Sample Code - C# or VB?

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

I need to provide a series of demos for an assembly. There are potentialy
several dozen of them. None of them are very complex, however maintaining two
versions of them will be very maintainance intensive.

Some of the very basic ones I have provided in both C# and VB. However moving
forward, time just does not permit. So I have to choose - C# or VB? For me,
it does not really matter. I am comfortable in either one.

If I choose C#, this will alienate VB users. My feeling is that more C# users
can read VB code easily than VB users can easily read C# code.

However if I choose VB, I might alienate C# users. My feeling here is that C#
users generally can read VB, but hold a general disdain for it and feel
somewhat slighted if they have to read VB and no C# is available.

I would like to equally include both communities with a preference to neither
one.

Comments? Suggestions? Corrections?


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


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[Randy A. Ynchausti]

Chad,

Some of the very basic ones I have provided in both C# and VB. However moving
forward, time just does not permit. So I have to choose - C# or VB? For me,
it does not really matter. I am comfortable in either one.

So why not provide both. The C# people will be happy with the C#
encantation and the VB people will be happy with the VB encantation.

Regards,

Randy

 

[clintonG]

If you figure out the secret of life be sure you come back to let
everyone know.

Seriously, I would say you should be more concerned with appealing
to those who have to pay for the development and present your choice
based on the costs of paying for those who will be most responsible for
developing, modifying, and maintaining the code.

You can tip the scale towards C# which is currently easier and more
efficient to document. When maintenance costs become a considerable
topic in the presence of those who write the paychecks I have observed
silence from those sitting on the VB side of the table. Maybe it was because
the pizza had just been delivered? ;-)

--
<%= Clinton Gallagher
A/E/C Consulting, Web Design, e-Commerce Software Development
Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin USA
NET (e-mail address removed)
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/

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[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

So why not provide both. The C# people will be happy with the C#
encantation and the VB people will be happy with the VB encantation.

As I stated in the message there are dozens of demos, and both porting as
well as maintaining existing and future ones is too time intensive.


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

Seriously, I would say you should be more concerned with appealing
to those who have to pay for the development and present your choice
based on the costs of paying for those who will be most responsible for
developing, modifying, and maintaining the code.

Its a mix of C# and VB developers. Ratio unknown - or lets say same as actual
usage ratio of C# to VB.

You can tip the scale towards C# which is currently easier and more
efficient to document. When maintenance costs become a considerable
topic in the presence of those who write the paychecks I have observed

Im leaning towards C# right now as the VB crowd seems to be used to reading
C#, and a little less "offended" at having to do so vs C# users reading VB.


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


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[WJ]

1. VB
a. VB is only working on MS platform. Therefore, portability is zero.
b. VB is not in ISO nor ECMA.
c. VB is too verbose. It can be thought of as "Cobol" of IBM in the
past. Tedious coding. Unproductive.

2. c#
a. c# is widely (and continue to be) supported across Non-Microsoft
platforms.
b. Blessed by ISO and ECMA.
c. Coding style and or syntax is similar to Java, C, JScript. Eliminate
learning effort.

3. Modern Acronym interpretation
a. c# denotes "Do major/C#" in music. Therefore, when c# is pronounced,
it can be understood easily by programmers and musician.
b. While VB=Very Bad!

John

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

c. VB is too verbose. It can be thought of as "Cobol" of IBM in the
past. Tedious coding. Unproductive.

While I agree - its irrelevant to this decision.

MAny of your other points were very good, but again for this decision
irrelevant. Im not choosing which langage *I* will use. Im choosing a
language to present .net demos in to a mixed audience of both C# and VB
developers. Both langauges cannot always be ported - so I need to decide on a
preferred on for the audience.

Its leaning towards C# though. VB developers seem to be ok reading C# code if
you dont get cryptic - and since these are demos they will remain rather
simple.


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[WJ]

"Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu"

VB developers seem to be ok reading C# code

They better learn fast now. VB days are numbered...

and since these are demos they will remain rather
simple.

I have nothing against your work. However, your guys spoil the VB peoples.
Why not write them all in c# and this will force VB to be c#... ?

John Webbs

 

[Rob Windsor [MVP]]

I'm curious, why are VB's days numbered?

Rob

"Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu"

They better learn fast now. VB days are numbered...


I have nothing against your work. However, your guys spoil the VB peoples.
Why not write them all in c# and this will force VB to be c#... ?

John Webbs

 

[WJ]

I'm curious, why are VB's days numbered?

Based on job seekers here in my area (Washington). And many of our clients
prefer c# over VB. We as developers also promote c# over VB, this helps.
This trend tends to climb fast in the current market. In addition, based on
tools developed by other non-Microsoft software builders such as Borland,
they do not develope VB, only c# for .Net FrameWork. I know only India is
having lots of VB coders, but they are not software maker. On top of that,
why MS never pushed VB into ISO and ECMA if they intend to see VB as a
potential language ? And why MS on;y did this with c# ? So, the level of
support for c# is likely to stay... for a longtime...

John W

 

[Rob Windsor [MVP]]

Hi John,

You mentioned Borland, a while ago they came out with their C# Builder
product based on the Microsoft C# compiler but they also are about to
release (or have just released) Delphi for .NET. It's clear that Borland
plans on supporting and enhancing both tools for their customers.

The same holds true for Microsoft, they plan to support and enhance both VB
and C# for their customers. All of the major language/IDE enhancements
coming in the next version of .NET (e.g. generics, partial classes,
expansions/snippets, refactoring, etc.) are being implemented for both VB
and C#.

Visual Basic is still one of the most popular development tools worldwide
(not just in India) and many people from Microsoft have stated their
commitment to keeping it that way.

I use both languages depending on the project/client I'm working for. I
happen to prefer VB because I think I'm more productive with it but I'm
prefectly happy to use either one.

Rob

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

They better learn fast now. VB days are numbered...

You are very optimistic.

Whatever C# developers think of VB, its going to be around for a LONG time to
come.



--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

Based on job seekers here in my area (Washington). And many of our clients
prefer c# over VB. We as developers also promote c# over VB, this helps.

Not a representative sample world wide. Many companies want VB because there
are so many VB developers and they are cheaper.

tools developed by other non-Microsoft software builders such as Borland,
they do not develope VB, only c# for .Net FrameWork. I know only India is

Not only C#, but Delphi.net too.



--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

having lots of VB coders, but they are not software maker. On top of that,
why MS never pushed VB into ISO and ECMA if they intend to see VB as a
potential language ? And why MS on;y did this with c# ? So, the level of

This one is easy - MS wants one language that they can change and add to at
will. Putting it in ECMA limits that a lot.


--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[Daniel O'Connell [C# MVP]]

Based on job seekers here in my area (Washington). And many of our clients
prefer c# over VB. We as developers also promote c# over VB, this helps.
This trend tends to climb fast in the current market. In addition, based on
tools developed by other non-Microsoft software builders such as Borland,
they do not develope VB, only c# for .Net FrameWork. I know only India is
having lots of VB coders, but they are not software maker. On top of that,
why MS never pushed VB into ISO and ECMA if they intend to see VB as a
potential language ? And why MS on;y did this with c# ? So, the level of
support for c# is likely to stay... for a longtime...

Although the language spec is of value, I tend to disagree with this.
Many(if not most) of the asp.net jobs I see in my area(Chicago) are VB.NET
only. While much of the desktop world seems to want C#, the web companys all
seem to be centering around VB. Thankfully I'm not a web developer, but that
certainly suggests to me that VB is being used actively in some markets.
As for the reasoning behind not standardizing VB, I would suspect that is
because VB, more than anything else, is Microsofts proprietary language. It
always has been. Just on that merit alone a standard starts to make less
sense(its fairly rare that OSS advocates are thrilled to have the name VB
involved in anything, for examplem, why standarize if non-windows platforms
will shun it?). However, there are fledgling projects for mono to produce a
VB.NET compiler, as well as work in #Develop to add VB projects(or there is
supposed to be, I havn't kept up). Also while C# is the hot product right
now its certainly not set in stone that Borland or any other company will
not producing a product for VB(if licensing from MS allows it).

 

[Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu]

product based on the Microsoft C# compiler but they also are about to
release (or have just released) Delphi for .NET. It's clear that Borland

It already released and been shipping for about a month now.



--
Chad Z. Hower (a.k.a. Kudzu) - http://www.hower.org/Kudzu/
"Programming is an art form that fights back"


ELKNews - Get your free copy at http://www.atozedsoftware.com

 

[Cor]

Hi Kudzu,

I do not see you make so much wrong statements the last days, but this is an
enormous one.

While I agree

COBOL is absolute no IBM language, it is (and still is) used on almost every
brand of mainframe in the world.

http://www.oevelen.com/eng/cobol/hist/

It has a lifetime of more than 45 years while some languages have even not
proved them selves.

It has always been very productive in the environment for what it was
designed

It has left the C like opponents (algebraic) from the time that it was
designed "Fortran" and "Algol" not even in the minds of people (who are
shorter in business than 25 years)

With what I again say (as you know from the VB group) nothing wrong about C#
although I see in VB.net language more the successor from Cobol than C#.



Of course as you already know in full respect of you.

Cor

 

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

Chad,

Im leaning towards C# right now as the VB crowd seems to be used to reading
C#, and a little less "offended" at having to do so vs C# users reading

VB.
I suspect that its more true to say Experienced VB.NET developers are less
"offended" by C# samples, I strongly suspect beginner VB.NET developers will
simply ignore C# samples! Also I question how true your statement will be
once VB.NET gains more & more momentum. Where you have VB.NET shops
"oblivious" to C#.

I sincerely hope you did not base your conclusion on this thread in the
VB.NET newsgroup, as I did not at all come out with your conclusion!

As I stated in the other thread your "Best bet" is samples in both. Either
one for one or equal number of both.

Hope this helps
Jay

 

[WJ]

"Rob Windsor [MVP]"

You mentioned Borland, a while ago they came out with their C# Builder
product based on the Microsoft C# compiler but they also are about to
release (or have just released) Delphi for .NET. It's clear that Borland
plans on supporting and enhancing both tools for their customers.

As I understand, behind Delphi is a Pascal compiler and Pascal is ranked
equiv. with c#. So, it makes sense for Borland to support Delphi too. BTW:
Delphi is proprietary, not Pascal. I would label Delphi as Object Pascal.
Where VB is to MS. So, without VB, the world is still moving . Anyway, I
did a quick research on this by going to Borland Delphi NG and it appears
that there are lots of Delphi developers who are in EU and Latin America.
Thanks to this thread, I now know one more language out there that works
with MS/.Net FW & CLR. Though they just throw out version 8 but according to
thread discussions, it seems there are lots of bugs! I think I feel very
comfortable with c# for now.

John