Re: moving from vb.net to c#

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Hi Dave,

> By the way, I do want to tell you that I have already learned a great
> deal by reading your postings. I'm assembling a compilation of all the
> tips and tricks that I've already learned from just a few weeks in
> this newsgroup and several are from you. Thank you for the time that
> you spend helping folks. Hopefully I'll be at that level sooner or
> later.

Why, that is one of the kindest remarks I've heard directed towards myself
in a long time (except from my wife, of course!). Thank you!

Let me see if I can explain my remarks better. You seem to be mixing my
metaphors. The remarks about babying were in reference to the fact that the
VB language hides a lot from the developer and allows for and automatically
corrects many errors. Case-insensitivity is an example of this. Of course,
the words Foo and foo are not the same. Not to the computer. The case
difference gives the numeric value of 'F' a completely different value than
'f'. The VB compiler fixes all of this. Is that a bad thing? No. On the
other hand, if one is learning programming, and one has never had to deal
with the numeric values of characters, it would be quite easy for one to
become a VB programmer without ever knowing exactly what a character IS, or
how the computer reads it. Now, how important is that? Well, in many cases,
it doesn't make a lick of difference. But try parsing character data out of
a binary file and see how far you get.

In other words, my point was that VB makes it too easy to "make it work"
without the developer knowing much of anything about WHY. And it is the WHYs
that give us the power to do more. I see every day on this newsgroup many
people who don't even care about the WHY of what they're doing. All they
want is some code to get them over this particular hump. And when they have
finished the project, they are no better at what they do than they were
before they started. And in a few days they're back here with their
proverbial hand out, looking for the next snippet to get them over the next
hump. An endless cycle of need.

Why is it that we demand knowledge of our lawyers, doctors, scientists, and
other professionals who do technical work, but as long as a programmer can
"get over the next hump" they are considered a professional developer? I
can't tell you how much nightmare code I've had to work on over the years,
or how much money it cost the companies I worked for to be so short-sighted.
Building an application is like building a building. The criteria for its
quality is not limited to whether it looks good on the day you buy it. The
criteria for its quality is how it looks 5, 10, or more years AFTER you buy
it. Software is seldom "finished." It evolves. It goes through cycles of
development and release, and God help those who have to extend a
poorly-written application. And God help those who have to pay them for it.

So, I'm not putting VB.Net down by any means. I'm simply lamenting the fact
that people can "get over" with it easily if they want to, and that human
nature being what it is, many want to.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
What You Seek Is What You Get.


"dgk" <sonicechoes-spamless@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:h6ul4151e4ova88gtbp1sthu3r7sqhqe6a@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:55:30 -0500, "Kevin Spencer"
> <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>> Why not just code in Assembler then? All that power and no babying.
>>
>>Do you have fifty years to write an application? Neither do I. This remark
>>lacks logic, the bedrock of good programmming.
>>
>>Truth = Argument - Rhetoric
>
> Not so, it is quite logical. The remark was pointing out that you lose
> power by accepting any hand holding, so we aren't talking absolutes
> here, we are merely talking degree. The absolute is coding in
> assembler using notepad. In fact, anyone who hasn't programmed in
> assembler, and that includes C programmers, really doesn't know what
> is going on under the covers. AX or bust I say. I'm not even going to
> mention coding directly in IL as an option.
>
> We're talking tools and language really. Should I not use Visual
> Studio because it holds my hand and separates the design from the code
> behind? Should I write it using the ASP Matrix because that gives me a
> better idea of what is going on? Is intellisense bad because I don't
> have to keep referring to a schematic of my object in order to
> remember the name of the property? So why should I accept a complier
> that needs me to tell it where a statement ends?
>
> I remember when (too long ago) a Cobol compiler complained that I was
> missing a period, and I remember thinking, well you're the computer,
> fix it.
>
> I just was arguing with someone who prefers coding in HTML and
> Javascript to using ASP.Net. He wants the power he gets writing it
> directly, whereas I like the ability to, well, you know why I like
> ASPNET. And I'm an ASPNET newbie. I called him a Luddite and compared
> it to wanting to code in Assembler once Fortran was available. And
> (I'm not that old) I bet there WERE programmers who were upset.
>
> Your argument, that VB is too easy and encourages sloppiness, isn't
> true anymore and it never really was true. The complaint was really
> that dropping boxes onto a form and setting a label to "Hello World"
> wasn't real programming. Real programmers wrote it all by hand. Now
> you're all doing the same thing and need something else to complain
> about with VB. What else was it that folks complained about with VB?
> Oh yes, it had that stupid run time; it couldn't even produce real
> EXEs. Now, of course, it's called a Virtual Machine and all the best
> languages are wearing them. We now call it "The Framework".
>
> I was at VSLive last year and Shaw was denigrating VB by saying how
> the C# team was pushing for generics and the VB team wanted edit and
> continue but was going to get generics also because they were
> embarrassed not to have generics. Well, which one is going to make me
> more productive? I say edit and continue. Of course, both are in the
> Framework so even C# gets edit and continue. Perhaps you can turn it
> off so as to remain pure?
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> By the way, I do want to tell you that I have already learned a great
> deal by reading your postings. I'm assembling a compilation of all the
> tips and tricks that I've already learned from just a few weeks in
> this newsgroup and several are from you. Thank you for the time that
> you spend helping folks. Hopefully I'll be at that level sooner or
> later.
>
> Dave


.

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