Visual Basic vs. C#

[JuggaloBrotha]

I don't really prefer either language, but I do prefer the VB editor in Visual Studio, mainly due to the automatic indenting and stuff. I find that I have to go back and use 'format selection' in C# way more often then in VB (and before I knew about 'format selection' I did it manually!). The C# does have some automatic indenting, but mainly when you type a closing brace or parentheses. In VB, it's pretty hard to actually get it to miss-align something even if you try!


I do prefer VB's syntax over C# in most of the newer features such as

messageTarget = Function(s) ShowWindowsMessage(s)  'VB
messageTarget = s => ShowWindowsMessage(s);  // C#

Not sure why but I feel it's easier to read, as with most of VB since it's much more "wordy" then the minimalistic C#.

The only thing I dislike about VB's syntax is the Dim statement It looks so ugly! I don't think using C#'s syntax for declaring variables is too minimal, and it would work well for VB too:

String s = "Test"
Private Integer i = 3

Protected List(Of Integer) numbers = New List(Of Integer) From {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

' "modified" For Each
For Each Integer int In numbers
   MessageBox.Show(int.ToString)
Next

' "normal" For Each could still work too, but may be confusing as the order is reversed now suddenly
For Each int As Integer in numbers
  ...
Next

I think it looks ok, better then 'Dim' at least... Ugh.

What I do like about C# is that it enforces rules such as when the use parentheses much better. In C# for example, when you declare a new instance of a class you must use parentheses:

Button btn = new Button();

Whereas in VB you can leave them out if you want. I like consistency so I always try to write 'C# style' in VB, using parentheses where it would be required in C# even though I'm using VB.

While I agree with all of this, the one thing I really like about VB is: Private MyClass As New Class, it bugs me that c# makes you type the class twice just to make a new instance of it. That's just a peeve of mine, nothing worth arguing over. The only other thing about c# is the curly braces, they get to be very hard to read since you use them to close everything. Other than those I like c# just as equally as vb.net, though I use vb.net much more often mostly because I came from vb6 and vb6 so...