Posted By: Charles | May 13th @ 8:45 AM | 87,024 Views | 39 Comments
For most of their lifetimes, C# and VB.NET have evolved at their own pace and in their own ways (C# added iterators, VB.NET didn't. VB.NET added XML Literals, C# didn't. etc, etc...). Today, Luca Bolognese and team have embarked on a new approach to how .NET's premiere languages will evolve going forward: Co-Evolution. Essentially, new language/compiler features will be developed for each language concurrenly. No longer will C# get new language construct X while VB.NET adds Y. They will both get X (and they will both get Y). Anders Hejlsberg, the father of C#, now oversees both languages and will make sure that language innovations are developed for C# and VB.NET at the same time.

I visited Luca recently to get a sense of the rationale behind this new co-evolutionary approach to two very different languages. Why is co-evolution important? Why not just have the languages, which target different demographics (do they?), evolve in ways that match the needs their users? What's the story here? What's next?
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vesuvius
vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

It's about time Luca was on Channel 9 Wink

Luca mentioned some VB6 resources in this presentation. Here's the site for that information: http://msdn.com/vbrun

vesuvius
vesuvius
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I used to be a C++ then C# programmer, but I now make every effort to learn VB as it is just as expressive. I must admit to using a code converter if I'm in a rush, but once you understand selection, iteration,method declaration etc. you do realise that you need to know the BCL and know it well.

Luke Hoban on F# ... sure there are questions:

When do we get type classes ?

I really don't think keeping the two languages in lock step is a good idea.  It’s only going to hinder the advancement of both languages.  Having a bit of competition between VB and C# is actually a good thing.  For example VB might never have got XML literals if it had to wait on C#.  As long as the two languages can access and export the same libraries, I’d rather they had the freedom to explore their own avenues.

As for VB vs. C# usage being 50/50, I don’t think this is the case.  I know from some previous surveys the results have been skewed due to Office VBA “developers” (hehehe) taking part in the surveys.  Regardless, all the surveys I’ve seen recently are pointing to massive declines in VB usage and increases for C#.  For example, in one recent poll of developer language preferences for future projects, C# outnumbers VB by 3 to 1.  Plus the survey was conducted on a VB focused site, so the figures are probably being quite kind to poor old VB!

http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/archive/2009/04/02/msdn-poll-april-8th-2009-what-language-would-you-like.aspx

-Dan

I hope this means that the glass ceiling will finally get removed from vb.net and we can use unsafe code and pointers the same as in C#. Time and time again I've needed these features.

M.

This guy looks like an Italian Scott Gu... good video.  I also like the PDC video he did.

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/TL11/

Hi Luca

Last year I watched your "LINQ to SQL" presentation , and was impressed with the technology .. and started to use it ..

Sadly "Linq to SQL" seams to be going down the drain and is being replaced with "Linq to Entities" ..

Why can't such a concept as "co-evolution" exist for both technologies ??

Noting that both technologies are a subset of either C# or VB .. Now if MS cannot keep both technologies ( i.e. LINQ2SQL & LINQ2Entities ) co-evolve .. then how would C# and VB could possibly co-evolve !!!

Just wondering !! Wink

 

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