VB.net application in "Real World" software?

+6 A:

There's plenty of need for it. It's a lot of people's primary programming language. It is no faster or slower than C#, as they both compile down to the same native code. Whoever told you that VB.NET isn't used in real world apps is misinformed.

Jason 2010-01-06 00:23:09

I know it's a technicality, but I think it's misleading to say that they both compile to the same native code. They really both compile to IL, and are just-in-time compiled into native code during runtime.

Ed Altorfer 2010-01-06 01:20:05

You're right, that is a *really* irrelevant technicality. Unless you can demonstrate that there's something consistently wrong with the IL that VB.NET generates.

Hans Passant 2010-01-06 01:35:29

ehhh... ok, i can accept that as a technicality. but for all intents and purposes, they are identical at runtime.

Jason 2010-01-06 17:37:13

A:

vb.net is used in our day to day software, because it is easy to code and it has a relatively simple syntax. I don't know percentages, but I'd say it's quite common these days.

Off course if you're after robustness and speed, C++, C and possible C# will do a far better job. But applications that don't have such stringent requirements can definitely be coded in VB.NET

Tony 2010-01-06 00:23:54

C# and VB.NET are pretty much equivelent. C# does not give you any more robustness or speed - in fact, you can't really tell the difference in a compiled library, in most cases.

Reed Copsey 2010-01-06 00:25:34

that's why I said 'possibly C#', as I wasn't sure. Thanks for correcting me on that.

Tony 2010-01-06 00:30:14

Also, you're of dubious truth even saying that about C or C++ - it's fairly common for .NET code to outperform similar C++ code, and far easier to write robust code, due to garbage collection, lack of pointers, etc...

Reed Copsey 2010-01-06 00:46:41

I was convinced that C++ was still going to be faster then any .NET code. But it seems I may be wrong?!

Tony 2010-01-06 01:03:13

vb.net's syntax is easy, but it's even "ugly" for me, and Ijust have experience with vb.net and java.and vb.net has some problems with consistence. you can really recognize, where some additions are implemented and are used in a different way than earlier implementations.

Andreas Hornig 2010-01-06 01:04:17

Since C# allows for access to "unsafe" code (ie, pointers), there are likely applications/algorithms that can be made faster in C#. However, I wouldn't call VB.Net less "robust". Code robustness has more to do with programmer competence than anything else.

Joe Internet 2010-01-06 01:57:03

A:

The plan, from what was discussed by the language team at PDC, is for VB.NET and C#, from Visual Studio 2010 forward, to pretty much be kept in parity in terms of features.

This means VB.NET is every bit as "real" as C#, when it comes to languages. There is really nothing you can't do in VB.NET that you can do in C#. Both languages compile into the same IL for the CLR, and have pretty much the same optimizations.

Reed Copsey 2010-01-06 00:24:55

I don't think Microsoft plans on adding access to "unsafe" code to VB.Net.

Joe Internet 2010-01-06 02:07:49

That may be true. I was referring to some comments made during hte futures of VB.NET and C# talk @ PDC - the MS goal is to make the languages near feature equivelent (but there will always probably be some differences).

Reed Copsey 2010-01-06 02:33:52

Here's a video of a similar talk at TechEd from Microsoft's Anders Hejlsberg who is now boss of architecture for C# and VB.Net http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2009/06/20/future-directions-for-visual-basic-by--and-jonathan-aneja.aspx

MarkJ 2010-01-06 10:44:47

A:

While VB.NET may not be the language of choice for real-time applications, it actually still shares a spot as one of Microsoft's most popular languages and is used in countless business applications.

One such example is my employer, Accenture's, Claims Components Services, which is a .NET application used by 70% of insurance companies (according to the company).

When selecting a language or technology, you should always consider what you need. If you answer "high performance with a ton of control," you may not want to go with VB; I may be biased, but I think VB and C# are actually suitable for the vast majority of (business) applications.

Ed Altorfer 2010-01-06 00:25:11

real-time is a good point, that's why I don't want to see my horizon finder onboard this satellite, because it can detect earth's horizon on the camera-image, but it takes a lot of time ;) and when the processing is finised and the programm will display, where you are you are some 100km away from the place, the image was shot ;).Luckily my work was just more a proof of concept afterwards ;)

Andreas Hornig 2010-01-06 01:07:42

This isn't an indicator that VB.Net is slow. It's entirely possible that you chose the worst way possible to implement your algorithms, etc. Now if you're code is really getting all of the performance possible out of the language, then you can move to a lower-level language. But using C/C++/C#/Ocaml/whatever doesn't remove the need for well designed code.

Joe Internet 2010-01-06 02:03:26

A:

I was at a Christmas party chatting with a Gentleman that works at a company that wrote its Diabetes Blood-Sugar level testing software in VB.NET. It's currently being ported to C++ to work on an embedded device. I don't know much more than that (it was a party); but that's anecdotal, at least.

George Stocker 2010-01-06 00:30:15

parties are parties, so I totally understand it! :)I don't have alotof experience with microcontrollers, but all I know work with C. So if he intends a device for the patience pocket, so it's likely, that he can't use his vb.net codeand has to port it to somthing, that this contoller understands.

Andreas Hornig 2010-01-06 01:01:28

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VB.net application in "Real World" software?

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