VB .NET vs VS .NET Pro

[Ben]

Hi

We are currently using VS .NET Pro 2003, but we are going to employ another
developer who will solely use VB, and therefore we are looking at VB .NET
for him.

I have looked at the differences between the VB & VS products on the MS
website but the differences are not clear.

He will be doing ASP (using user controls etc) and Windows programming in
VB.

Can someone explain the differences of point me to a comprehensive web page?

Thanks Ben

 

[CT]

Ben,

Take a look here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/howtobuy/choosing.aspx

 

[Ben]

Hi Carsten,

Thanks for the link but i have seen a number of microsofts product info
pages (including that one).

They seem to lack detail, are there any details specs?

Thanks Ben

 

[CT]

Well, in general the language and the .NET Framework integration is the
same, you're just missing out on some of the added functionality, such as
building reusable controls...

 

[Angus Entwistle]

Get him an MSDN Enterprise subscription. It will cost about the same as
the development environment but give him access to all of the servers
and platforms he will need. It will also give him support for other
languages such as C#, and C++, which he may need from time to time.

fwiw, if he is an experienced VB developer and you are requiring him to
move to VB.NET, the differences between VB6 and VB.NET are sufficient
enough that this is a good opportunity for him to learn C#. C# was
written specifically for .NET, while VB was ported.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8ren_Lund_Jensen?=]

Get him an MSDN Enterprise subscription. It will cost about the same
as the development environment but give him access to all of the
servers and platforms he will need. It will also give him support
for other languages such as C#, and C++, which he may need from time
to time.

I totally agree. We primarily use VB.NET where I work but that doesn't
mean we don't need to look at C# code from time to time. In the future
you may need to compile C# code using VS.NET which isn't possible if
you only have the VB.NET version of the product.

fwiw, if he is an experienced VB developer and you are requiring him
to move to VB.NET, the differences between VB6 and VB.NET are
sufficient enough that this is a good opportunity for him to learn
C#. C# was written specifically for .NET, while VB was ported.

I do not agree. Yes, VB and VB.NET are incomtible but they still share
the same philosophy. The VB.NET IDE is way more powerfull than the C#
IDE. You really have to try writing a lot of code in either language to
appreciate the subtle things such as background compile, automatic
popup of values for a particular property or parameter.

I am not out to start a holy which is always a danger when comparing
VB.NET and C# and don't get me wrong I really like using both C# and
VB.NET. They each have their weaknesses and strengths but I think for
someone starting out in .NET the IDE enhancements in VB.NET does help a
lot. C# requires that you know a lot more about the framework.

Also VB was not ported, it was written from scratch (yes some of the
keywords are the same but most of them are essentially wrappers for
what you would normally call from C# and you can call that underlying
code directly if you so choose).

Both C# and VB.NET are equally powerfull languages. What you can do in
C# you can do in VB.NET.

 

[Ben]

Apart from the compilers for different languages, what else do I lose with
the standard version?

Thanks Ben