C# or VB.NET? Which would you use and *why*?

I was a VB programmer and switched to C# when .Net first launched. The reasons why were much clearer then:

1. C# had XML documentation - VB.Net didn't

2. We had two centres of excellence: one for J2EE, one for Microsoft and programmers tended to be VB OR JAVA programmers - never the twain would meet. We saw C# as being a way, at least in theory, of making programmers more able to move to where the work was needed, ie to move between the two worlds of Microsoft and Open Source J2EE - a move I still think Microsoft cottoned on to late in the game when suddenly they started telling us VB.Net was the way we should be going to avoid too many previously loyal developers "jumping ship" to the J2EE world via C#.

3. Being in web development I found it was a nightmare switching between server-side VB COM components and client-side JavaScript. Too much time wasted trying to spot obtuse case-sensitivity or missing semi-colon errors in client-side script that kept arising because of being used to coding VB for most of the time, and for which there was little debugging help client-side. C# set up the same "rules" with regard to semi-colons and case-sensitivity, both client-side and server-side meaning, in theory, less wasted time making "schoolboy errors" when switching between the two environments.

4. .Net had only just been released. The first beta was all C# examples and the framework itself was allegedly largely written in C#. VB.Net was still debating whether changes should be made from VB6 at the risk of non-conformity with other .Net languages (eg the 0 index array issue) which gave little confidence that VB.Net would be as well tested or proven come general release. It made sense to go with the "product" that appeared to have been through more testing.

5. We had over the years suffered quite a lot of "poor" VB programmers who just didn't "get" object orientation, where C++ programmers were much more familiar and rarely proved to be anything less than an asset. C# involved a learning curve (mainly one of syntax) but that was small in comparison with learning object orientation and the framework and we figured the VB programmers who couldn't make the switch to C# weren't the sort of programmers we wanted to employ anyway! I think it was Don Box who rather unkindly referred to VB programmers as "failed journalists and marketeers" - unkind, and intended as a joke, but representing a mindset that is quite common in the industry. I currently work with three guys who all come from a C++ background and I don't think they'd have hired me if they'd known I'd come from a VB background

Having made the switch (and I found it hard - not the C# - but the properly "getting" OO which we'd only really paid lip service to with VB6) I couldn't go back to VB now. I look at VB.Net code when there are examples that might not be in C# and thankfully I find it relatively easy to "translate" this into C#, but for me C# just seems more elegant or disciplined and VB.Net seems kind of sloppy. Your mileage may differ!

There are a lot of religious wars around languages of course. At the Patterns and Practices Summit last week at Reading one of the lecturers, getting some gentle ribbing about his examples being in VB from an audience that seemed more versed in C#, J2EE, C++ etc came straight back with "In the VB world We've had managed code since 1991", LOL! There was also a very cheeky article posted on DevX in the last week or two implying that C# people were lucky because with .Net they could now use the power of VB.

I think the official answer is it probably doesn't matter. The worst thing to do is let the programmers decide and ending up having to get expertise in both. I remember when we were making our decisions being amazed that an early adopter (a large supermarket chain in the UK) told us that they didn't set a standard of one language over another and let the individual developers decide which language they wanted to use. A bit of a nightmare trying to recruit staff who now have to know two languages if they're going to do support on any systems developed.

I think also that there are more jobs advertising VB.Net these days than C#, at least that's my perception, mainly because I think most shops have taken the lazy way out and assumed that VB 6 and VB.Net are pretty much the same thing and chosen to stick with the "same" language they've been using for some time when moving to .Net.