more new software — VB.NET vs. C#
Well, I’ve got more new software on the way. This time, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
What!? you say?
Yeah, I know. Windows server stuff. Not my cup o’ tea. But it’s a big enough project that I’m willing to get a little dirty. Besides, it will help me learn C#, which I can use for software development. And, the client is paying for the upgrade from Visual Studio .NET 2003 to Visual Studio 2005. I’ll be ok.
The big bonus is that I’ll be using C# instead of VBScript, which is what I’ve used in the all of the classic ASP project I’ve done with this client so far. I. Hate. VBScript. With a passion. VB6 was only marginally better. VB.NET is better still. But C# is going to be a fresh breeze compared to the VB stuff.
It took a while to convince my client to go with C# instead of VB though. I finally had to go with sheer numbers.
- I went to CodeProject.com and looked in their ASP.NET category. I clicked on 20 random code tutorials to see what language they used.
5 VB.NET vs. 15 C#.
C# wins! - I went to SourceForge.net, a project site for open source software projects. I filtered their projects by C# and VB.NET to see which has more teams programming with each language.
366 VB.NET vs 3,189 C#
C# wins! - I went to Freshmeat.net, another open source software site. I filtered their software by C# and VB (they didn’t have enough VB.NET software to create a separate category).
37 VB vs 217 C#
C# wins! - I looked at blog software packages for .NET that mentioned a single language that was used in the development of the software. Free/Open Source and Commercial packages.
1 VB.NET vs 3 C#
C# wins! - I looked at CMS (content management systems) for .NET that mentioned a single language (there were plenty that were created with multiple languages, and I didn’t want to compare lines of code….). Free/Open Source and Commercial packages.
1 VB.NET vs 10 C#
C# wins!
This all points rather strongly towards C# as being a preferred language for programming. I also threw in the fact that while my client’s programmer was familiar with VBScript (from the classic ASP projects they do that I mentioned), VB.NET is a totally different beast. In fact, I’ve heard from many people that the jump from VBScript to VB.NET was too confusing, and they wound up using C#.
January 25th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Good luck with C#! I have been working with it for about a year and a half at my full-time job. Microsoft claims there is almost no difference between VB.NET and C#, and I suppose that is mostly true, but you’re right to look around and looks for code examples. I prefer C#, find it to be cleaner, closer to Java, and I think it more standardized than Visual Basic anything, which is Microsoft proprietary, no?
The bigger leap for you is going to Visual Studio 2005… HUGE differences between .NET 2.0 and .NET 1.1… you’ll seeeee….
January 27th, 2006 at 10:39 am
I haven’t had a chance to play around much (what with other deadlines in the way), but it seems like the VS2005 upgrade is quite a good one.
I like the cleanliness of C# too. One of the pages I went to trying to find a comparison had a good way of putting it — C# is clean, while VB is verbose. Which makes VB easier to read line by line, but C# easier to read as a whole. That about sums up my experience with VB. If I have to write “end if” one more time….