[AccessD] Old Dog, New Tricks / To Visual Studio or Not

[Charlotte Foust]

Dan,

I'm with you.  I can read C#, but the entire curly brackets thing drives me
nuts.  I like white space, but those languages seem to carry it to the
extreme to make them readable.  IMO one of the main features that has made
VB (non-.Net) discounted as a "real" language is the fact that it is easily
readable.  There's an ego trip among programmers that seems to have existed
forever (or at least as long as computers) and it equates to, "I can write
code that only a select few can possibly understand."  I am NOT talking
about anyone on this list because if they had that flaw they would never
have picked up Access.  But there is a general mind frame in the
non-database programming world that discounts any language that is readable.

VB.Net does the same things that C# does to a greater and greater extent
with each release, and both languages compile to the same  common language
runtime.  C# is a good language to learn if you want more opportunities as
a programmer.  VB is a good language to learn if you're in a hurry to
escape VBA because it's more familiar.  It's really a mind frame you need
to adopt in VS, the fact that everything is an object and strong typing is
the rule of the day and classes are de riguer.

Charlotte

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 10:18 AM, Dan Waters <df.waters at outlook.com> wrote:

> Hi Brad,
>
> About two years ago I began programming in Visual Studio using VB.Net,
> after 10 years of programming VBA in mostly Access.  After two years, I'm I
> still do.  The learning curve from VBA to VB.Net was much shorter, and I
> found that I could always translate any example in C# to VB quickly using a
> code converter (converter.telerik.com).  And now that I've been
> developing for a while, I usually don't need to translate the examples
> (i.e., Stackoverflow.com) to understand what they're doing.  Today,
> switching languages would be a relatively minor event.
>
> From time to time I read lists of popular languages.  If you add the
> number of VB developers and the number of C# developers, about 40% of
> developers use VB.
>
> For some reason, many developers want to proselytize about some language
> being better than others.  C# or VB being a long-standing argument.  In
> truth, VB has a few minor advantages (passing a variable quantity parameter
> array being one of them), but overall the functional difference is like
> buying French fries at McDonalds or buying French fries at Burger King.  If
> you have a preference - it's just personal.
>
> Based on my experience, your statement of concern about minimizing your
> learning curve, the fact that you are working as a company developer (vs. a
> developer in a software company), and the fact that you are unlikely to
> work with other developers who use C#, I would recommend that you develop
> in VB.  Your company isn't going to care which language you use, but they
> will care how long it takes you to get something finished.
>
> Microsoft just recently rebuilt the VB.Net language from the ground up for
> VS 2015 (to be released later this year).  So with that kind of investment
> this language will be around for a long time.  And, it is Microsoft's
> stated position that they intend to remove the functional differences
> between VB and C# over time.
>
> My last word - I absolutely wish that I had taken a beginner's course in
> Visual Studio or VB.Net when I started.  I did a little looking, but
> couldn't find one.  There are some on-line courses, but I'm a little
> skeptical about cost/value on those.  If someone has used on-line training
> for Visual Studio I'd like to ask them to speak up on their experiences.
>
> Good Luck!
> Dan
>
>
>
>