Where is VB.NET Today

Question

I remember few years back I was working with several clients who had their application written in VB.NET rather than C#. Recently all new projects I am building or have asked to build are on C#. Has C# taken over VB.NET? What happened to VB.NET? Is anybody here still using VB.NET in their projects?

Sam Hobbs · Answer

The Basic language is as important to Microsoft as a trademark or something such as that. In the past Microsoft defined Basic as being easy to use and they avoided improving C++ for the sake of convenience. Microsoft could have made C++ much easier to use but they did not. So the point I am making here is that in the past Microsoft emphasized VB quite heavily and as Jkyle Landicho indicates Office still emphasizes VB. Even VS macros must be developed using VB. VB .Net is extremely improved compared to VB 6 and before. So yes there is much less difference between VB and C# compared to unmanaged VB and C++.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Yes agree. Both are same. For me it doesn't matter. I was just curious to see where VB.NET is heading to. We are thinking to merge our VB.NET Heaven website into C# Corner. I meet new clients every day and discuss new projects every day. I see more and more C# project than VB.NET. I think companies who had old VB or VB.NET projects are still maintaining it. Interesting! Cheers!

Jkyle Landicho · Answer

If we will base this article on the number of resources that we can access in the Internet using google I think VB.NET is more popular since majority of the sample source codes that I see are still written in VB. Microsoft Excel still also uses VB in it's Macros. The very popular Crystal Reports still also uses the VB language in its formula creation. But again as I said I think this does not matter. They are both .NET compilers anyway.

Vulpes · Answer

Despite what Jkyle says about the position in the Philippines my impression is that usage of VB.NET is in decline amongst professional developers. It's years since I was last asked to write a new application in VB.NET though I still maintain a few which I wrote in the early years of .NET when there was more demand for VB.NET than C#. If you look at a site such as Code Project most new .NET articles are written for C#. However I suspect that VB.NET is still popular with hobbyists. I remember Microsoft saying a couple of years back that there were a lot more downloads of VB Express than VC# Express though whether that's still true I don't know. Curiously the Tiobe Index ( http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html ) which I've always regarded with extreme scepticism seems to think that VB.NET is getting more popular even though it's popularity is only a tenth of C#'s!

Jkyle Landicho · Answer

Hi. I think majority of the .NET projects here in the Philippines are still in VB.NET. And I personally think that it does not matter whether C# or VB.NET is used because they produce the same binaries when compiled. VB.NET is close to English like language than C#. C# is too techy looking. Why burden yourself with techy writting where it is the output that matters. Viva VB.NET