The future of VB.NET

Posted By: Christian Liensberger | Nov 13th, 2007 @ 11:00 AM

At the IT conference “TechEd Developers” we had the Chance to talk to Amanda Silver, the Senior Program Manager Lead for Visual Basic and Jay Schmelzer, the Principal Group Program Manager for Visual Basic.

First, we asked what are the strength of Visual Basic. Amanda replied that Visual Basic code is much more readable then other program languages’s code. This means that the code is easier to maintain. Furthermore, the IntelliSense experience has improved in the 2008 Version of Visual Studio. Directly connected to this we asked where Visual Basic will stand in the Future. We focused on positioning of Visual Basic against C# or Java. Amanda highlighted the XML Integration, which is one of the best features of the 9.0 version of Visual Basic. XML is a fist-class data type and Visual Basic becomes a XSLT language. There is also LinQ to XML, which is really powerful. Jay said that Visual Basic 9 is very productive and you can work task-oriented.

Next, we stated that Visual Basic code takes longer to type. Jay and Amanda told us that the IntelliSense has improved a lot and the long typing isn’t really long now. Furthermore we stated that we miss some of the Features Visual Basic offers in C#.

Another interesting technology is Silverlight. Most of the potential Silverlight developers are used to ActionScript in Flash, which is rather similar to JavaScript and JavaScript itself seems to be rather similar to C# - so we wanted to know where they see possibilities for VB in that sector. Amanda explained that maybe the only similarities in C# with ActionScript are the curly brace and the semicolon. Visual Basic supports a lot of interesting features in Silverlight like the event handling, which is much more confortable then in C#, because there is no necessity for Delegates. However, Developers have to find out which language they want to use.

After that we switched to the Micro Framework. Often it looks like Visual Basic would simply be left out there. Here we wanted to know why this is so. According to Amanda, there are some technical limitations that stop Visual Basic from easy adaption for the Micro Framework. The Problem is that Visual Basic is a Hybrid Language and some runtime Components are associated with it. In the 2005 release, the compiler would simply crash if this runtime is not present. Now, in the 2008 Release, the fault tolerance of the compiler was increased and the Compiler will tell that the Application wants to use a language feature of Visual Basic, which is simply not present in the Micro Framework. So it is not possible to use that language Feature.

Next we talked about XNA, which is a very interesting tool. We wanted to know if we can also expect to develop our XNA-Games with Visual Basic in the future. Jay said that it is a similar problem we are facing now with the Micro Framework. There are still some technical limitations, but as XNA is now moving towards Visual Studio 2008, they are working on this issue.

As Visual Basic is very important for Office Development, we asked Amanda and Jay what we can expect from Visual Basic in this Sector. There are the Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) and VB for Applications (VBA). First it looked like VSTO would replace VBA, now it rather looks like VSTO and VBA would work together. Jay replied that the VSTO and VBA are different. VSTO gives us the ability to built an application based on Office, whereas VBA is about automating Office. They promised us that some pretty exciting stuff will come up, but they cannot talk about this at this time. According to the VSTO, we asked how the Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) comes together with Visual Basic. Jay said that VSTA gives us the ability to customize applications. This is a bit more heavy weighted then VBA is.

As we were also talking about the Future of Visual Basic, we wanted to find out what language facts we can expect in the next release of Visual Basic, that one that comes after Visual Basic 9. Jay said that we can expect something that is even more productive and fun. Amanda said that improving the language and the possibility to write less code is one of the most important facts.

The last question was what they can recommend to the community. Jay encouraged us to get involved in the developments, talk to folks about Visual Basic. Amanda said that it is important to sample code. The more sample code there is, the easier it is for new developers to get into Visual Basic.

The Interview was moderated by Alexander Duggleby and Mario Meir-Huber.

Tags: Micro framework, Office, Silverlight, Visual Basic, XNA

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Miguel

Very interesting interview Christian!! I was specially interested in the point of XNA game programming...

Amanda said there are some technical limitations, do you have some ideas (or did she say something about those limitations)?

By now, XNA Game Studio Express is working on Visual C# Express, so... I think the problem is only "additional work to do" since the code is translated into CIL, and working over CLR... We also have basic types in XNA that meet the specifications of CLS and CTS...

Regarding to the future of XNA Game Studio, I have heard some news about the new version "XNA Game Studio Proffesional" that would be integrated with VS 2008, and some "urban legends" about a team edition that would manage XNA projects in a similar way that VS Team System does with "common" projects...

That sounds amazing (in my opinion) but has actual limitations if we consider the structure and process of game development in big projects. There's not such an engineering culture of game development, we should talk about "engineering & art" development proccess...

During Microsoft University Tour in Barcelona (Spain) we had the opportunity to listen Veronica Costa, she works at FaceInMotion (www.faceinmotion.com) and talked us about XNA game development, I recommend you to see this presentation

Cheers!

mario_mh

In reply to Miguel

#Nov 14th, 2007 @ 3:42 PM

Hola Miguel!

She didn't say in detail what kind of limitation, but it is similar to the Micro Framework. I will upload the Video as soon as I got it back Wink

Cheers,

Mario

expresso

It just boggles my mind why Microsoft continues to try to make valid points to why VB.NET should be kept around. The only reason it's around is because Bill Gates wants it. It has nothing to do with being "easier", or that most peopl use it. That's just not true and the fact of the matter is, it's much more code to type, and not only that, the page is harder to read, as well as there are stupid requirements that you must do in VB.NET that you don't in C#, little subtleties that make it a pain in the ass. C# is actually easier to read and use...take it from an ex VB.NET guy.

About the only reason I think MS keeps it is for profit. That's all I can figure.

mario_mh

In reply to expresso

#Nov 16th, 2007 @ 9:36 PM

A lot of ppl actually use vb.net, so why should you tell them "hey, we don't support vb any more"? that wouldn't work. and vb is good in a lot of fields e.g. office development. ever tried to code in vsto? have fun with c# Wink just want to say "System.Missing, System.Missing" ... so vb.net serves other fields of software development then c# does! you can't just say "it is crap" just cuz you don't like it! i use both - c# and vb.net, and i use them for different fields! and honestly, i like both!

just my thoughts ...

jchunn

In reply to expresso

#Nov 16th, 2007 @ 9:36 PM

Wow... thats like saying, "It boggles my mind that people still drive motorcycles when cars do everything you need."

Ease up. VB is a fantastic language, and it will never go away. If you prefer C#, then by all means, please use it, but why do you feel the need to restrict others from using VB? It boggles MY mind that people have so much time on their hands that they go out of their way to complain about things they don't even use, or even read an article about something they are clearly against.

As for the XNA thing, I am very dissappointed that VB is not equally supported. I hope MS will fix that very soon. I have done quite a bit of work using VB with Managed DirectX, and I'd like to keep up the pace with the "new" stuff... in this case XNA, rather than continue to work in an "unsupported" configuration... namely, MDX.

Also, XNA was supposed to open up XBox development to the "hobbiest". Newsflash... most "hobbiest" are using VB. Post a VB supported version and see how many downloads you get.