VB/C# "Coevolution"
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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.
VB code is THE ugliest code I've ever seen. I'm a .net developer, and am looking at a peachy job, only 8 miles from my house (I currently commute over 45 miles ONE WAY to work). I'm second guessing taking that job because... they code in VB. While I realize that vb.net is every bit effective as C#, it takes me back to the mid 90's, where VB6 (and earlier incarnations) was what people who WEREN'T real programmers used. It makes my stomach turn to even look at VB syntax. Do a search on CareerBuilder (or monster, or whatever) for the city where you live for ".NET DEVELOPER". Then see how many refer to VB. I did this for Charlotte, and got 51 hits (25 per page). On the first page, 22 were C#, one said vb/c#, one said vb, the other didn't specify. That's not even 10% usage. I didn't even bother to look at the second page. Businesses are primarily settling on C#. Probably because "real" programmers don't wanna look at that VB crap. That's not ME talking... that's the facts of the business world. Do your own search and see it for yourself.
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Using VB / C# is down to a personal preference for one reason or another. But at the moment i am getting more consistant work with VB where i live
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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).
That is one thing I miss about VB. I always prefered the End If/While/Function/Sub stuff instead of }. Makes it easier to see, yes, this code was an if statement, this was a while loop, etc. At least VS highlights the opening brace though. But that being said, I prefer c#, case sensitivity is actually nice when knowing where a variable was defined if you always follow a programming standard, variables starting with _ are global, lower case are defined in the method, and capitals are always the name of the method. At least, thats the way we do it here.
I like dead people. They are quiet and happy with what you give them.
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"...Personally, I find the VB IDE soooo much easier and quicker to use."
My thoughts exactly. VB has its drawbacks like any language. But all the curly braces and semicolons in C# add to the clutter on the screen. VB's syntax is nice and clean. -
VB code is THE ugliest code I've ever seen. I'm a .net developer, and am looking at a peachy job, only 8 miles from my house (I currently commute over 45 miles ONE WAY to work). I'm second guessing taking that job because... they code in VB. While I realize that vb.net is every bit effective as C#, it takes me back to the mid 90's, where VB6 (and earlier incarnations) was what people who WEREN'T real programmers used. It makes my stomach turn to even look at VB syntax. Do a search on CareerBuilder (or monster, or whatever) for the city where you live for ".NET DEVELOPER". Then see how many refer to VB. I did this for Charlotte, and got 51 hits (25 per page). On the first page, 22 were C#, one said vb/c#, one said vb, the other didn't specify. That's not even 10% usage. I didn't even bother to look at the second page. Businesses are primarily settling on C#. Probably because "real" programmers don't wanna look at that VB crap. That's not ME talking... that's the facts of the business world. Do your own search and see it for yourself.
That's probably because people with a similar beligerant attitude to yours got to the senior dev positions first and ensured that VB stayed away from their realms -- likely because of just the same VB6 (and ealier) recollections. [A powerful and effective] VB.NET has only been around a very short time so it has an uphill climb to claw its way into the IT hallowed halls. What the OP article reminds us of is that the scales have been evened now in terms of technical capacities. I think a strongly partisan attitude like yours is what keeps VB in the shadows as an ugly little step brother to C#. VB gets the job done just the same when it boils down to IL (with a few exceptions) and someone adept at writing in it can be as fast if not faster at getting the equivalent work finished by deadline in C#... and they can read/comprehend it just as fast. Is this not what is really needed of a language in the average professional environment?
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That's probably because people with a similar beligerant attitude to yours got to the senior dev positions first and ensured that VB stayed away from their realms -- likely because of just the same VB6 (and ealier) recollections. [A powerful and effective] VB.NET has only been around a very short time so it has an uphill climb to claw its way into the IT hallowed halls. What the OP article reminds us of is that the scales have been evened now in terms of technical capacities. I think a strongly partisan attitude like yours is what keeps VB in the shadows as an ugly little step brother to C#. VB gets the job done just the same when it boils down to IL (with a few exceptions) and someone adept at writing in it can be as fast if not faster at getting the equivalent work finished by deadline in C#... and they can read/comprehend it just as fast. Is this not what is really needed of a language in the average professional environment?
Per my original post, I confessed that vb.net is 100% "equal" to C#. Professionally trained programmers (via university and such) will learn C-based languages. Either C, or C++, possibly even C#. They most likely won't even see ANY version of Basic in school (VB or otherwise). I could be slightly wrong in this regard, as it's been 20+ years that I went to school. If students ARE using VB in college... that's a new thing, as even recently as the early 2000's, students were coming out with C++ knowledge. Am I biased against all things VB (whether it's VB6 or VB.NET)? You betcha. Even in my current job, I had to do recode part of a "legacy" program that was done in VB.NET. (I say legacy as it was done 4 years ago, when we allowed a contractor to use VB.NET). It irritated me no end how much "control" VS tried to enforce on me. Hey, I love intellisense and other template features it provided, but with some formatting it *forced* its view on my code. Yet the C# environment would never do that. End of story.... businesses today use C#, not VB. I'm fine with it staying that way.
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Per my original post, I confessed that vb.net is 100% "equal" to C#. Professionally trained programmers (via university and such) will learn C-based languages. Either C, or C++, possibly even C#. They most likely won't even see ANY version of Basic in school (VB or otherwise). I could be slightly wrong in this regard, as it's been 20+ years that I went to school. If students ARE using VB in college... that's a new thing, as even recently as the early 2000's, students were coming out with C++ knowledge. Am I biased against all things VB (whether it's VB6 or VB.NET)? You betcha. Even in my current job, I had to do recode part of a "legacy" program that was done in VB.NET. (I say legacy as it was done 4 years ago, when we allowed a contractor to use VB.NET). It irritated me no end how much "control" VS tried to enforce on me. Hey, I love intellisense and other template features it provided, but with some formatting it *forced* its view on my code. Yet the C# environment would never do that. End of story.... businesses today use C#, not VB. I'm fine with it staying that way.
I think you've touched upon a more valid point -- that the level of general programming training in the C# camp is still probably disproportionally higher. VB is still very much a wide open gate (with neon sign perhaps ) for the average duffer with a ken for "doing fun stuff on the computer". Learning stuff the hard way is no subtitute for learning it the right way first. I'd make that my tag line but I learned a lot the hard way and seeing that written all the time would probably make me sad. :)
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this is a good thing, because underneath is all it still compiles down to IL, and will keep all developers on an even playing field. This of course will torque C# devs, because of some weird holier-than-thou attitude. the fact that at my business we use VB.net is actually a benefit for getting semi technical people to understand what’s going on in the code or even get someone new up and going. this is not to say that VB is a dumbed down language, it's just more natural English (i know sucks for other places) then bunches of {}; I will admit that a lot of VB6 devs had horrible code because they were allowed to; and then carried that on to .NET. It's no excuse not to constantly improve your way of coding. With that said: I can understand some animosity toward these type of developers who had it too easy in the past, but .NET should of changed this. I feel the reason the job listings tend to list C# more then VB.NET has all to do with naming: if C# would not have been named as a C predecessor or VB would have been renamed to something else, there would not have been this funny old way of thinking that C#=C and VB = gwBasic so lets only look for C# devs. Any dev worth his salt can work with other languages. I've prefer VB.net syntax, but I can work in C#,C,C++, but I don't like to, I find the syntax crude, and since I don't specialize in it, I'm sure to someone who does: it would look messy. the same is true for some of the C# codes I've seen working in VB, as it looks like crap to me because they are not completely as ease with the language. one last complaint: VB6 coders still out there = Grow up! you should have started moving on 10 years ago. I dumped VB6 like a flaming bag of dog s*** that it was as soon as I could. there should have at least been side by side dev to replace VB6 apps a long time ago! so how many people did i piss off?:cool:
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Surely you mean C# == VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCode );
'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Free eBook: Printing - a .NET Developer's Guide (Part 1)
It easier to read whatever language you are used to. Hell, I used to code in VB5 and could never understand C++ code. Now I can't understand most VB code, really hard to read. So I'd say: C# == VB - (VB.UglySyntax | VB.CounterIntuitiveUseOfTheSameBracesEveryWhere | VB.OverlyVerboseAndHardToReadCodeForCDevs );
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But what about writing it in a text editor? Don't judge a language by a single IDE.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
But what about writing it in a text editor? Don't judge a language by a single IDE.
You've obviously never opened a VB .frm file in a text editor, you can do exactly the same thing, the only difference is you have to define what kind of form, what controls and where they are. Other than that it's straight normal coding. And before anyone flames me for being a "VB lover" keep in mind that I learnt BOTH VB6 AND C++. But I still prefer to use VB6, I find it easier to manage code in since the classes and forms are entirely seperate from each other and can be done as 2 seperate projects if wanted... The same can't be said for .NET, at least not from what i've seen. I find the whole .NET architecture to be slow and clunky. It's a well known rule that the further you get away from machine code, the slower and clunkier the IDE, compiler and program is. VS.NET is further away from machine code than what VS6 is. That being said, VB of any flavour is still entirely unsuited for certain tasks, because C++ is faster. With that second point being made, C++ can do some things that VB just can't do... like forcing the program to be run in a specific memory block, or defining how much memory a program can use.
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Hmmm, not looked at the other replies yet but I bet they contain a fair sprinkling of anti-VB rants! :)
Kevin
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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.William Winner wrote:
I find the IDE in VB so much easier to use
I've programmed a lot in both C# and VB .NET (and classic VB). I find the IDE support in C# way better than VB. In fact I find VB more irritating in this respect than any differences in the language. Some things just don't work properly at all, e.g., expand/collapse regions. Code snippets implementation is anal. IntelliSense implementation is clumsy. There are other negatives that I can't recall right now.
William Winner wrote:
if I type "if i = 0" and hit enter, it fills in the "Then" and "End If"
I agree, that's helpful in VB. In C# you can press tab twice to expand the "if" code snippet, type i == 0, then hit enter to move to the body. OK, so one more step than VB but nothing worth worrying about.
Kevin
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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 '{'.
William Winner wrote:
both languages can be hard to determine which '}' goes with which '{'.
And in both languages good coding practice should shun deeply nested code. Unfortunately we frequently have to maintain it. :(
Kevin
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That is one thing I miss about VB. I always prefered the End If/While/Function/Sub stuff instead of }. Makes it easier to see, yes, this code was an if statement, this was a while loop, etc. At least VS highlights the opening brace though. But that being said, I prefer c#, case sensitivity is actually nice when knowing where a variable was defined if you always follow a programming standard, variables starting with _ are global, lower case are defined in the method, and capitals are always the name of the method. At least, thats the way we do it here.
I like dead people. They are quiet and happy with what you give them.
ecooke wrote:
Makes it easier to see, yes, this code was an if statement, this was a while loop, etc
I actually use a CodeRush plugin to help me out. Amazingly useful, especially when I'm cutting and pasting code. See screenshot http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/esOenTrjP3l21VuPdYdRSw?feat=directlink[^] See the faint text at the end of the foreach and the end of the method. That text is just an overlay. It's not part of the file.
Kevin
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VB code is THE ugliest code I've ever seen. I'm a .net developer, and am looking at a peachy job, only 8 miles from my house (I currently commute over 45 miles ONE WAY to work). I'm second guessing taking that job because... they code in VB. While I realize that vb.net is every bit effective as C#, it takes me back to the mid 90's, where VB6 (and earlier incarnations) was what people who WEREN'T real programmers used. It makes my stomach turn to even look at VB syntax. Do a search on CareerBuilder (or monster, or whatever) for the city where you live for ".NET DEVELOPER". Then see how many refer to VB. I did this for Charlotte, and got 51 hits (25 per page). On the first page, 22 were C#, one said vb/c#, one said vb, the other didn't specify. That's not even 10% usage. I didn't even bother to look at the second page. Businesses are primarily settling on C#. Probably because "real" programmers don't wanna look at that VB crap. That's not ME talking... that's the facts of the business world. Do your own search and see it for yourself.
IF you want to see ugly code, look at Forth or APL. Basic is much easier to understand.
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VB code is THE ugliest code I've ever seen. I'm a .net developer, and am looking at a peachy job, only 8 miles from my house (I currently commute over 45 miles ONE WAY to work). I'm second guessing taking that job because... they code in VB. While I realize that vb.net is every bit effective as C#, it takes me back to the mid 90's, where VB6 (and earlier incarnations) was what people who WEREN'T real programmers used. It makes my stomach turn to even look at VB syntax. Do a search on CareerBuilder (or monster, or whatever) for the city where you live for ".NET DEVELOPER". Then see how many refer to VB. I did this for Charlotte, and got 51 hits (25 per page). On the first page, 22 were C#, one said vb/c#, one said vb, the other didn't specify. That's not even 10% usage. I didn't even bother to look at the second page. Businesses are primarily settling on C#. Probably because "real" programmers don't wanna look at that VB crap. That's not ME talking... that's the facts of the business world. Do your own search and see it for yourself.
I don't get it. For me, I see no major difference in readability or writeability between C# and VB. I'm just as comfortable with either, and I had assumed that to be true of all programmers. And VB isn't ugly unless the the programmer makes it that way. It seems to me that people who work with C exclusively don't like VB because it has removed some of the mysticism from computer programming, allowing the "average Joe" to do what he wants with his computer without waiting for weeks/months/years for someone to do it for him. But that's just my perception - maybe wrong. But then, I'm an old fart who learned VB long before C was a twinkle in it's daddy's eye.
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I don't get it. For me, I see no major difference in readability or writeability between C# and VB. I'm just as comfortable with either, and I had assumed that to be true of all programmers. And VB isn't ugly unless the the programmer makes it that way. It seems to me that people who work with C exclusively don't like VB because it has removed some of the mysticism from computer programming, allowing the "average Joe" to do what he wants with his computer without waiting for weeks/months/years for someone to do it for him. But that's just my perception - maybe wrong. But then, I'm an old fart who learned VB long before C was a twinkle in it's daddy's eye.
tbarnhill wrote: But then, I'm an old fart who learned VB long before C was a twinkle in it's daddy's eye. No you didn't. The first version of Visual Basic (VB) wasn't even released until 1991. [^] C has been around since the early 70's. Yes "C" is not "C#", but "VB" is not basic, either. Nor is vb.net "VB". The VB that was VB6 is not the same as VB.NET. C# is a newer language that came AFTER VB6, but it takes C constructs (the same for(), while(), case{} statements), and adds the OOP of C++ in an easier to code manner. It's C on steroids, like vb.net is vb6 on steroids. Regardless of all that... C# is the same "distance" from C as VB.NET is from VB. Yes, my aversion to VB.NET is its "simpleton" aspect. Not because it allows others to do what I do, but it makes me feel like I'm back in 3rd grade having to write code in such a "backwards" (ie, non-sophisticated) way. I graduated college in 1986, AFTER a five year Air Force stint, so I doubt if you're much older (if any) than I am.... The PROFESSIONAL world DOES code "in C". I started coding in C professionally in 1987, and have been using it ever since. While Basic and VB was around... it was used by people who didn't have a C.S. education and were self-taught (not that there's anything wrong with that). Others who've been in the business as long feel the say way... All you have to do is the same "test" I did. Go to careerbuilder, monster, wherever, and do a search on a decent sized city near you for ".net developer" and see what the results turn up. For Charlotte, it was less than 10% VB. There's gotta be a reason for that... and I hope it stays that way. Let the "hacks" use VB, the rest of us will stick with C#.
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tbarnhill wrote: But then, I'm an old fart who learned VB long before C was a twinkle in it's daddy's eye. No you didn't. The first version of Visual Basic (VB) wasn't even released until 1991. [^] C has been around since the early 70's. Yes "C" is not "C#", but "VB" is not basic, either. Nor is vb.net "VB". The VB that was VB6 is not the same as VB.NET. C# is a newer language that came AFTER VB6, but it takes C constructs (the same for(), while(), case{} statements), and adds the OOP of C++ in an easier to code manner. It's C on steroids, like vb.net is vb6 on steroids. Regardless of all that... C# is the same "distance" from C as VB.NET is from VB. Yes, my aversion to VB.NET is its "simpleton" aspect. Not because it allows others to do what I do, but it makes me feel like I'm back in 3rd grade having to write code in such a "backwards" (ie, non-sophisticated) way. I graduated college in 1986, AFTER a five year Air Force stint, so I doubt if you're much older (if any) than I am.... The PROFESSIONAL world DOES code "in C". I started coding in C professionally in 1987, and have been using it ever since. While Basic and VB was around... it was used by people who didn't have a C.S. education and were self-taught (not that there's anything wrong with that). Others who've been in the business as long feel the say way... All you have to do is the same "test" I did. Go to careerbuilder, monster, wherever, and do a search on a decent sized city near you for ".net developer" and see what the results turn up. For Charlotte, it was less than 10% VB. There's gotta be a reason for that... and I hope it stays that way. Let the "hacks" use VB, the rest of us will stick with C#.
You are absolutely correct. I meant to say BASIC (GW), not VB. I didn't start using VB until version 2.0 came out. My daughter graduated college in 1987, and I've been programming computers since 1963, so yeah, I've been around for a while. I learned and used three assemblers before I tackled C. Assemblers were much easier. And, yes, I learned them without formal training. It just took a few books and reading a few thousand lines of other people's code. If C was around in the 60s I was not aware of it, but then I didn't learn about it until around '82 (I think). I was happily programming business applications in BASIC before the first BASIC compiler was released. The fact remains, beauty, along with read and writeability is in the eye of the beholder. If you do better with C# than VB then that is where your talents should be focused. But I only do contact work now, so versatility is important to me. I probably won't be learning the next, hot, new programming language even if I'm around that long. My brain is too full to stuff anything else in there.
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You are absolutely correct. I meant to say BASIC (GW), not VB. I didn't start using VB until version 2.0 came out. My daughter graduated college in 1987, and I've been programming computers since 1963, so yeah, I've been around for a while. I learned and used three assemblers before I tackled C. Assemblers were much easier. And, yes, I learned them without formal training. It just took a few books and reading a few thousand lines of other people's code. If C was around in the 60s I was not aware of it, but then I didn't learn about it until around '82 (I think). I was happily programming business applications in BASIC before the first BASIC compiler was released. The fact remains, beauty, along with read and writeability is in the eye of the beholder. If you do better with C# than VB then that is where your talents should be focused. But I only do contact work now, so versatility is important to me. I probably won't be learning the next, hot, new programming language even if I'm around that long. My brain is too full to stuff anything else in there.
Wow. Since 1963? No... C wasn't around then, nor probably even a "twinkle in the eye", as you said earlier. While I'm really not a fan of VB, I have a GREAT opportunity for a job... and they (as far as I know) only use VB.NET. If the interview turns out as well as I hope... I'm going to hope that VB.NET grows on me ?? Maybe I'll have to dig up this thread in a year from now and eat some crow. ;)
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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.
What an incredibly broad and ill-thought-out statement. Surely you are not a programmer. My guess is politician. Project Euler has many examples of languages that are incredibly succinct and pretty much unreadable. Verbosity = readablity = maintainability. C# syntax reminds me too much of regex. {()};