C sharp versus Visual Basic

As of .Net 2 there is very little between them. VB.Net is going to be easier to learn if your from a VB6 background. C# on the other hand is gaining popularity and there seem to be more resources on the web focused on C#.

At the end of the day it comes down to a personal preference.

c# is an open standard, not under control of m*crosoft, vb is. the support in the visual studio ide is better for c#, there they put new features first and if they anytime have to decide one not to support anymore, it will be vb. so in aspect of your personal career and the lots of resources in the net, as carl_town mentioned already, i recommend going for c# ..

but good luck anyway :))
ike

both languages are very similar in terms of their potential. One may not have a few features that the other has and vise vesa but it will have work around to it. Both language are very demanding and help is available freely for both. So use the language you are confortable with. Cheers

>> both languages are very similar in terms of their potential

i don't agree there .. C# has now generics, c++ programmers call it templates .. that's a very big difference ...

ikework, The original question was for comparing between c# and VB and not c# and C++ (what you mentioned above).

Bryan, It is very easy to make switch between VB and C# and vise vesa.

Thanks for all your answers so far. I think I will end up going the C# way.

i think ikework was basically saying that C# has generics (which C++ call templates) and VB doesnt. Correct? What are generics anyway?

Also is there much difference between C# and C++?

ikework>>"C# has now generics,"  so does VB.NET in VS 2005.

Generics allow you to build a sort routine, without needing to know what KIND of this is being sorted, for example.

The sorting algorithm is determined by the TYPE of the object being sorted.

AW

ikework>>"C# has now generics,"  so does VB.NET in VS 2005.

This is Absolutly true. ikework, maybe you were talking about VS2003

>> i think ikework was basically saying that C# has generics (which C++ call templates) and VB doesnt. Correct?

bryanford, ya, thank you for clearify my point ... it was early in the morning :)


so you say, vb has generics too? if so ignore my point ...

>> What are generics anyway?

generics are a mechanism to implement algorithms without knowing the underlying type, lets say it generalizes an algorithm and you can instanciate it for *each* type you want. for instance a linked list is implemented once, since it doesnt change, no matter what data it holds, without ugly casts and variants.

ike

You also want to look at the Access application you are going to convert.  If there is alot of custom VBA code, then it might be quicker converting the custom code to VB.Net:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_vsto2003_ta/html/vbaconvert.asp

what about operator-overloading ... very useful feature to make code more readable and intuitive .. do both have it?

cool ... seems both became adults.. ;-))

Yup, as of 2.0, VB and C# support pretty much the same stuff.

thanks for all your help guys...

Ive decided to give the C# a shot... i mean, if i cant work something out, intelisense will give me an error i can EE later on right?? hehe.

Ive divied up the points as best i could. It was hard trying to work out who to give them to...

Thanks again!

Bryan