Why is VB so popular? [closed]

Posted by aaaidan on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by aaaidan
Published on 2009-05-26T08:56:06Z Indexed on 2010/05/25 16:31 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 459

Filed under:

c#

|

vb.net

|

vb

|

subjective

|

syntax

To me, Visual Basic seems clumsy, ugly, error-prone, and difficult to read. I'll let others explain why. While VB.net has clearly been a huge leap forward for the language in terms of features, I still don't understand why anyone would choose to code in VB over, say, C#.

However, I still see (what seems to be) the vast majority of commercial web apps from "MS shops" are built in VB. I could stand corrected on this, but VB still seems more popular than it deserves.

Can anyone help answer any (or all) of these questions:

Am I missing something with VB? Is it easier to learn, or "friendlier" than C#? Are there features I don't know about?
Why is VB/VB.net so frequently used today, especially in web projects?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about c#

.NET WebRequest.PreAuthenticate not quite what it sounds like

as seen on West-Wind - Search for 'West-Wind'
I’ve run into the problem a few times now: How to pre-authenticate .NET WebRequest calls doing an HTTP call to the server – essentially send authentication credentials on the very first request instead of waiting for a server challenge first? At first glance this sound like it should be easy:… >>> More
HttpWebRequest and Ignoring SSL Certificate Errors

as seen on West-Wind - Search for 'West-Wind'
Man I can't believe this. I'm still mucking around with OFX servers and it drives me absolutely crazy how some these servers are just so unbelievably misconfigured. I've recently hit three different 3 major brokerages which fail HTTP validation with bad or corrupt certificates at least according to… >>> More
The dynamic Type in C# Simplifies COM Member Access from Visual FoxPro

as seen on West-Wind - Search for 'West-Wind'
I’ve written quite a bit about Visual FoxPro interoperating with .NET in the past both for ASP.NET interacting with Visual FoxPro COM objects as well as Visual FoxPro calling into .NET code via COM Interop. COM Interop with Visual FoxPro has a number of problems but one of them at least got a lot… >>> More
Dynamic Type to do away with Reflection

as seen on West-Wind - Search for 'West-Wind'
The dynamic type in C# 4.0 is a welcome addition to the language. One thing I’ve been doing a lot with it is to remove explicit Reflection code that’s often necessary when you ‘dynamically’ need to walk and object hierarchy. In the past I’ve had a number of ReflectionUtils that used string based expressions… >>> More
Finding a Relative Path in .NET

as seen on West-Wind - Search for 'West-Wind'
Here’s a nice and simple path utility that I’ve needed in a number of applications: I need to find a relative path based on a base path. So if I’m working in a folder called c:\temp\templates\ and I want to find a relative path for c:\temp\templates\subdir\test.txt I want to receive back subdir\test… >>> More

Related posts about vb.net

VB.NET How Do I skin a vb.net app

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to skin a vb.net app I made ive googled some stuff and I've seen skinned vb.net apps. However it seems like any time i try to find someone explaining it its a link to a pay for product. Does anyone have anything useful on this? >>> More
VB.NET IF() Coalesce and “Expression Expected” Error

as seen on ASP.net Weblogs - Search for 'ASP.net Weblogs'
I am trying to use the equivalent of the C# “??” operator in some VB.NET code that I am working in. This StackOverflow article for “Is there a VB.NET equivalent for C#'s ?? operator?” explains the VB.NET IF() statement syntax which is exactly what I am looking for... and I thought I was going to… >>> More
Would a programmer knowing C# and VB.Net ever choose VB.Net?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Now before someone tells me VB.Net isn't bad like VB was, I know it isn't. But, I've yet to speak to a programmer who is completely content that some project they work on is written in VB.Net. Basically, my question is would a programmer knowing both C# and VB.Net (and all of their team knowing both)… >>> More
Do I lose anything by coding in c# and using free online vb.net code convertors?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
The company I work for uses vb.net since there are many programmers who moved up from vb6 to vb.net. Basically more vb.net resources in the company for support/maintenance vs c#. I am a c# coder and was wondering if I could just continue coding in c# and just use the many online free c# to vb.net… >>> More
What are some good/reputable/widely-used libraries written in VB.NET?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Generally speaking, when VB.NET and C# are compared, there is a lot of strong support for C#, accompanied by some bashing of VB.NET until a respected developer comes along and acts as The Voice Of Reason, pointing out that while VB prior to VB.NET had its fair share of issues, VB.NET is really a very… >>> More