VB6
jobs now have VB.NET on their CV, and not C#.

So, not a comment on the relative merits of the languages, but a comment
on the ease of finding good developers amongst the two camps. I'm not
saying that there aren't good VB.NET developers, far from it, rather
that they may be harder to find.

--
Steve Walker