Andrew Stopford's Weblog

Use the C# books then. Any decent VB.NET programmer should know how to at least *read* C#, since its here to stay, and, currently, is the most used language for examples on the web and in books.
Besides, its all about the framework classes anyway, so reading the coding and writing it in VB.NET should pose no real problem.
I think most C# books could have a parallel book about .NET. I don't see how publishers havn't see the money in this yet.. Write the book in either language - then translate it to the other. Its the simplest thing in the world and the ROI on this in huge.
Programmers such as yourself would love to get those books mentioned above in a VB.NET edition. Basically I think publishers are negelcting a key audience here. Too bad.

> As VB.NET handles things in a different way to C# (as we know) it means that while these books are useful it also means more work translating the code.

How so? I can't understand your post at all. C# and VB.NET are only vaneers over the CLR and BCL, with syntax. I have been trying to make this point for 2 years. *Nothing* in .NET is the language - the CLR does it or its a call into one of the library functions of the BCL. This is a fundamentally different world than Win32/COM/VB6 where it was completly different, I don't know of *anything* in the ASP.NET namespaces that doesn't work exactly the same with C# or VB.NET. 99% of the two languages overlap and the 1% of differences betwen VB.NET and C# does not include anything in ASP.NET. If the call to System.Foo.Bar is the same, just take out the semi-colon and add 60% more verbosity for VB.NET. I don't get at all why you can't use the C# book.

Thanks for the comments Royo and Sam :)

Royo - my point exactly, I agree VB.NET programmers should be able to read C#. You hit the nail on the head though, C# books should also have VB.NET editions. Heck if the languages are not so different then surely it would be easy to do and it means another audience that the book can sell to.

Sam - I am with you on that one. No matter what the language, usage of the BCL stays the same. So using either C# or VB.NET does not change how you use the ASP.NET namespaces. Agreed. My point is that when you have your boss, his boss and his boss breathing down your kneck you want a book with the answers (and indeed code) in front of you and not have to translate it. Easy to do, sure enough, but it means I am spending time translating, and thats time I don't have.