Commenting on Language Wars....

<sigh>

Yesterday, Patrick Meader, editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine (and WSSM) posted the article: Is C# the Only Language the Matters?

In it he makes a few good points, and the comments posted to that article on the page say some of the rest. Just wanted to clarify a couple of items:

(a) The article mentions that C# is gaining generics when Whidbey ships. Yes, and so is VB. Generics is a Framework-wide upgrade, not a language-specific upgrade. Visual Basic programmers will be able to use generics, thank goodness.

(b) The article mentions that with Whidbey, “you can see some separation in the languages.” This is true. C# is progressing, under the strong guidance of Anders Hjelsberg. VB, on the other hand, is introducing default instances. I'm inclined to think that default instances are evil in and of themselves, mostly because they promote bad programming practices. Read more about default instances here, and there's some good points here on the Microsoft feedback page.

Anyway, VB was my first language, and like my first car it will always have a special place in my heart. However, with the Whidbey implementation of VB, I am investing the time to learn C#. The shop where I work still uses VB, of course. But Microsoft's decisions have convinced me that you need strong C# skills.

d.code

Commenting on Language Wars....