VB vs C#

[IanS]

Please ignore the differences during development - ie differences in language, syntax etc. I don't want to discuss anything like pros and cons of the actual programming languages. I'm not interested in how easy or difficult a language is.

I'm only interested in the finished "compiled" application.

Are compiled VB/V# applications bigger/smaller, faster/slower - more/less dependencies - easier/harder to deploy ?

Anything else ? (but please don't discuss the languages)

[jmcilhinney]

All .NET languages compile to MSIL, so you could create the same application in VB, C#, C++/CLI, Delphi or any other .NET language and the result will be pretty much exactly the same. There will be minor differences but nothing significant. That's one of the main pillars of the .NET platform.

[IanS]

Thank you - that's the information I was looking for. (But not what I wanted to hear)

What you're saying then is that the choice of language is down to personal preference. The 'End Result' will be the same so use whichever language you feel most comfortable with.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Thank you - that's the information I was looking for. (But not what I wanted to hear)

Out of interest why not ?

What you're saying then is that the choice of language is down to personal preference. The 'End Result' will be the same so use whichever language you feel most comfortable with.

Exactly, normally those who come from a vb background move onto VB.Net and those from a C / C++ background move towards C#. Although i personally have moved from VB to C#

The other thing that has swayed some peoples decision on which language to use is the job market, with some companies seeming to value C# developers more than VB.Net developers.

[techgnome]

"the choice of language is down to personal preference" -- yup pretty much... with VS2010, the lines between the two languages has blurred even more. Currently within a single solution (not project, but solution) you can mix an match your language... so in a solution, you might have a project written in C#, while another could be written in VB.NET.... the plan is to some day, allow developers to mix and match their languages within the SAME PROJECT. So your front end (UI) could be done in Vb.NET, while the code behind it with the event handlers could be in C#. If I remember right, it would be at the file level, so in theory, with partial classes, you could have half your class in C# and the other half in VB.NET.

At any rate, what's been stated before is correct, since both languages compile down to MSIL, there is virtually not discernible difference in performance between the two.

"(But not what I wanted to hear)" -- What did you want to hear?

-tg

[chris128]

Just out of curiosity, where does C++.NET come into it? I assume that compiles down to the same MSIL as VB and C# but whenever anyone talks about .NET they always just mention VB and C# - does anyone actually use C++.NET? Every C++ example I see on the internet seems to be for 'old' unmanaged C++...