DCSIMG
The C# team engages in the battle - C# vs VB.NET - .NET Geek

.NET Geek

"It is upon the Trunk that a gentleman works" - Confucius

The C# team engages in the battle - C# vs VB.NET

I’m not going to say a word about which is better. Why? Because in the scope of things it doesn’t matter. But you have to wonder if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing inside Microsoft. (One hand being the C# team the other the VB.Net team – you can choose)
I got up early this morning to watch the recording of Anders Heijlsberg’s presentation at the PDC on the future of C#. 14 minutes into the recording I had to stop because the kids were up. I’ll watch the rest tonight, but an impression stuck with me.

At about 13 minutes into the recording, Anders shows an image of two kids hugging. The co-existence of C# and VB.Net. He tries to drive home the point that they are both good with some divergence in features blah blah blah…

I can understand that when two separate groups develop two separate languages there’s an individual touch on the implementation. What’s important to one team is not as important to the other. But when one group goes off on a joint venture with a third party tool company that doesn’t provide an addition to the language of the group, but to the developers ability to be efficient in the IDE I’m left wondering if anyone is in charge on a level above the syntax. For those wondering, the tool is CodeRush Xpress which will be available for free for C# developers.

kick it on DotNetKicks.com
Posted: Oct 29 2008, 04:05 AM by Kim | with 2 comment(s)
תגים:, , , ,

Comments

Bart Czernicki said:

Whenever I write a comment like this I always feel I have to insert a disclaimer.  I use C# (99% of the time).  I have used VB.NET in one project for its late binding features (thats it).

I simply think that the two languages tailor to the personalities of the developers.  VB.NET developers seem to be the 40 hour/week guys who do programming because its their job. C# guys are the guys that came from Java/C++ and are more seasoned.  My wife always says "people who drive BMWS tend to be jerks"...I think the programmer personality can be derived from your language of choice here.

I simply do not think VB.NET developers would use a tool like this.  I know its a stupid comment, but all the VB.NET developers I have met in my life I don't see anyone using it (other than Dino Esposito, who if you remember before he joined iDesign used to write a lot of VB.NET for CODE Magazine...he is 10x the code I am). I think it simply makes sense for this tool to be C# only.

# October 29, 2008 11:25 AM

Rory Becker said:

@Bart: I've never heard such a lot of rubbish in my life.

Language choice cannot possibly be used to derive personality otherwise one might logically decide on the basis of a small sample that all C# developers are close minded morons.

*This is clearly not the case.*

In a similar way I find it very hard to understand why someone would give up their compile time checks in exchange for the opportunity to write hundreds more unit tests to compensate. (Apparently those in favour of dynamic languages don't mind.)

But still I find it hard to believe that, when *properly* introduced to a tool, which clearly can be used to make ones life easier ... that anyone would turn down such an opportunity regardless of their language of choice.

@Kim: I'm really not sure why such a decision was taken. Perhaps it was felt that this was a fair swing after all the previous free editions of DevExpress IDE products (Refactor - VB.Net, Refactor - ASP.Net and Refactor - C++) avoided the C# arena.

I suspect it's entirely possible that a VB.Net version might follow. It's also possible that DevExpress have judged that the VB.Net arena needs no particular insentives due to existing sales. Not really sure. I'm planning to ask :)

# November 3, 2008 3:56 PM
Leave a Comment

(required) 

(required) 

(optional)

(required) 


Enter the numbers above: