VB or C# .NET 2

[CasperTFG]

Along the lines of Visual Basic 60. vs VBA.

What are everyones opinions on VB vs C# in the .NET world. I am going to sign up for a program this fall in night school. I have to decide first on which route to take. VB or C#

I am already a VB6 guru? so is it better to learn C# now? or stay with VB because I already know it? The other side I ahve heard is if you know C++ then go with VB or if you know VB go with C#, that way you won't get mixed up when switching between IDE's.





Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[RiverGuy]

1. The IDE for all .Net languages is the same.
2. Most likely, college courses will teach elementary principles, thereby, just having programming experience period should help you.
3. I have heard people say if you know C++, go with C#; I'm not on that bandwagon.
4. IMO, C# is a mix between Java and VB. It resembles Java more IMO than it does C++.

I'd probably go with C#, just to learn something more different. If you are taking the classes to try and get an easy A, then choose VB, since much of it will be more familiar to you.

Either way, college courses more than likely won't prepare you in and of themselves for a career in coding that language. You will have to spend time on your own using the languages. You might end up learning them both on your own anyways.

 

[zemp]

From what I understand, the thing with .Net is that both VB.Net and C# use the same Common Language Runtime (CLR) files. No longer does VB have it's own runtime. Thus it seems that since you are accessing the same runtimes the only difference may be how you access these runtimes. If you know VB then it would seem to make sense that you move to VB.Net. But when has Microsoft always made sense.

Dan Appleman has a book out called 'Moving to VB .NET' that targets imtermidiate and expert VB6 (or earlier) developers. It may be worth looking at.

http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=164

zemp

 

[CasperTFG]

The only reason I am actually taking the class is I can't seem to get passed a Phone interview with anyone. The first and last question seems to be,

Int: "Do you have your MCAD"
Me: "No, But I do have a Programming Degree, and 8 years of Team Lead and development experience..."
Int: "Thank you we'll call you" <click>

So I figured if I want a Better paying job I better get some cridentials, and why not learn something in the process.



Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[RiverGuy]

That's a good start then. There should be plenty of jobs out there that don't require certs.

 

[dyarwood]

Casper

When people ask ou have you got your MCAD can you not say that you are working towards it. You are just going through the learning of it first.

 

[CasperTFG]

I could but I would be lying unless I was signed up for a course. I was never good at lying.

But that is a good suggestion for finding a job before I am finished.

Does anyone here have their MCAD. What is involved? Start to finish?

Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[dilettante]

Can you shed any light on "Programming Degree?" This is a new one on me - though I admit to being out of the academic world for several decades.

 

[CasperTFG]

Sorry, It's a diploma not a degree.




Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[GMcNamara]

I could but I would be lying unless I was signed up for a course."

The MCAD has absolutely nothing to do with taking a course. You MAY take a course to supplement your studies for the MCAD, but it is not necessary. I would not call that lying at all. If you are actively studying the language and you have the intent of taking the test, then you are working on your MCAD.

 

[CasperTFG]

Okay maybe I have a wrong Idea about the MCAD. Can anyone enlighten me?

Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[GMcNamara]

It is an exam. If you pass, you are an MCAD. There are no required courses, books, hours, etc. It is just a test.

 

[CasperTFG]

I am getting very confused... Why are there MCAD certification courses everywhere?

Sorry to be so dense here, my company is rather cheap. When I was hired there was the promise of 2-3 courses a year, to date (5 years later) I have been to one free seminar.

Needless to day no one here has certification, I always assumed though that it was a certified Microsoft course that you had to take?

I have friends in IT/IS that have gone on Certification courses over the period of a year to get certified so I just assumed.

Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[CajunCenturion]

Microsoft awards certifications in many different categories once you have passed one or more tests depending on the certification.

Other companies, seeing an opportunity to make money, offer courses to prepare you to take those tests.

Good Luck
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[CasperTFG]

Has anyone taken these tests? Are the courses neccessary, usefull? BTW the course I was looking at was offered by a Toronto College. 5 Night courses over a period of 10 months, cost is $950 CDN per course. But now I see what you mean... The course outline says "MICROSOFT MCAD - C# VENDOR CERTIFICATION PREPARATION"

So do you think it's worth while? or a waste of money?



Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[zemp]

I would start by getting the exam study book and going through it. Go to Chapters and read parts of it before you but it. If you really don't understand the information then maybe the courses will be worthwhile.

But i don't think that you will have too much trouble.

zemp

 

[CasperTFG]

I don't know .NET or C# yet, that is why i was thinking course?

That and MS is removing Visual Studio from their exams as of June 30th.

Casper

There is room for all of gods creatures, "Right Beside the Mashed Potatoes".

 

[Stella740pl]

CasperTFG,

Check out forum468, it might help you.

 

[zemp]

The same logic can apply for learning .Net. Remeber the book in my first post. If you are having trouble with the information in the book (or other books) then look at a course.

zemp

 

[MasterRacker]

I've been taking a number of programming classes lately. c# is MS's answer to Java. The syntax and memory model are almost identical to Java. Many of the icky features such as unmanaged pointer operations, operator overloading, etc. in C++ have been removed just as in Java.

VB.NET is syntactically similar to VB6 but very different under the hood. VB.NET is fully object oriented and it's data binding model is completely different from VB6's.

Under Visual Studio.NET you can actually mix and match code from any of these lanugages into one project since it all compiles down to the same intermediate language anyway.

There' much to .NET beyond just the language used. From my own experience I'd say that it would probably be easiest to start with VB.NET keeping inmind that the syntactical similarities are hiding a different foundation.

I would definitely add C# though, since the mechanics of object oriented programming are much clearer in that language. Also, if you know C# you essentially know Java as well.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...