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Choosing between C# and VB.NET

31 Mar 2005
Computing
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The .NET Framework supports a variety of programming languages, including Microsoft’s much heralded C#. Huw Collingbourne considers whether Visual Basic is still as sharp as the competition.

Originally published on DNJ Online, March 2005

In the past, different programming languages tended to do things in their own way. Programmers using C++ would, in all probability, make use of the types and routines provided by the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) libraries; Visual Basic had its own built-in types and routines;
non-Microsoft languages such as Delphi and Java used yet other class libraries, each of which was incompatible with each other.

With the advent of .NET that has changed. No matter which programming language you use, you will have access to the same rich collection of classes and functions provided by the .NET
Framework. Indeed, it is even possible to write classes in one language and derive descendant classes from them in another language. Your source code is not compiled directly into a machine code executable. Instead it is translated into Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). This intermediate language is only converted into machine code when the program is run by the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR).

In effect, the .NET CLR understands only one language: MSIL. This means that it really doesn’t matter which language your programs are written in. Whether they were written in C#, J#, VB, Delphi or some other .NET language, they will all end up as MSIL. Given the fact that all .NET programming languages have access to the same class library, are translated to the same intermediate language and are executed by the same runtime system, you may wonder what, if anything, there is to choose between them. In this article, I shall be taking a close look at Microsoft’s two principal .NET languages, C# and VB.NET, in an attempt to answer this question. Read More

Anders Hejlsberg on C# and .NET

4 Jul 2001
Computing
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The TechEd 2001 keynote was presented by programming pioneer Anders Hejlsberg. As well as being the chief designer of Microsoft’s C#, his résumé boasts the creation of both Borland Turbo Pascal and Delphi. In this exclusive interview with Matt Nicholson, he gives an insight into his work since joining Microsoft, discussing C# and .NET.

Originally posted on DNJ Online, July 2001

Anders HejlsbergMatt: What have you been doing at Microsoft, and what was your history prior to working for the company?

Anders: I’m actually a Danish citizen, born and raised in Copenhagen. I moved to the US about 13 or 14 years ago. I’ve been in the industry since 1979.  I started at the technical university of Denmark and in parallel with my studies founded a little computer company with some other folks. I think we were the first computer shop in Copenhagen, back in the nascent days before PCs.  We were distributors of a British kit computer called Nascom. It was Z80-based and I wrote a whole bunch of different software such as assemblers and disassemblers – you know the kind of stuff you would write back then. I also wrote a small Pascal compiler. You could yank out your Microsoft ROM Basic and slot in our little Pascal compiler. It was in a sense the very early predecessor of Turbo Pascal. It had an on-screen editor, it would compile in memory and then execute machine code. It grew into a more full-blown implementation on CP/M, and then my company hooked up with the founders of Borland and licensed this technology to them. That basically became Turbo Pascal. They re-branded the software that we had written. Read More