VB/C# "Coevolution"
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You should really use VB syntax for that so the VB people can understand.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
I figured if the languages were equivalent I could mix my metaphors. :)
Christopher Duncan
www.PracticalUSA.com
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Copywriting Services -
C# = VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCode );
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Surely you mean C# == VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCode );
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Maybe I haven't set up VS to make C# programming quicker, but I find the IDE in VB so much easier to use. For instance, the fact that you don't have to know which methods are available for a control, you just pick the one you want from the drop down's at the top of the code window. Or the fact that the VB IDE seems to correct a lot, which can make it a lot quicker...like if I type "if i = 0" and hit enter, it fills in the "Then" and "End If". And some of the statements seem more streamlined or with more functionality...for instance
Select Case intI
case <5
do something
case 6-10
do something else
case >10
do another thing
End Selector instead of
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++)how aboutfor i = 1 to 5. Personally, I find the VB IDE soooo much easier and quicker to use. -
C# = VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCode );
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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I just don't like language features that are included or left out specifically to make life easy for Visual Studio. X|
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Maybe I haven't set up VS to make C# programming quicker, but I find the IDE in VB so much easier to use. For instance, the fact that you don't have to know which methods are available for a control, you just pick the one you want from the drop down's at the top of the code window. Or the fact that the VB IDE seems to correct a lot, which can make it a lot quicker...like if I type "if i = 0" and hit enter, it fills in the "Then" and "End If". And some of the statements seem more streamlined or with more functionality...for instance
Select Case intI
case <5
do something
case 6-10
do something else
case >10
do another thing
End Selector instead of
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++)how aboutfor i = 1 to 5. Personally, I find the VB IDE soooo much easier and quicker to use.But what about writing it in a text editor? Don't judge a language by a single IDE.
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But what about writing it in a text editor? Don't judge a language by a single IDE.
Well, this was started talking about something that one of the VS team lead's had written. But, if I were writing in a text editor, I would still choose VB I think...though I don't know why I would be writing in a text editor... In the case of a text editor, the case insensitivity of VB is a benefit...I don't have to worry about getting all of the cases right. "intI" is the same as "inti" in VB. Granted, "inti" is harder to read, but that's why I don't program in a text editor...even one like gVim. The fact that VB .Net now basically has the same capabilities of C# to me would let me decide based on what I was programming in and how simple the IDE made it. The VS VB IDE seems to me to be better than the VS C# IDE.
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But what about writing it in a text editor? Don't judge a language by a single IDE.
VB.NET was never designed to be used outside of Visual Studio... Microsoft doesn't expect VB programmers to do anything the hard way :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of Guardians of Xen (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel) -
VB code is easy to read - what drugs are you on. Can I have some ?
Candy: Here's the plan: we changes our names, move to a distant island, and disguise ourselves as a family of traveling donkey polishers.
You are assuming that the ability to find each word of a programming language in an english dictionary defines how easy the language is to read. Within the context of programmers reading code (not an average Joe), C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
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You are assuming that the ability to find each word of a programming language in an english dictionary defines how easy the language is to read. Within the context of programmers reading code (not an average Joe), C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
puromtec1 wrote:
C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
Not in all cases... And more succinct isn't necessarily easier to read and write... See two examples in William's post here[^]. I could probably think of a few more situations in which VB is easier to read, but it's just about time to go home, and I'm close to passing out (#%*@ing insomnia)... Personally, I started out in Basic and was pretty decent at VB before I even tried C#, but now I work almost exclusively with the latter. I do prefer the C# syntax in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's universally better.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of Guardians of Xen (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel) -
Maybe I haven't set up VS to make C# programming quicker, but I find the IDE in VB so much easier to use. For instance, the fact that you don't have to know which methods are available for a control, you just pick the one you want from the drop down's at the top of the code window. Or the fact that the VB IDE seems to correct a lot, which can make it a lot quicker...like if I type "if i = 0" and hit enter, it fills in the "Then" and "End If". And some of the statements seem more streamlined or with more functionality...for instance
Select Case intI
case <5
do something
case 6-10
do something else
case >10
do another thing
End Selector instead of
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++)how aboutfor i = 1 to 5. Personally, I find the VB IDE soooo much easier and quicker to use.William Winner wrote:
or instead of for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) how about for i = 1 to 5.
But what if you wanted to do something crazy like
for(float f=0; f < someNumber; f*=f)My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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C# = VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCode );
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
C# = VB - COBOL.SyntacticVerbosity + C.Braces
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
puromtec1 wrote:
C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
Not in all cases... And more succinct isn't necessarily easier to read and write... See two examples in William's post here[^]. I could probably think of a few more situations in which VB is easier to read, but it's just about time to go home, and I'm close to passing out (#%*@ing insomnia)... Personally, I started out in Basic and was pretty decent at VB before I even tried C#, but now I work almost exclusively with the latter. I do prefer the C# syntax in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's universally better.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of Guardians of Xen (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel)Ian Shlasko wrote:
I'm close to passing out
I hear you on that one... It is true that his for example demonstrates a for statement is less characters in VB. However, it highlights another readability issue which is that the VB statement requires pause to remember "when does 'i' stop, at 5 or before 5?' Also, you have to realize that characters like these '{}()[]' are visual aids that help our eyes separate and identify information. This is in fact a plus for readability while it does increase the number of characters on the page in some instances.
Ian Shlasko wrote:
I started out in Basic
Basic on the TI calculator is where I started and did vb before C#, too.
Ian Shlasko wrote:
but that doesn't mean it's universally better.
I don't think it is worthwhile to postulate if anything is universally better to everything else regardless of topic. However, it is an important question to answer because it may affect the bottom line of our customers.
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Ian Shlasko wrote:
I'm close to passing out
I hear you on that one... It is true that his for example demonstrates a for statement is less characters in VB. However, it highlights another readability issue which is that the VB statement requires pause to remember "when does 'i' stop, at 5 or before 5?' Also, you have to realize that characters like these '{}()[]' are visual aids that help our eyes separate and identify information. This is in fact a plus for readability while it does increase the number of characters on the page in some instances.
Ian Shlasko wrote:
I started out in Basic
Basic on the TI calculator is where I started and did vb before C#, too.
Ian Shlasko wrote:
but that doesn't mean it's universally better.
I don't think it is worthwhile to postulate if anything is universally better to everything else regardless of topic. However, it is an important question to answer because it may affect the bottom line of our customers.
puromtec1 wrote:
Basic on the TI calculator is where I started
Oh yeah, I did a little line bouncing screensaver on my TI-83+ 6 to 10 years ago... I should add that to my resume. ;P
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William Winner wrote:
or instead of for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) how about for i = 1 to 5.
But what if you wanted to do something crazy like
for(float f=0; f < someNumber; f*=f)My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
SK Genius wrote:
for(float f=0; f < someNumber; f*=f)
Well, first of all, that is an infinite loop as 0 * 0 is always going to be 0, but I get your point, and I agree that in many cases, including that one, c# is quicker...though you can still always just do a
whileordo whileloop. You're never limited to just theforloop. -
Maybe I haven't set up VS to make C# programming quicker, but I find the IDE in VB so much easier to use. For instance, the fact that you don't have to know which methods are available for a control, you just pick the one you want from the drop down's at the top of the code window. Or the fact that the VB IDE seems to correct a lot, which can make it a lot quicker...like if I type "if i = 0" and hit enter, it fills in the "Then" and "End If". And some of the statements seem more streamlined or with more functionality...for instance
Select Case intI
case <5
do something
case 6-10
do something else
case >10
do another thing
End Selector instead of
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++)how aboutfor i = 1 to 5. Personally, I find the VB IDE soooo much easier and quicker to use.Rather than "End Select", "End Sub", "End While", and so on, C# has "}". More concise. You are ending a code block, so you really only need one thing to do that, and why not make it one character, so you don't need anything to be filled in when you press ENTER. In C# Windows Forms development, you just right click a control (in the designer) and select "Properties". You then click the little lightning icon if you want to see all the events on the control you can subscribe to. Same as the "which methods are available for a control" you mention in VB. Or you can use intellisense by typing the control name and typing "."... a list will pop up with all the methods, properties, and events on that control. There are even little icons to identify what type of thing (event, method, property, etc) each thing is. No real difference here between VB/C# in the IDE. C# has the "switch" statement, which is much like the "select case" statement in VB. One thing I do like in VB is the ability to do ranges and such (e.g., "case < 5"), which you cannot do in C#. The only way to do that in C# is to do a chained "IF" statement, but that's not too ugly given how concise the syntax is in C#. For example:
if (intI < 5)
{
// Do something.
}
else if (intI >=6 && intI <=10)
{
// Do something else.
}
else if (intI > 10)
{
// Do another thing.
}I'm sure the builders of C# could add an extra construct to parse a "for(i = 1 to 5)" or something of that sort, but I don't see any reason to clutter up the language with specific cases. The included "for" statement is more flexible than the VB version. There is also "foreach" which I think is in both languages. I like that C# doesn't add unnecessary syntactic sugar unnecessarily to burden me with learning extra stuff. Some people like that kind of thing though, so I suppose VB works fine for them. I'd say the main difference between VB and C# is that C# seems more geared to those who want to understand the underlying concept (e.g., a code block is the same no matter which context it is in) while VB is more geared toward concrete thinkers who want to see things in more explicit terms (e.g., there is a "SELECT" code block and a "WHILE" code block and a "FOR" code block and so on).
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Rather than "End Select", "End Sub", "End While", and so on, C# has "}". More concise. You are ending a code block, so you really only need one thing to do that, and why not make it one character, so you don't need anything to be filled in when you press ENTER. In C# Windows Forms development, you just right click a control (in the designer) and select "Properties". You then click the little lightning icon if you want to see all the events on the control you can subscribe to. Same as the "which methods are available for a control" you mention in VB. Or you can use intellisense by typing the control name and typing "."... a list will pop up with all the methods, properties, and events on that control. There are even little icons to identify what type of thing (event, method, property, etc) each thing is. No real difference here between VB/C# in the IDE. C# has the "switch" statement, which is much like the "select case" statement in VB. One thing I do like in VB is the ability to do ranges and such (e.g., "case < 5"), which you cannot do in C#. The only way to do that in C# is to do a chained "IF" statement, but that's not too ugly given how concise the syntax is in C#. For example:
if (intI < 5)
{
// Do something.
}
else if (intI >=6 && intI <=10)
{
// Do something else.
}
else if (intI > 10)
{
// Do another thing.
}I'm sure the builders of C# could add an extra construct to parse a "for(i = 1 to 5)" or something of that sort, but I don't see any reason to clutter up the language with specific cases. The included "for" statement is more flexible than the VB version. There is also "foreach" which I think is in both languages. I like that C# doesn't add unnecessary syntactic sugar unnecessarily to burden me with learning extra stuff. Some people like that kind of thing though, so I suppose VB works fine for them. I'd say the main difference between VB and C# is that C# seems more geared to those who want to understand the underlying concept (e.g., a code block is the same no matter which context it is in) while VB is more geared toward concrete thinkers who want to see things in more explicit terms (e.g., there is a "SELECT" code block and a "WHILE" code block and a "FOR" code block and so on).
I don't use C# a whole lot, and I hadn't found that little lightning bolt yet. Yeah, that would have helped a lot. I do like that the brackets identify a code block, but the VS IDE automatically handles the tabbing for both languages (though, every once in a while, they don't), and without that, both languages can be hard to determine which '}' goes with which '{'.
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SK Genius wrote:
for(float f=0; f < someNumber; f*=f)
Well, first of all, that is an infinite loop as 0 * 0 is always going to be 0, but I get your point, and I agree that in many cases, including that one, c# is quicker...though you can still always just do a
whileordo whileloop. You're never limited to just theforloop.True. To be honest if I need to do anything other than increment or decrement then I'll use a while loop.
My current favourite word is: Smooth!
-SK Genius
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puromtec1 wrote:
C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
Not in all cases... And more succinct isn't necessarily easier to read and write... See two examples in William's post here[^]. I could probably think of a few more situations in which VB is easier to read, but it's just about time to go home, and I'm close to passing out (#%*@ing insomnia)... Personally, I started out in Basic and was pretty decent at VB before I even tried C#, but now I work almost exclusively with the latter. I do prefer the C# syntax in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's universally better.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of Guardians of Xen (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel) -
You are assuming that the ability to find each word of a programming language in an english dictionary defines how easy the language is to read. Within the context of programmers reading code (not an average Joe), C# is more succinct, and is therefore easier to read and write.
Nonsense - txt spk is > sccnt ! ez As a general rule the total mental processing in any communication is constant therefore the more effort made by the writer the less is required by the reader and vice versa. The design goal of "easy to write" should only be prioritised if more people are going to write the code than are going to read it.
'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Free eBook: Printing - a .NET Developer's Guide (Part 1)