1

I know VB is still very popular, but does Microsoft put the same effort into developing VB as they do for C#? Will VB eventually fade away?

Greg B
  • 14,597
  • 18
  • 87
  • 141
kofucii
  • 7,393
  • 12
  • 51
  • 79
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/400479/vb6-lives-forever-like-cobol – Kb. Oct 02 '10 at 15:43
  • 1
    I hope so (fade away). We don't need both C# and VB.NET, and I would prefer to see the resources that are put into VB.NET, put into something far more useful to developers. – Randy Minder Oct 02 '10 at 16:03
  • 1
    Randy: Believe it or not, *most* people who program are not professional developers. Accountants, business analysts, and such all prefer VB.Net's approach. – Gabe Oct 02 '10 at 16:16
  • @Gabe wrong, most ppl who program are professional programmers. But yes a nice share do code at home and they prefer VB.Net – nawfal Jan 10 '12 at 18:04

3 Answers3

2

Microsoft is focusing on making C# and VB.NET (not VB6) similar in what is being termed as a "co-evolution" of the languages. We can see this with C# 4.0 adopting optional parameters and VB.NET 10 adding support for automatic properties and multi-statement lambdas.

This is supported by the following links:

Ahmad Mageed
  • 94,561
  • 19
  • 163
  • 174
1

Very few people are adding to VB.NET numbers but people already started with VB and then moved to VB.NET will stay around for a long time.

Aliostad
  • 80,612
  • 21
  • 160
  • 208
1

I started in this line of work developing Access apps. VBA 6 is still used in Access 2010, and my colleagues of old refer to .NET as "LINQ and other stuff". The point being, they don't need .NET "luxuries" to satisfy their clients needs cheaply and effectively.

VBA being a whole lot less than VB6. So the same will apply to many VB6 developers.

However, I think the question (although not clearly stated) refers to VB.NET. In that case, I think VB.NET gets as much attention as C#. The big difference is that most of the best samples are in C# and as development nowadays depends heavily on googling for samples, that tilts the balance in favour of C#. But only just. And there are things that are easier to do in VB.NET than they are in C#, although C# 4.0, with optional parameters, etc, is closing that gap.

Me, I left Access partly because I live in a rural area so it makes more sense to develop apps for the web that don't require me to travel to client's offices. But mainly, because aesthetics are important to me and I HATED the VB syntax.

Other people hate curly brackets. I think they illustrate the scope of what each item of code has access to, but there you go, horses for courses.

No. Categorically NO. VB.NET will not fade away, and VB6 and VBA have not yet exhausted their potential.

awrigley
  • 13,481
  • 10
  • 83
  • 129