'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

It's been a popular debate since the inception of .NET, if C# is better or VB.NET is better as a programming language.
And for whatever be the reasons and the differences between the borh , the debates have always concluded with the note that "It's the developers choice.'
This is one documents that details the differences well http://dnjonline.com/article.aspx?ID=mar05_vbvscsharp
and also concludes saying 'it's developers choice' :)

And one of the very good reasons for Microsoft to introduce .NET has also been language independence giving developers a choice of writing what they want.

If this is really true that it's really a developers choice , then i think that's not happening! The choice is made more by seeing each other, rather than consdiering their choice.

And this has effected the job market as well a lot, and now people are asking only for C# developers. I have been part of the tech interview panel since sometime, and earlier the situation was like if we have a got a very good  VB.NET developer we used to still hire him and train him in C#. But these days i have been instructed to to say a clear 'No' to vb.net folks.

But i myself never understood the reason for this. The only reason i had was that my clients did not want them.
But from all this it looks obvious to me that it's defently not the developers who is making the choice.

But then what's also suprising to me is, i find atleast 50% of the candiadtes who come for the interview saying that they know VB.NET very well, but do not know C#. And they request us to hire them promising to learn C# quickly.
This is one thing that keeps me confused. If so many claim to know VB.NET better, but then if companies are hiring more of C#, then which technology is actually getting used?!?!
What's the language that's more popular REALLY! I think some third party folks should make a proper survey on this.

What's funny here is, i hear that one of the divisions of the company that invented .NET (do i need to take the name) is also one of them who insists on having only C# developers in their projects:) But when it comes to the MCSD course training for freshers, most of the times VB.NET becomes the default language. Ha ha. No offence here:) But It's really crazy and funny! And this is really crazy especially when features like writing both VB.NET and C# in the same web page in .NET 2.0 and many more such things are getting introduced.
I am really eager to learn the technical/managerial/architetcural/whatever reasons for this trend.

I find many companies complaining that they do not get the right people, and not finding right talent in India etc etc, but most of the times i think the companies do not know what they want and why they want. Most of the times they wait for a long time for an hard core techie guy to join them. But after joining he lands up doing  very normal job that can be done by an average guy as well. Well..these things keep happeneing, and probably we cannot help much! And i think the 'Say no to vb.net BLINDLY' is another thing that's making the lives of both the developers and the recruiters life a hell.

Published Friday, November 03, 2006 1:34 AM by AnjanaRam
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Comments

Thursday, November 02, 2006 3:53 PM by Stefano Demiliani

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

One of the real power of .NET Framwork is to be languange independent, so no matters if your code is written with C# or VB.NET, the power is the same. I think that VB.NET is paying the term "VB", too many people thinks on the old Visual Basic also when you say the word VB.NET... and it's terrible wrong. VB.NET must have the same considerations as C#, and if a company discard people that knows VB.NET well because they want C# developers, i think they're terrible wrong! What really counts is the knowledge of the platform, not the language you use.
Thursday, November 02, 2006 4:03 PM by Anjana's Arena : 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

# Anjana's Arena : 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

PingBack from http://weblogs.asp.net/anjanaram/archive/2006/11/03/_2700_I-know-VB.NET-well.-Is-that-of-no-use-to-you_3F002700_-_2D00_-Developers-and-Recruiters-dilema-.aspx
Thursday, November 02, 2006 4:43 PM by AndrewSeven

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

Different languages target different developer profiles, in selecting those language, perhaps the intent is to select specific developer profiles. VB.Net would be much better placed if they had used more standard terms for things like "abstract" and had called it B#(Be Sharp). On a side note, if you are looking for a person with C# experience and end up interviewing someone who has none, something went wrong in the resume filtering process ;) -Annother dedicated C# user.
Thursday, November 02, 2006 5:25 PM by jayson knight

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

I guess we all just need to learn how to code directly in IL going forward as it's the one lowest common denominator ;-).
Thursday, November 02, 2006 10:44 PM by Dave T

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

OK, all things being equal take the C# guy for the C# position. Take the VB.Net guy for the VB.Net postition How often are things equal? The IDE and Framework are the same. I'll take experience over a silly new language that can be learned in a week.
Friday, November 03, 2006 1:48 AM by Jon

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

Insisting on C# is simply weak-minded effort of people trying to make a fashion statement.
Friday, November 03, 2006 2:54 AM by CumpsD

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

One could say ex-C/C++ developers grasp a bigger understanding of the underlying system architecture, and all of them coding in .NET will probably be doing it in C#. While VB had the culture of being of entry-level difficulty, and having loads of hobyist doing VB stuff, which mostly meant less low-level knowledge. These people most likely switched to VB.NET for the majority. That's the logic a lot of people are following, by picking the C# people they try to get developers with a bigger overal understanding of the system. The best way to judge would be trough tests imho, and not on the above assumption. Do some tests and pick the best people based on that, since in the future, C# will be the next VB when it comes to job applications, everyone will know it, making it unrealistic to select on the "C# : lots of knowledge"-logic. Test your candidates and pick the best one coming out of it. However, companies might wish to pick 1 .NET language as their coding style, simply for uniformity. Technically it's all nice and good .NET is interchangeable, but management, it's easier to have everyone use 1 language.
Friday, November 03, 2006 8:45 AM by rams

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

I have experienced this first hand during my recent job change. Recruiters wont even want to talk to me when I say VB.Net. Also couple of companies who agreed to talk to me did not seem enthusiastic. What is sad though, is that no matter how many people try to say that its the framework stupid, the folks in power that make hiring decisions believe C# is better than VB.Net. Sometimes these are development managers and so called software architects which makes me wonder what kind of a software architect are you when you believe that C# is better than VB.Net.
Friday, November 03, 2006 4:09 PM by Jon

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

good idea from Andrew Seven, just change the friendly name of the language reference from language="vb" to language="b#". anybody know how to alter the friendly name of the compilation in the config file ????
Sunday, December 17, 2006 6:29 AM by SGC

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

From my personal experience I have found VB.NET developers to be largely ignorant of anything but VB and they blindly defend their language against other languages of which they have absolutely no knowledge. They also frequently claim "VB.NET is more like English so its better." Yes, it is more like English, but computers don't speak English, they speak machine code. I have also yet to see a VB developer create a class library!

The C# developers I have met tend to have a decent knowledge of OO design and a wish not to reinvent the wheel. They also tend to have a background in other languages.

Sunday, December 24, 2006 8:00 PM by SCG

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

If I was recruiting I would choose a C# guy any day over someone with a pure VB background. Even for a VB position/project!

1. They are more likely to understand OOP

2. They are more likely to have a background in other programming languages such as Java, Ruby, Python, PHP and of course C and C++. Therefore they will almost certainly be a better developer.

3. They are likely to have a better knowledge of the .NET framework and MSIL.

4. Picking up VB.NET for a C# developer is very easy. From watching VB developers: picking up C# is a major problem for them.

For many of the same reasons I would also choose a C++ or Java guy over a VB guy.

I have met VB.NET developers who:

• Do not understand what an array is

I have yet to meet a VB.NET developer who:

• Understands what an interface is

• Understands what a class method is

• Understands inheritance

• Really understands the difference between reference and value type

• Uses classes instead of modules

I have yet to meet a C# developer who does not understand all of the above.

While my experience is probably reasonably limited, and I do not doubt there are good VB.NET developers out there, it is far more likely that the C# (or Java or C++) person will be far more skilled filling a position.

Friday, February 09, 2007 12:45 PM by SBC

# re: 'I know VB.NET well. Is that of no use to you?' - Developers and Recruiters dilema

In my ~20 years in IT - I have seen more VB projects fail compared to C++/C#..

There may be a statistics out there as to which language is correlated to successful projects.

Strange but true.

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