Paul Vick is blogging !

That's make me happy to see a VB guru blogging, and more if it's Paul.

Well he started well his introduction in the so called 'fratricide' war between VB and C# ;-)

And I am agree with the comment he had on this subject. I use too C# and VB, looking more at the type of project I need to build.

And yes, what's about the other #languages ? I didn't see too much Eiffel or Cobol bloggers in the house ;-)

Frans has a very interesting reply to an entry by Roy. A lot of it is about particular design aspects of one language versus the other, which I think people can argue about forever and ever, but what caught my eye was:

I personally think Microsoft has made a mistake by introducing VB.NET. The reason for this is that VB.NET creates a serious positioning problem: what's the real difference between C# and VB.NET besides some language definitions? Is one the real RAD tool and the other for the keyboard-lovers who like to do everything the hard way? Why does one have XYZ and the other does not and vice versa? I don't see it why they've created these problems in the first place. [...] I therefor won't be surprised when Microsoft phases out VB.NET in the long run over C# [...] 

My first reaction to the question "Why did Microsoft create VB.NET?" is always to think of Louis Armstrong's response when he was asked to explain jazz: "Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know." And then my second reaction is: if you use VB.NET and VC#.NET for a while, you'll quickly realize that they are not just the same language with different syntax. To use a phrase that will date me, they each have a very distinct "look and feel" that goes beyond which features each language supports, and this look and feel is has significance. (To riff off my Louis Armstrong reference, to me VB feels a lot like jazz, while VC# feels a lot like classical music.)

But I realize all this touchy-feely stuff doesn't really answer the question. It's definitely something I'm working on nailing down because I think it's vital that we be able to articulate it in a better way than we have in the past. And out of that explanation should flow the reality that VB.NET isn't going anywhere in the short term or the long run. The free market, of course, gets the final word (as always), but we're going to continue to bang away hard on new versions of VB.NET as long as there are people who are going to use them...

Comment from ewb

Personally, I use both. But assuming VBA eventually yields to VSA and .NET in Office, I'm trying to imagine my clients' many, many users trying desperately to write their Excel and Word macros in C#, "Let's see, doh! Case-sensitive! Curly braces go where?! 'For' what plus plus something?!" I'm thinking VB will have a long, long life in .NET, and I'm glad to see someone else agrees. Why is it that folks get hung up on the C# vs. VB thing anyway when there are so many other languages available/coming for .NET to bellyache about? Is it because MS produces both? How come no one's talking about COBOL or Eiffel or Perl vs. C#? "Oh, why that's apples and oranges." I suppose, but that's your point too about C# and VB, and I agree. Using their (important) differences as a basis for arguing one should go is nuts.