What does the 'friend' modifier do in VB.NET?
Why is it the default modifier for GUI components in Visual Studio?
+1
A:
AFAIK the friend access modifier does not exist in C#.
Do you mean Friend Assemblies?
Alex
2010-05-05 11:46:50
I believe VB.Net `friend` is equivalent to C# `internal`, like DannyLane says in his answer
MarkJ
2010-05-06 13:25:01
+8
A:
friend in VB.Net is the same as internal in C#, it means that it can be accessed anywhere in the same assembly, but not from other assemblies.
I think it's a sensible default since I would say that normally one assembly should not be using another assembly's GUI controls (unless it's a class library or similar that is built for the purpose).
ho1
2010-05-05 11:49:13
I would go further and say that `Private` would be a better default modifier. Directly accessing another object's GUI controls is poor practise and will lead to tightly-coupled code that's hard to modify.
MarkJ
2010-05-06 13:23:37
Well, I'm not disagreeing about best practices, but I assume it defaults to friend to make it easier for beginners to get started or something like that.
ho1
2010-05-06 14:57:07