A Modest Proposal for Microsoft

A Modest Proposal for Microsoft

• trivun

  Matt,

  I understand your viewing this from the marketing standpoint of all the work involved in changing the manuals, websites etc. but I think your missing one very important point. Visual Basic.NET is SEVENTEEN keystrokes where B# is merely TWO.

  That's a savings of 15 keystrokes everytime you have to mention the product. Imagine the productivity gains your folks will experience when they can drop those finger breaking 15 extra keystrokes. Worst case scenario where they have to actually type bsharp - they're still only inputting 6 characters.

  Honestly, I realized it was out there, but when someone says they are a VB programmer that's become a rather vague description because they could be a VB6, a VBA, or a .NET programmer OR all of the above.

  Anyway, thanks for responding.

  Clay

  
  

• Gary McAllister

  As I said, start calling yourself a .NET developer. And if definative is what you're after you're gonna need to specify which version of the framework you're coding against. B# 2.0. But even then you might be more skilled in WinForms clients rather than WebApps or Distributed Applications. So maybe you should be a B# 2.0 WinForms developer with an emphasis on Data Access w/ SQL Server 2005.

  Or maybe you sould just say you're a VB8 dev and be done with it. Changing the name to B# would cause no end of confusion. Everyone will wonder if you're talking about the B language for .NET, or think you mistyped C# or that they misheard C#.

  How do you know that VB doesn't mean VB1.0 for DOS The end of a product life-cycle doesn't mean people stop using it.

  Maybe we could call it BASIC/CLI

  
  
  

• ideas

  First and foremost, let me say thanks for making VB better and better.

  You wrote:

  We're definitely aware of the "stigma," and so we've been doing a lot of work to address that, including making sure that C# and VB features are on par

  You forgot about Iterators ! This is huge! I can live without anonymous methods but not having Iterators is a bumber. Please put them in next time around. Obviously, all the new stuff you guys have added more than compensates, so don't take me too seriously, I'm just a user, and you know you can never make users 100% happy

  Keep up the good work!

  Regards

  Giancarlo Aguilera

  
  

• respag

  I know exactly where you're coming from!

  However, I couldn't disagree with you more on the name change. VB is VB, period, the best language ever, 100 times better than C# (I'm just trying to make a point). Furthermore, I totally dislike this ".NET" tag that was added to the name. I would have preferred simply VB 7 and so on. I think that with this name change MS inadverdently contributed to the whole problem it's facing now of getting VB developers on the .NET band wagon. I've always kept head up real high regarding my VB background, even back in the COM era.

  Why do you call VB.NET a new language It's not. It's just evolution of an existing language. What is new is the platform VB.NET targets, today .NET, yesterday COM. Obviously we've got a whole bunch of new features, but it's still the same language, the best language .

  By changing the name of the langage you're giving in to all the nonsense people talk about it. Don't let that happen. Be proud of the name, not ashamed of it. I'm certainly proud of it.

  Regards

  Giancarlo Aguilera

  
  

• master_rigel2

  with regard to the vaguery of "VB dev" I don't think our profession lends itself easy to specific qualification. As the certification exams will show programmers can have vastly different expertise in the host of technology the .net framework facilitates. XML guys, Data guys, UI guys, control authors, security guys, regex guys, windows scripting guys, interop guys, Printing guys. I know we all may touch on these areas in our work but I still think B# developer is too generic. A person writing Managed DirectX app could be a "B#" developer, does that mean he's qualified to do your job or you his

  More to the point though, as much Basic pride and unpride as I have I think that we are all most importantly ".NET Developers" and whatever comes before that .NET declaration is just ... syntactic sugar as they say It's the best way to avoid the ambiguity (while just generic enough to steal some C# developers job).

  
  
  

• Hawkins Dale

  Okay not that this thread shouldn't have already died but VB isn't a definitive use where B# would be. Which is sort of my point VB doesn't necessarily mean VB.net until we reach end of life on a few products. So best case it's still 6 vs. 2.

  
  

• Alexander Greiner

  I've been programming in various flavors of BASIC for about 13 years now. I have also added a few other languages, such as C++, PHP, Java, and C#. However, when it comes down to it, I always go back to Visual Basic (now in 2005 flavor) when I am trying to express a new idea. It is quick and easy, it works, and it scales very well for me.

  I'm glad VB still exists and is still called VB, and I like it better in its current form than ever before.

  
  

• Thunder Chen

  I've been coding in flavours of VB for about 10 years, from v4, and I'm a real programmer.  How do I know that Cos I write real programs that really work
  
  Arguments about C# v VB (koff:Blair!) just amuse me, I'm usually too busy writing really good VB code to get into it.

  VB Does it's job, and employers who want someone to write VB code don't care that C ppl look down on VB ppl, they just want someone who can code in the chosen language
  

  
  

• Pete Orologas

  Visual Basic.NET is SEVENTEEN keystrokes where B# is merely TWO.

  One alternative to this dire problem is to call VB by it's correct name which is actually VB and then spell C# correctly.

  Parity does exist in the universe.

  
  
  

• pavankumar.D.V.

  I never understood this whole stigma thing  

  VB is just a tool used to do a job.  The job should dictate the tool and VB is the tool of choice for most business applications.  Business applications are the source of fame and fortune in most organizations, not some cog buried deep in the application built with C#.   I feel sorry for those poor stigmaless guys.

  Microsoft has done a good job of blurring the lines between C# and VB and I think they understand this and are trying to change this.  I think you will see the VB camp differentiating itself from C# by making sure customers understand that VB is the clear choice for building business applications and that C# is more for lower level stuff.

  I don't understand the shift by some VBer's to C# only to keep building business applications.  It's like driving a tank in the Daytona 500.  I guess they somehow lose their stigma by driving a tank in the Daytona 500, but it doesn't make any sense to me.  Stigma should be attached to those ding dongs that use the wrong tool for the job.

  
  

• Sinbad7Seas

  Musician's response: http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley/archive/2006/03/16/791.aspx

  Jim Wooley
  http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley

  
  
  

• Ukram

  Hi, RClayH,

  We're definitely aware of the "stigma," and so we've been doing a lot of work to address that, including making sure that C# and VB features are on par, making sure that new samples have VB code, making sure that demonstrations use VB code as much as possible, plus World Tour trips to get the word out.  (Some of our team are in Europs this month for example, meeting with VS customers and demonstrating VB.)

  Regarding renaming the product:  it's an interesting idea, but doing that would be quite a mental change for us.  Setting aside for a moment the sheer amount of documentation and trademark-stamped work which is out in the ecosystem, the fact is that we want to emphasize that VB.Net is the logical evolution of VB6.  Now, we could get into a discussion on the current state of that migration story, with my viewpoint being that we've done good work but could certainly do more, but the point is that .NET has a lot to offer VB users -- security and power being right at the top of the list -- and that there's a VB story for people who identify themselves as VB users.  Keeping the name "VB" is reflective of our commitment to "do right" by those customers, and deliver easy-to-use tools that empower them to do more.  Having a "B#" language, with no clear link to anything, would on some level disconnect us from that history and commitment.  (It's not the same degree of scenario change that separated QuickBasic from VB1.0, for example.)  As part of the VB team, I am keenly aware of the responsibility I have towards those customers who've been using various versions of the VB product for -- what is it, about 15 years now   I just wouldn't get that from a rebranding which was intended to somehow differentiate one set of customer scenarios from the other.

  It's totally an argument from the heart & not the head, I know, but speaking for myself, I get a lot of motivation out of carrying the torch for VB, and would feel somewhat "at sea" without that connection.

  --Matt--*

  
  
  

• micvos

  Dang, I wish I'd thought of that. (In fact, if it were April 1st, I'd suspect a setup.) Nice...

  --Matt--*

  VB Dev Manager and dedicated clarinetist...

  
  
  

• pms

  I was explaining this very thing to a C# programmer I occassional mentor, recently. He said that I took things too seriously (note that he's one of those VB -> C# converts).

  I don't like this # *** that's popping up everywhere. Moreover VB is a descendant of the BASIC family of languages. A language family that has been around for 40+ years (longer than the C family in fact). Changing the name would be catastrophic!

  As for language evolution... if you can see clearly the line between a library and a language you'll see that there have been tiny little additions to the BASIC language over the decades. In terms of pure syntax from VB6 there have been a few mondifications and a number of additions to the language. What you've had to learn was an entirely new library. There are over 8,500 types in the Framework exposing over 135 members (or was that methods). This is fantastically more to learn that the language changes. That's why a lot of VB6 code doesn't port well (not because we can't express variable declarations in VB8, but because once ported to .NET code most VB6 code is rendered obsolete, unreadable, or an unneccessary hack).

  Anyway keep your Basic pride, it's a language family that has a lot of veterans in it who have been with it since childhood. Furthermore, C/C++/C# programmers won't respect you because you work in a verbose language with lots of keywords that are too readable to be considered 1337 and because the entire world runs on semicolons and because your language works with and for you (sometimes hiding complexities and computer science fundamentals which are essential to uberdom) and basically just because you don't use what they use. Nothing (null in C#) is going to change that.

  
  
  
• A Modest Proposal for Microsoft