What are the most important functional differences between C# and VB.NET?

Question

Certainly there's the difference in general syntax, but what other critical distinctions exist? There are some differences, right?

Answer 1

This topic has had a lot of face time since .Net 2.0 was released. See this Wikipedia article for a readable summary.

Answer 2

This is a very comprehensive reference.

Answer 3

Since I assume you can google, I don't think a link to more sites is what you are looking for.

My answer: Choose base on the history of your developers. C# is more JAVA like, and probably C++ like. VB.NET was easier for VB programmers, but I guess that is no really an issue anymore sine there are no new .NET programmers coming from old VB.

My opinion is that VB is more productive then C#, it seems it is always ahead in terms of productivity tools (such as intelisense), and I would recommend vb over c# to someone that asks. Of course, someone that knows he prefers c# won't ask, and c# is probably the right choice for him.

Answer 4

The linked comparisons are very thorough, but as far as the main differences I would note the following:

• C# has anonymous methodsVB has these now, too
• C# has the yield keyword (iterator blocks)
• VB supports implicit late binding
• VB supports XML literals
• VB is case insensitive
• More out-of-the-box code snippets for VB
• More out-of-the-box refactoring tools for C#

In general the things MS focuses on for each vary, because the two languages are targeted at very different audiences. This blog post has a good summary of the target audiences. It is probably a good idea to determine which audience you are in, because it will determine what kind of tools you'll get from Microsoft.

Answer 5

Apart from syntax not that much any more. They both compile to exactly the same IL, so you can compile something as VB and reflect it into C#.

Most of the apparent differences are syntactic sugar. For instance VB appears to support dynamic types, but really they're just as static as C#'s - the VB compiler figures them out.

Visual Studio behaves differently with VB than with C# - it hides lots of functionality but adds background compiling (great for small projects, resource hogging for large ones) and better snippet support.

With more and more compiler 'magic' in C#3 VB.Net has really fallen behind. The only thing VB now has that C# doesn't is the handles keyword - and that's of debatable benefit.

@Tom - that really useful, but a little out of date - VB.Net now supports XML docs too with '''

@Luke - VB.Net still doesn't have anon-methods, but does now support lambdas.

Answer 6

This may be considered syntax, but VB.NET is case insensitive while C# is case sensitive.

Answer 7

When it gets to IL its all just bits. That case insensitivity is just a precompiler pass. But the general consensus is, vb is more verbose. If you can write c# why not save your eyes and hands and write the smaller amount of code to do the same thing.

Answer 8

Although the syntax sugar on C#3 has really pushed the bar forward, I must say some of the Linq to XML stuff in VB.Net seems quite nice and makes handling complex, deeply nested XML a little bit more tolerable. Just a little bit.

Answer 9

One glaring difference is in how they handle extension methods (Vb.Net actually allows something that C# doesn't - passing the type on which the extension method is being defined as ref): http://blog.gadodia.net/extension-methods-in-vbnet-and-c/

Answer 10

Scott Hanselman recently wrote an interesting article contrasting var and Dim: Back to Basics: var != Dim

Answer 11

VB has its VB-cry baby Option Strict = Off|On setting; C# only does it the right way.

Answer 12

The biggest difference in my opinion is the ability to write unsafe code in C#.