Hey, community.

This one might probably trigger some of you. But just a question that comes out of the blue: What are your thoughts on it?

I first learned programming back in the day with Visual Basic 2008. Nowadays, I can program with C#, Java, PHP and some other languages rather well (I’m no professional, though), but I often come back to Visual Basic, because I’m just so used to it. Even though it’s not that often, because I’m a Linux user.

But let’s say I need a small program for Windows real quick? VB.NET is gonna be my choice. Right now, I’m implementing a board game server + client for the game of go (also called baduk or wei’qi) and I’m making really good progress.

I personally think that people should just use what they want to use. I don’t get the hate for PHP and some other languages and I think this gate-keeping and god complex some developers have is really annoying. Makes me want to use VB.NET even harder.

I also don’t like to jump on board with every new and upcoming programming language or library, just to be cool.

I’d also like to emphasize that I’m not creating software for a living right now. I do have a small company for a little bit of freelance work, but that’s just money on the side that comes in by creating really small projects.

  • TheCee@programming.devEnglish
    51·
    1 year ago

    Background: Maintained legacy code for a handful of years.

    Pros:

    • They got generics syntax right
    • Forms editor a bit less broken than for C#
    • Better preprocessor, well, more powerful at least
    • Explicit implementation of interfaces
    • Better switch statement, though I think C# kind of caught up
    • Some other advantages over C# from here I forgot

    Cons:

    • It is possible that Option Strict, Explicit and Infer aren’t activated in that legacy project, so you should run
    • Includes a lot of VB classic stuff
    • No unsafe mode
    • Less null safe than C#
    • Microsoft basically seems to have abandoned it
    • Includes some bullshit, like XML literals
    • No pattern matching
    • Index operator() doesn’t read great
    • Some other questionable design decisions from here I forgot
    • It’s .Net, something that I’ve felt less and less enthusiastic about as times progressed and which has become sort of a symbol of tragic waste for me