Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Code Project
  1. Home
  2. The Lounge
  3. Why did Microsoft even bother making VB.Net...

Why did Microsoft even bother making VB.Net...

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
csharp
48 Posts 28 Posters 0 Views 1 Watching
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • K Kevin McFarlane

    Gary R. Wheeler wrote:

    I think Microsoft dropped the ball, though, in not at least attempting to create some forward path from VB6 to VB.NET.

    They have done haven't they? It's called the upgrade Wizard? Or do you mean something else? Kevin

    G Offline
    G Offline
    Gary R Wheeler
    wrote on last edited by
    #31

    I was under the (admittedly vague) impression the wizard didn't work very well. I ought to shut up at this point; we're reaching territory where I don't know what I'm talking about :-O.


    Software Zen: delete this;

    Fold With Us![^]

    D 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • K Kevin McFarlane

      I do all this but, e.g., I was asked by one recruiter if I had recent C# experience. He got stroppy when I told him it was a silly question. And you do see ads saying "must be recent." Kevin

      D Offline
      D Offline
      Dave Kreskowiak
      wrote on last edited by
      #32

      It's probably not a project you wanted to begin with. The contractor is showing a limited understanding of the .NET Framework... RageInTheMachine9532 "...a pungent, ghastly, stinky piece of cheese!" -- The Roaming Gnome

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • A Allah On Acid

        I do programming in my free time, and used to do VB.NET, then switched to C#. They both do the same things, but C# totally puts vb to shame. VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code. It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing. And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable. Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

        C Offline
        C Offline
        CSharpDavid
        wrote on last edited by
        #33

        I think the real question is Why J# :-D

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • A Allah On Acid

          I do programming in my free time, and used to do VB.NET, then switched to C#. They both do the same things, but C# totally puts vb to shame. VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code. It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing. And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable. Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

          D Offline
          D Offline
          Duncan Edwards Jones
          wrote on last edited by
          #34

          I do programming as a full time job and have done so for a decade and a half. Microsoft made VB.Net specifically for me - and fortunately there were other people quite like me so the net result (pun intended) was that it was a good business decision. '--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • G Gary R Wheeler

            I was under the (admittedly vague) impression the wizard didn't work very well. I ought to shut up at this point; we're reaching territory where I don't know what I'm talking about :-O.


            Software Zen: delete this;

            Fold With Us![^]

            D Offline
            D Offline
            Dan Neely
            wrote on last edited by
            #35

            it's a 90% solution. Exact values depend on the extent you used VB6 nasties in your code.

            R 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • A Allah On Acid

              I do programming in my free time, and used to do VB.NET, then switched to C#. They both do the same things, but C# totally puts vb to shame. VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code. It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing. And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable. Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

              X Offline
              X Offline
              Xoy
              wrote on last edited by
              #36

              Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

              VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code.

              I'd more so say the opposite... VB has clearer keywords and the verbosity helps with the readability. Beyond that, its a matter of the person writing it. Nothing wrong with C#, but vb is typically more readable than C# (you'd have to try pretty hard to make it horrible)

              Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

              It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing.

              ehem. Thats optional. Learn about what you are criticizing & how to do stuff before you criticize it ;P I have option strict & option explicit set as the default for all my projects ;)

              Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

              And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable.

              :laugh: no. Compare some typical code. Its not messy, just different. Verbose to be specific. I like verbosity. In VS, its not much of an issue in terms of typing, and makes it easier to read (and type).

              Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

              Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

              Both are perfectly fine languages. Its all a matter of preference. If you can't handle VB having the word "BASIC" or "Beginner's" in it, then don't use it ;P Or if you just prefer cish syntax... or whatever your reason may be. Both have features that are appealing as opposed to the other. Its all a matter of preference, especially considering both do about the same things ;P

              K 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • C code frog 0

                Gotta give you a 1 for that. I don't think he would do such a thing and I did not get that impression from him. I don't think he's caused any trouble since his original appearance here and I believe he's lapsed into being one of us that just hangs out. He's just discovering some of the things that have chaffed many of us for years. VB has always been a programming language sitting on a black box that sits on a black box that sits on a black box. But you can build stuff quickly as long as you don't need fancy. Use the built in stuff and VB would take you a long way. C++ has always been like building a high-rise one brick at a time. The main gripe for many has been VB is to restrictive and C++ to dangerous. Microsoft came out with C# for those. But the VB crowd tried it and got road-blocked by braces and colons and said, "Uh, we want VB." There's no holy war here. He's just making some observations. A 1 you get. A 1 you've earned. :-D

                I only read CP for the articles. Code-frog System Architects, Inc.

                B Offline
                B Offline
                bcweis
                wrote on last edited by
                #37

                The saving grace here is .Net. The CLR is the great religious equalizer. Regardless of the syntactical implementation of personal and team preference, it all gets compiled to run on the CLR. We all bow and pray to the Father, Son, and Holy Microsoft. (I'm a VB and C++ and C# developer)

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • K Kevin McFarlane

                  Alvaro Mendez wrote:

                  if (a < 1 && !foo()) { ... }

                  The ! operator is one of my pet peeves about the C-family languages. I agree VB is more readable here. Because of the lack of readability of the ! operator developers often compare to false, but this is less readable than if you could use a not keyword. I still oscillate between ! and comparing to false. The ! is particularly bad in contexts where you have if (something) followed by if (!something) You tend not to see the ! (no pun intended);) Kevin

                  G Offline
                  G Offline
                  Gavin Greig
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #38

                  If this is a problem, you could always use the not keyword instead of ! C++ supports the following less well known keyword eqivalents:

                  and &&
                  and_eq &=
                  bitand &
                  bitor |
                  compl ~
                  not !
                  or ||
                  or_eq |=
                  xor ^
                  xor_eq ^=
                  not_eq !=

                  C# doesn't seem to support these alternatives, which were originally included in C++ to support development when the characters needed for the more usual variants weren't available on the keyboard. Gavin Greig "Haw, you're no deid," girned Charon. "Get aff ma boat or ah'll report ye." Matthew Fitt - The Hoose O Haivers: The Twelve Trauchles O Heracles. -- modified at 5:50 Tuesday 7th February, 2006

                  K 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • C code frog 0

                    Gotta give you a 1 for that. I don't think he would do such a thing and I did not get that impression from him. I don't think he's caused any trouble since his original appearance here and I believe he's lapsed into being one of us that just hangs out. He's just discovering some of the things that have chaffed many of us for years. VB has always been a programming language sitting on a black box that sits on a black box that sits on a black box. But you can build stuff quickly as long as you don't need fancy. Use the built in stuff and VB would take you a long way. C++ has always been like building a high-rise one brick at a time. The main gripe for many has been VB is to restrictive and C++ to dangerous. Microsoft came out with C# for those. But the VB crowd tried it and got road-blocked by braces and colons and said, "Uh, we want VB." There's no holy war here. He's just making some observations. A 1 you get. A 1 you've earned. :-D

                    I only read CP for the articles. Code-frog System Architects, Inc.

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    Sameers Javed
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #39

                    I will advise to use polite language as it may strike on hearts of VB lovers. Need custom software? Contact DevelopersINN[^] Need to add reminders for your Outlook emails? Try Outlook Personal Assistant[^]

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • D Dan Neely

                      it's a 90% solution. Exact values depend on the extent you used VB6 nasties in your code.

                      R Offline
                      R Offline
                      RoboTheToolMan
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #40

                      It's amazing how well you code can work in VB6 only to have so many unconverted items in VB.NET using the upgrade wizard. I ran the convert wizard on an a VB6 application which is running qite well only to find the following: 29 Files, 25 Forms, 3 Modules containing 283 Warnings and 227 Errors. Some upgrade wizard! The funny thing is that in most cases the error report actually tells you what to do to resolve the problem. Too bad Microsoft did not convert the data for us. On the bright side at least they gave us a hint.

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • G Gavin Greig

                        If this is a problem, you could always use the not keyword instead of ! C++ supports the following less well known keyword eqivalents:

                        and &&
                        and_eq &=
                        bitand &
                        bitor |
                        compl ~
                        not !
                        or ||
                        or_eq |=
                        xor ^
                        xor_eq ^=
                        not_eq !=

                        C# doesn't seem to support these alternatives, which were originally included in C++ to support development when the characters needed for the more usual variants weren't available on the keyboard. Gavin Greig "Haw, you're no deid," girned Charon. "Get aff ma boat or ah'll report ye." Matthew Fitt - The Hoose O Haivers: The Twelve Trauchles O Heracles. -- modified at 5:50 Tuesday 7th February, 2006

                        K Offline
                        K Offline
                        Kevin McFarlane
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #41

                        Yes, I'm aware of the C++ alternatives. Kevin

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • X Xoy

                          Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

                          VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code.

                          I'd more so say the opposite... VB has clearer keywords and the verbosity helps with the readability. Beyond that, its a matter of the person writing it. Nothing wrong with C#, but vb is typically more readable than C# (you'd have to try pretty hard to make it horrible)

                          Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

                          It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing.

                          ehem. Thats optional. Learn about what you are criticizing & how to do stuff before you criticize it ;P I have option strict & option explicit set as the default for all my projects ;)

                          Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

                          And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable.

                          :laugh: no. Compare some typical code. Its not messy, just different. Verbose to be specific. I like verbosity. In VS, its not much of an issue in terms of typing, and makes it easier to read (and type).

                          Pumk1nh3ad wrote:

                          Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

                          Both are perfectly fine languages. Its all a matter of preference. If you can't handle VB having the word "BASIC" or "Beginner's" in it, then don't use it ;P Or if you just prefer cish syntax... or whatever your reason may be. Both have features that are appealing as opposed to the other. Its all a matter of preference, especially considering both do about the same things ;P

                          K Offline
                          K Offline
                          Kevin McFarlane
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #42

                          My view is that VB .NET is verbose (i.e., too wordy). C# is not quite wordy enough. VB .NET is more wordy than it needs to be to be readable. C# is more readable than C/C++ but could be a bit more readable. One language that strikes the right balance is Eiffel. However, I don't mind using either C# or VB .NET. Both are nice enough. Kevin

                          X 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • K Kevin McFarlane

                            My view is that VB .NET is verbose (i.e., too wordy). C# is not quite wordy enough. VB .NET is more wordy than it needs to be to be readable. C# is more readable than C/C++ but could be a bit more readable. One language that strikes the right balance is Eiffel. However, I don't mind using either C# or VB .NET. Both are nice enough. Kevin

                            X Offline
                            X Offline
                            Xoy
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #43

                            Kevin McFarlane wrote:

                            One language that strikes the right balance is Eiffel.

                            Personally I found Eiffel a bit less readable. But thats me.

                            Kevin McFarlane wrote:

                            My view is that VB .NET is verbose (i.e., too wordy).

                            with visual studio, the amount of verbosity isn't as much of an issue as it fills it in for you :) without vs though, I agree... it is a lot to type X| then again... Several C# characters aren't too easy to type :( (especially !, though the brackets & braces are a bit out of my way of typing too, though again - vs makes it easier :)) one feature I like in cish languages as opposed to vb is the for loop :) being able to specify the condition yourself :-D Thats one of the only issues I have with vb

                            K 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • T Tad McClellan

                              This is clearly a poor attempt at starting a religous debate between c# and VB. Pumk1nh3ad has been known to do this sort of thing from time to time. My suggestion is to ignore him. E=mc2 -> BOOM

                              P Offline
                              P Offline
                              Polymorpher
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #44

                              Or maybe you just have something against him? Pablo

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • X Xoy

                                Kevin McFarlane wrote:

                                One language that strikes the right balance is Eiffel.

                                Personally I found Eiffel a bit less readable. But thats me.

                                Kevin McFarlane wrote:

                                My view is that VB .NET is verbose (i.e., too wordy).

                                with visual studio, the amount of verbosity isn't as much of an issue as it fills it in for you :) without vs though, I agree... it is a lot to type X| then again... Several C# characters aren't too easy to type :( (especially !, though the brackets & braces are a bit out of my way of typing too, though again - vs makes it easier :)) one feature I like in cish languages as opposed to vb is the for loop :) being able to specify the condition yourself :-D Thats one of the only issues I have with vb

                                K Offline
                                K Offline
                                Kevin McFarlane
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #45

                                Xoy wrote:

                                with visual studio, the amount of verbosity isn't as much of an issue as it fills it in for you

                                That's right. But text can still be verbose to read. Some VB critics have complained about this. Kevin

                                X 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • K Kevin McFarlane

                                  Xoy wrote:

                                  with visual studio, the amount of verbosity isn't as much of an issue as it fills it in for you

                                  That's right. But text can still be verbose to read. Some VB critics have complained about this. Kevin

                                  X Offline
                                  X Offline
                                  Xoy
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #46

                                  Kevin McFarlane wrote:

                                  But text can still be verbose to read. Some VB critics have complained about this.

                                  Personally thats one of the things I like about vb... the right kind of verbosity can improve readability. I'd say that vb's verbosity is pretty good. :-D (nice to use keywords to describe what you are actually doing...) like for example... the "overridable" keyword may be longer than "virtual", but I'd say it does a better job at describing what it actually means :) and of course other related terms... I don't mean to say specifically vb here though, the purpose of this was to illustrate my point on verbosities ;) And as for the critics saying its "verbose to read"... if they want to argue that you get used to reading the cish syntax, you can just as well get used to vb's verbose syntax ;P Just a matter of being used to it... They both are easy enough to read after enough exposure :)

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • A Allah On Acid

                                    I do programming in my free time, and used to do VB.NET, then switched to C#. They both do the same things, but C# totally puts vb to shame. VB is inheritly sloppy, but C# makes it so much easier to write clean, organized code. It also is better to have it where it does not automatically convert different data types automatically, that makes it easier to tell what you are doing. And the syntax, VB syntax is so messy and cumbersome, while C# syntax is clear and readable. Makes me wonder why Microsoft even made VB.net in the first place, C# is so much better.

                                    S Offline
                                    S Offline
                                    Stephane Rodriguez
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #47

                                    VB.NET supports optional parameters. Try program against COM object models like Excel and Word using C#, then compare with VB.NET Actually even Microsoft recommends throwing away C# for that kind of things : http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=15507. As for the languages themselves, it does not matter as they are both statically typed languages as well as imperative and for that reason are much less productive than any of the languages we have known and loved for decades, including VB, Perl, Prolog, Lisp, Python, ... So VB.NET and C# equally suck from a language perspective.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • N Nish Nishant

                                      There's another school of thought that wonders why Microsoft bothered making C#. They could have extended C++ (which they have done now with C++/CLI). C# started off as a VB-like language with C++ style syntactic constructs. Now it's moving away from VB towards C++! So why have it at all? Why not unify C# and C++ into a single language - say C++/CLI. Most long-time C++ devs have similar feelings about C# that most C# devs seem to have about VB.NET! It's really weird, having so many languages, and having to write example code snippets in 2-3 (sometimes 4 if you count J#) languages. Regards, Nish

                                      My blog : Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      Christian Graus
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #48

                                      Yeah, but can one persons opinion be called a 'school of thought' ? Seriously tho, C# exists to be Microsoft's standardised language. C++ can't do that. And who counts J# ? Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      Reply
                                      • Reply as topic
                                      Log in to reply
                                      • Oldest to Newest
                                      • Newest to Oldest
                                      • Most Votes


                                      • Login

                                      • Don't have an account? Register

                                      • Login or register to search.
                                      • First post
                                        Last post
                                      0
                                      • Categories
                                      • Recent
                                      • Tags
                                      • Popular
                                      • World
                                      • Users
                                      • Groups