Who is using VB.NET? What are they using it for?

11 points

8 years ago

At the time Microsoft announced the .NET platform, I made my living as a VB6 and ASP/IIS developer. I put a small amount of energy into looking at VB.NET, but it was VB in name alone. Ultimately this was the push I needed to switch to the F/OSS team and I became a Ruby developer just in time for Rails to come out. I was - and am - very happy about this change.

Over the past few years, I've spent time working in Unity, which means I've accidentally become quite proficient in C#. And you know, I don't love it but it's not so bad once you're moving.

However, at no point did I ever consider going back to VB.NET. If you'd asked me before a few weeks ago, I honestly believed that it had been consigned to the annals of nerd trivia.

It came as a huge shock to see that VB.NET is apparently more popular than C#, which seems to be used for all manner of things:

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology

One survey and I'd assume that TIOBE was being trolled. But this seems real.

However, I'm experiencing massive cognitive dissonance because I've never met a VB.NET developer, and while I've worked in web, mobile and game development circles for 25 years, I literally have no idea what you'd even use VB.NET for.

I've never seen a single article or mention on Hacker News or any of the other forums I read.

Is there a sort of progressive/conservative-esque perception bubble where there's a parallel universe using VB.NET for building the next Hooli?

It's really bothering me. :)

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