- Upgrading Your VB6 App to .NET
- Thinking in .NET
- What's Best for You?
What's Best for You?
There are a number of debates in the Microsoft developer community as what is the right language to migrate to: VB.NET, C#, or a mixture? The reality is, both are viable languages, and the decision really depends on your organizational needs. If your background is VB, then jumping into VB.NET will take some getting used to, but the you will find it a much richer environment to develop applications.
Going from VB to C# is a bit more tricky. C# is more like C++ and Java, in that you use brackets and semicolons, and the code is case sensitive. However, despite what Microsoft wants you to think, C# offers you more features like pointers, shift operators, inline documentation, and overloaded operators. Also, similar to C++, creating custom controls in C# is easier to do than in VB.NET.
I've personally have written the same application in both VB.NET and C#. When I've done so, I found that some C# features made the programming experience much easier than trying to figure out how to force VB.NET to try to do the same thing. VB.NET is still one of the best tools for rapid application development; C# isn't that far behind. My expectation is that, probably by the next release of Visual Studio .NET, they will be neck and neck.