Why People are saying VB.NET is Dead

By Dr. Ronald Mueller | January 8th, 2017 |

Is VB.NET Dead?

Visual Basic was one of the most popular languages when it was released, but Microsoft still announced the end of life of VB6 by replacing it with VB.NET. With the emergence of C#, VB.NET was outshined even though there are large number of developers.  Currently, choosing VB.NET for development is considered weird among the technology community and it sounds odd considering the history and design ethic of the language.

There are tons of solid facts and data to support this alarming loss of mindshare for Visual Basic. I myself witnessed it happening over and over since .NET was released in late 2001.

Approximately, 43% of Visual Basic developers designed tactics to cut back on their use of the widespread development platform. Most of these developers say they plan to shrink their use of Visual Basic, 37% plot to migrate to Visual Basic .NET. – Fundamentally, 31% believed they plan to change to Java while 39% say they will definitely be migrating to C#.

All of this makes for a very tangible development, and it could only spell one thing: the termination of Visual Basic’s role as a leading, dynamic force in software development. But why does that matter?

Earlier, there were plethora of third party tools and product versions available compatible for VB. But the transition to VB.NET was not welcomed with enough tools, code samples, open source projects or enterprise library where the developers can find out solutions.

Which is something VB used to have going for it.

Development in VB has phased out and it is required to adopt VB.NET or switch to C#. As VB developers make a large number needs to rededicate themselves for building seamless VB.NET to C# conversion utility. Since .NET doesn’t need 2 statically typed languages, it senses that the community defending VB.NET are ironically explaining the trouble that VB.NET faces.

Although VB and C# are functionally equivalent, the implementation in C# will produce interfaces that are not recognized by VB.NET. This will lead to design implications in software.

Usage of methods such as getter and setter on interface are supported in C#. However, VB.NET doesn’t consider these methods in the implemented interface. Also, in VB.NET it is explicitly required to define what is implemented in each method or property whereas in C# method signatures and property names helps in matching the functionality of the method.

Need more insights related to VB migration? Continue reading our blogs.

Dr. Ronald Mueller

Founder & Chairman at Macrosoft Inc

Ron is Chairman and Founder of Macrosoft, Inc. Ron heads up all company strategic activities and directs day-to-day work of the Leadership Team at Macrosoft. Ron is also Macrosoft’s Chief Scientist, defining and structuring Macrosoft’s path forward on new technologies and products, such as Cloud; Big Data; and AI. Ron has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from New York University, and worked in physics for over a decade at Yale University, The Fusion Energy Institute in Princeton, NJ, and at Argonne National Laboratory. Ron also worked at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ., where he managed a group on Big Data, including very early work on neural networks. Ron has a career-long passion for ultra-large-scale data processing and analysis including predictive analytics; data mining, machine learning, and neural networks.