vb.net

programming languages

Computer Languages aren’t Human Languages

Though I’ve become agnostic about the utterly meaningless non-choice between VB.NET and C#, the inherited syntax of C leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion. And not just in the case sensitivity department. Daniel Appleman, in his excellent e-book, VB.NET or C#, Which to Choose?

By Jeff Atwood ·
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c#

The Last Configuration Section Handler... Revisited

If you need to store a little bit of state – in your configuration file, or on disk – nothing is faster than some quick and dirty serialization. Or as I like to call it, stringization. In late 2004, I wrote about The Last Configuration Section Handler, which does exactly this for

By Jeff Atwood ·
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c#

Compiler, It Hurts When I Do This

Here’s a question that recently came up on an internal mailing list: how do I create an enum with a name that happens to be a c# keyword? I immediately knew the answer for VB.net; you use brackets to delimit the word. Public Enum test [Public] [Private] End

By Jeff Atwood ·
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Choosing between .NET Pepsi and .NET Coke

.net

Choosing between .NET Pepsi and .NET Coke

I’ve increasingly come to believe that the debate between C# and VB.NET is a red herring. Choosing between C# and VB.NET isn’t a meaningful choice. It’s like choosing between .NET Pepsi and .NET Coke. Either way, you’re getting a cola flavored carbonated beverage. If

By Jeff Atwood ·
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C#, VB.NET, and echoing strings in the VS.NET Immediate Window

c#

C#, VB.NET, and echoing strings in the VS.NET Immediate Window

I’ve become rather agnostic on the whole topic of C# versus VB.NET, but there are still those annoying little differences that sneak up behind you and rabbit-punch you in the kidneys. Like, say, using the VS.NET 2003 command window in immediate mode to print a string: Usually

By Jeff Atwood ·
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Option Strict and Option Explicit in VB.NET 2005

vb.net

Option Strict and Option Explicit in VB.NET 2005

I just noticed that Option Explicit is on by default for new VB solutions in Visual Studio .NET 2005: It’s about damn time. There’s nothing more vicious than making an innocent typo when referencing a variable and not knowing about it because the compiler silently declares a new

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

You Can Write FORTRAN in any Language

A recent user-submitted CodeProject article took an interesting perspective on the VB.NET/C# divide by proposing that the culture of Visual Basic is not conducive to professional software development: We’ve seen that the cultures of VB and C# are very different. And we’ve seen that this is

By Jeff Atwood ·
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The Slow Brain Death of VB.NET

vb.net

The Slow Brain Death of VB.NET

It’s amusing that the very people defending VB.NET are, ironically, illustrating precisely why VB.NET is in such trouble: I just want to make it clear that I am one MVP that does NOT intend to sign this petition about VB. And by the way, my background is

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

MS Language Equivalents

As a complement to my C# to VB.NET cheat sheet links, here’s a comparative list of programming language equivalents in VB, J#, C++, C#, JScript, and even Visual FoxPro. Since .NET is just a thin wrapper over Win32 (or so I've been told), you may also

By Jeff Atwood ·
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vb.net

Resharper for VB.NET

Inspired by Jeff Key’s, “If loving Resharper is wrong I don’t wanna be right” soliloquy, I emailed JetBrains to see if they had plans to bring Resharper – currently a C# only tool – to VB.NET. This was their response: Of course there will be support for VB.NET,

By Jeff Atwood ·
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refactoring

Programming for Luddites

There was much handwringing last week when Somasegar announced what we already knew: VB.NET 2005 will not have refactoring. This resulted in a few emotional outbursts: We don’t need toys like [the] MY [namespace], we need working tool like Refactoring!! How can Microsoft refuse us those magical software

By Jeff Atwood ·
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vb.net

VB.NET vs C#, round two

I saw on Dan Appleman’s blog that a new version of his Visual Basic.NET or C#: Which to Choose? is available, reflecting the latest changes in VS.NET 2005. I immediately bought a copy from Lockergnome, apparently the only vendor that allows instant eBook downloads after purchase.* There

By Jeff Atwood ·
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