No love for VB?

I'm looking around on books that evolves around ASP.NET and I'm starting to see a common pattern among a lot of the books. In most cases, they are predominantly written in C# leaving no alternate code in VB. I know that C# is being pushed by a lot of developers to be a better choice (this is debatable), but I just don't understand why there is a favor towards a single programming language (C# in this case). I'm a VB programmer myself and I know that C# is pretty similar and shouldn't be hard to learn, but the same concern goes the other way around. If most technical books are written in VB, then I'm pretty sure that the C# community will have the same concern as well.

Believe it or not, there are still plenty of VB programmers out there, and it looks like the resources available (books, articles, etc.) are getting slimmer by the day. I recently purchased Professional ASP.NET 3.5 in C# and VB and found it a great book since it caters to both programming languages. The price/value of the book is respectable as the authors took the time to accommodate both languages. So why don't the other authors do the same thing? Is this too much to ask for?

15 Comments

  • I think it has a fair amount to do with the cost...the book you mentioned is HUGE! 1600 pages, that's got to be expensive to publish and while those authors pull a lot of weight and sell a lot of books, it's a worthwhile expense for the publishers. Whereas a lesser known author probably can't get their publisher to let them make a book that big. Now why are they leaning to C# over VB? That's a good question...

  • From a business standpoint (the publisher's), don't you think that it is a better idea to publish books that accommodates to two types of target audiences rather than just one? If for the sake of adding 400 more pages even if it costs more can sell 100% more books, don't you think it's worth it?

  • I think there's a definite separation of attitudes between vb and c# books.
    Pretty much most of the vb.net books ive come across tell you things like how to add a combo box to a grid, or how to bind a textbox to a record in a dataset.

    However books written in c# talk about design patterns, and proper object orientated approaches.

    Thats the way it is, vb when you want something quick and easy, c# when you want something structured and extendable.

  • I think the job market is a good indicator: (this is an estimate from just one website- Dice.com)
    C#: 7898 jobs
    VB.NET: 2568 Jobs

    I used to use VB.NET but moved to C#. Believe me I was a pro-VB.NET guy, I didn't want anything to do with C#. However, when it came time to find a job VB.NET was lacking in both availability and pay. Now that I've been using C# I must admit I do like it better. However I still got love for VB :)

  • To be honest I'm growing tired of this debate and as you said it is spreading like wildfire.
    I coded in the very first versions of VB, even VB for DOS, which I'd love to have a version of on the shelf just for kicks.
    For the past 20 years I've coded in every IDE from Borland and Microsoft and use both C# and VB today.
    For me VB coding is "style", while C# is "class".
    With the CLR improvements in ASP.NET 3.5 I'll use C# at times and VB at times, depending on the mood I guess. ;-)

  • I think there is a reason most books are in C#. VB.NET developers will buy a C# book and translate the code across as needed. C# developers wont buy a VB.NET book and do the same.

  • Like you say, it's fairly easy to convert from VB to C# and back again so really it's not that big of a deal. When I come across articles written in a different language it's pretty easy to translate it to my language of the day.

    I also have to agree with your first commenter, you reduce page count with a single language which translates into cheaper printing and is a bit "greener". As a C# (and Delphi and PHP) developer I'd even prefer a book be all in VB vs. VB & C# because I'd hate all that wasted paper. Personally I'd prefer everything be in pseudo code because syntax is easy, it's really the framework and concepts you're learning.

  • That´s actually the reason why I went from VB to C#. I just had to try those samples Don Box and Chris Anderson showed on Longhorn Build 4051 after the PDC '03. :-)

  • My previous experience is BASIC, VBScript, followed by VB.Net and VB 2005, so it makes sense for me to have VB as a primary language for ASP.NET in my career.

    However, I've 'dabbled' with C# and I like it, and if given an opportunity, I would like to develop with both in a day-to-day job.

    - Lee

  • Geez, there are a lot of ignorant comments in this post.

  • Like most of you I have way more experience in VB but I have been picking up C# as well because I'm seeing more and more stuff for C# than VB. I have found several good EBooks on VB published through APress.

    The toughest part of the transition for me so far is trying to remember when to include () and when to leave them off. For example Conn.Open is fine in VB but in C# you must use Conn.Open(). The ";" at the end of the line is not as bad as I thought it might be.

  • I've seen a lot of the language elitism/snobbery on the web lately, and it's getting rather annoying. A good programmer should be able to use (more or less) any language he needs/wants to, liking the syntax is a matter of preference.

    Sure VB is more wordy, but I like that, as it seems more explicit than curly braces.

    As for the books, I agree it is a good idea to publish a book using just VB or C#, rather than printing both versions of code samples. I've seen some books that do that, and it makes me wonder how much paper could be saved...

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  • I agree with last comment. I'm really tired of this elitism/snobbery.
    The language is a matter of preference.

    At the end no one wins of trying to demostrate which is better. What's the point?


  • No love for vb.. May I repost it? :)

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