Why do people look at me as if I have two heads because I develop in vb.net?
Is it some sort of inferior language. I am learning C++ ,MFC etc I just find .net a quick way to get things done.
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Why do people look at me as if I have two heads because I develop in vb.net?
Is it some sort of inferior language. I am learning C++ ,MFC etc I just find .net a quick way to get things done.
I have experienced this response as well...weird. Heaven forbid we drag and drop controls onto a form and allow a designer to do a lot of work for us. It's called "EFFICIENCY"...
VB developers have been getting that since day 1... you either get used to it, or you develop a complex and try to convince yourself you can also do C#.
-tg
That is because many peoply developing in C++ C# Java and other languages thing VB.net close to VB6. VB6 has some limitations and you could do "weird" things and it was pretty inconsistent. VB.net is a completly new language and can do 99% of the thing that can be done in C#, and some things that C# can't do.
Just don't bother and laugh at those people
Take it with a grain of salt, this will go on forever. I get the same thing in my other world teaching self-defense with things like 9mm vs 45ACP. What is extremely important in either debate is how you take advantage of the tool. So in the case of VB.NET code the best you can in regards to things like strong typing, use only what you need for a given task etc. With that said being a C Sharp programmer does not make you a good programmer or even a programmer at all. In the end it is your decision unless your boss has laid down the law and said "you must code in langage X and not language Y".
Admit it, all you "VB programmers" have semi-colon envy.
ROTF big timeQuote:
Originally Posted by Evil_Giraffe
{Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil_Giraffe
My true envy isn't ; Can you guess????
}
Thanks everyone for the laugh. Semi colon envy .lol:)
I started with basic when I was young and my brain was receptive some 30 years ago. Then I got a real computer and started with C then c++. Took a change of direction and did electronics in college. Then my previous employer asked me could I do something "programmy". Said yes before I thought, panicked, Had flashbacks to my youth and went in search of basic. My savour was vb.net. Took a few courses and survived to see another day lol.
Boss was impressed but annoyed when I told him I was emmigrating the US, funny Im still writing small apps for them and supporting the stuff I have done previously. Havent worked for that company for 6 months. For some reason they still think I will do it free of charge.
Such is life.
Ahh.That "free of charge" is typical Greek behavior.
Also typical is charging me 50Euros for fixing a plug, so i charge them 60 for fixing their computer :D
But seriously most "bosses" think that VB is a toy language.These are the people called it consultants.I cannot argue that more "in hardware" companies will choose c# because their lower level programs work on c++ or C, some other companies will use Java so there is a small portion for VB. That is companies that previously worked with vb6 and newer companies that don't rely on c++ .Also at least in Greece, most insurance companies work on vb.net,vb6 and java. Don't ask me why but i haven't seen one using C# .Weird.
In general i would say that is more "job efficient" to work on C#...So i use mostly VB :p
I guess it's because before the .net days Vb wasn't 100% object oriented, but that has changed since vb.net was released.
I also think another factor is platform portability and that, as some may consider, the RAD development environment used by VS may induce bad practices to upcoming programmers.
Personally I started with vb, moved from it to C# and I'm leaning Java (Which has been easy after learning C#, as they're very alike) and so far I haven't done anything in these languages that I could say I couldn't have done in Vb faster and less painfully.
Then again I don't have much experience. Just my .02.
VB was pretty much designed as a programming language for non-programmers. As a result, while a good developer can write very good VB code, it's also very possible for a bad programmer to write very bad VB code that will still work. It's possible to write bad code in any language but, because VB is so forgiving, it's far easier to make a program work with bad code and little real understanding in VB than many other languages. VB got a bad rep for two main reasons, one mostly deserved and one not so:
1. Far too many VB developers didn't take enough pride in their work to develop a genuine understanding of what they were doing. VB made it much easier to take a "path of least resistance" approach, and many people did. Many developers from other languages were right to disrespect people who wrote bad code because VB let them. Unfortunately, that disrespect tended to be directed and those VB developers who did take pride in their work too.
2. VB made programming easy. Many developers, those from C/C++ particularly, wanted programming to remain an exclusive club. If any idiot could program, that made them less special. Because VB was like using Duplo blocks (little kids Lego) compared to using Mechano in C/C++, VB developers were considered a lesser species of developer, even if some of them would have been smarter people than those looking down on them.
VB.NET does continue the tradition of making programming easier for the beginner than many other languages. That said, it has inherited its bad name from VB6. If VB6 and earlier versions had never existed, noone would have an issue with VB.NET. Just live with it and laugh at them while you relax for a few weeks after completing your application while they continue to struggle with theirs that doesn't look as good or do as much. ;)
But as was discussed in a thread a couple of weeks ago, there really is little difference in power between VB and C#, so I would imagine that a good C# developer and a good VB developer would go at pretty much the same speed. (Unless your C# developer is a Resharper-ninja and that allows him/her a slight productivity edge)Quote:
Originally Posted by jmcilhinney
That comment was intended more for the C/C++ crowd, who have to take charge of every little detail, whether they really need that level of control or not. Certainly, the same application written in VB.NET and C# would generally go about the same speed. VB and C# both inherit a reputation from their forbears when there's virtually no real difference between the two bar syntax.Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil_Giraffe
STATS
Visual Basic .NET (98 Viewing) 651,550
Visual Basic 6 and Earlier (97 Viewing) 1,364,145
C# (18 Viewing) 37,528
C and C++ (6 Viewing) 54,465
Either C++ programmers have no time to post because they are too busy programming code for buttons and textbox's or .net programmers are pushing the envelope for new and exciting applications http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5...ingsmileyv.gif
Ok but let us remember that this is mostly a VB forum (as the name says on the title) so those statistics are not accurate.
Also C++ is used (nowadays at least) for other more hardware oriented reasons or game development so again in that area a .net developer (C# or VB) would have to spend much more time than a C++ developer and i'm not sure that he/she can deliver the same result, if he/she can deliver at all.Especially when it get's in graph algos or hardware issues.
P.E. 99% of system thermos applications are written in C, it would be painful to do that in .net because you need to talk to the motherboard directly.(ok Microsoft has a WMI class but it is specific for motherboards that have a Microsoft thermo chip installed, aka non :o )
On the other hand, do you know a lot of people that program GUI databases in C, nowadays?
So the conclusion is that all languages have their advantages and disadvantages.
But i think in general, apart from time,efford etc, the language that you can do almost everything is C.If i'm not wrong the initial core of .net is in C.
People, relax, when C++ came out C programmers looked at it with contempt thinking OOP is heresy and sticking to procedural programming as to the only TRUE way (their logic was simple - assembly is not OOP so other languagest shouldn't be as well). When I was young I programmed in QB and was laughed at by Pascal and C++ programmers. Well, I learned Pascal, then C++ but when VB came out I re-converted immediately. I was perfectly content with it. Then there was .Net Framework and I switched to C#, succumbing to my 'Basic programmer' complex. I didn't want to be 'inferior' any more. But guess what? "TRUE" C++ programmers looked (and probably still do) at C# the same way as C programmers used to look at C++ (I was a grown up by then and I laughed at the whole thing). Then I tried VB.Net. Everything clicked together. Now I don't have any complexes. Now I program almost exclusively in vb.net (leaving C++ for Linux though) and I'm perfectly happy with it. I also troll C# users sometimes showing them things from vb.net they cannot do in C#.
I don't think it's a matter of what is better.As i've said some languages do things quicker or better than others.Ok assembly will do everything but it's not nice to have to create a form in 40 hours in assembly that you simply drag n drop in .net.Also how many days would take someone to hack (just for the sake of conversation here) another language program with .net....Err,well you'll probably take this to the grave.
If someone laughs at me using VB i wouldn't give a rats a$$. No trolling no nothing, i just use what i use and if something better comes out i will use it.It has to do with what a business wants what i provide and what i can deliver.If we start talking about : my language is better - no my language is better etc then i guess we get to the point that a normal person will see 2 nerds fighting.As i'm not a nerd i wouldn't want to participate to this kind of war...We can talk music band if you like ;)
It is the way of the world :DQuote:
Originally Posted by 2ndmessiah
Twenty years ago I was a COBOL application programmer on an IBM mainframe. The assembler programmers from the sytems side all regarded us as wanna be programmers. Some of the applications written by us are still chugging away today.
For some reason business is moving away from vb in favor of the other languages such as C#. I haven't been taught vb.net and can't be bother learning by myself at the moment. VB.Net was dropped at my school in favor of C# at the beginning of the year because that is what businesses where I live seem to want.
... or you actually learn C# and become fluent in bothQuote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
The company I work at started doing VB development in the pre-.NET days. They moved to VB.NET a while before I started. Lately, we've moved to C# as our language of choice. It was done because of the perception that businesses viewed it more favourably than VB. It's one of those things where one person thinks that C# is better, so someone else decides to use C# to keep that person happy, then someone else sees that and decides that two people prefer C# so they should too, then the next, then the next, and so on. We're a prime example: we have no specific preference for one over the other but we use C# to please others, which might prompt someone else to use C# as well. The only genuine technical reason to use C# over VB is the need to use pointers. Other than that, it's really just a preference for one syntax over the other.
That's it for C# vs VB. As for VB versus other languages, as suggested earlier, VB is good at what it does but it's not suitable for every situation. VB doesn't have Java's cross-platform support, but, in my experience, it has better performance on Windows. VB doesn't have the low-level power of C/C++, but it's much easier to learn and use and is far more productive for a GUI application. VB is really good at what it does.
Moved To General Developer
Thanks all for your opinions, ideas and input. It makes very interesting reading. Well I will persevere with vb.net. Im picking up c#, I suppose because Im trying to get my head around c++.
As always this forum is a mine of info.
One of the reasons some are leaning towards C# is that it is ECMA and ISO certified, anyone knows if VB.Net is already certified by those bodies?
If you go back to 'the good old days' when Computers were Mainframes and Electronic Calculators didn't exist there were times when you needed to perform a quick complicated calculation. It wasn't necessarily something you wanted to repeat so using the Basic interpreter was a good solution. Just sit at the ASR33 Teletype, type the code and run it.
No need to write some code onto coding sheets, get it onto Puch Cards / Paper Tape, correct the typos, compile, link edit and run (which could take a couple of days)
I had a few things like this, one was to calculate the Great Circle distance between several Latitudes and Longitudes. Today, with an Electronic Calculator it's easy; then, doing it with Log Tables and pencil and paper was prone to error and took some time. So, in my day, Basic was seen as a tool to perform 'quick and nasty' solutions to problems. Fortran, Algol and Cobol were used by 'proper programmers', and Assembler by the 'geeks' of the day - System Programmers.
I think that the 'quick and nasty' history has stayed with any language having the word 'Basic' in it, and some 'proper programmers' look at it with distain. It saved my bacon on more than one occasion !. Anyway, as per the original post; what's wrong with having two heads ? :)
No it isn't. And as far as I know, there are no plans to submit VB.Quote:
Originally Posted by dee-u
-tg
I agree with most of the points made, but I would add one even more general: Every tribe finds some other tribe they can look down on.
Good coding is a way of thinking. A mindset that is independent of the tools used to turn the ideas into reality. However, whenever the human animal can form into tribes, it does. In those tribes, there are plenty of members who are inordinately concerned about who is in and who is out, as well as defining where the boundaries of the tribe are found.
That is the root element of this issue.