Fastest, reliable, stable, has a future, powerful etc etc.

Ehhh, what? Which of microsofts "integrated development environments" I prefer? The only one I ever used of those above is MSVC 6.0, but that is because other people are so fond of C/C++ rather than of my own free will... So null vote from me.

There are things beyond Visual...

WTF? Is this some kind of joke I'm not really getting?
You are listing Microsoft IDEs, not Programming languages.

Someone please close this thread before a large flamewar emerges.

I use Visual Basic from time to time. But only when no one is looking, and I never bring it up during conversations, for fear of ridicule.

This is possibly the worst poll ever.

Are you joking? I like Python for scripting and C++ for real applications.

~ Florian

I agree. Something is VERY wrong with this poll.

Guys.. don't be so rude. Not everybody is teh 1337 coder and know everything about programming and languages. Obviously Jen wanted to ask in a poll which MS product is one's favorite.
You don't have to dramatisize everything.. and you can educate about other options without being rude.

Anyway, I'm not closing this thread unless a flamewar actually happens, but in that case, the person who starts flaming, risks getting warned..

I can recommend Borland Delphi to you. It basically takes the best from Visual C++ and Visual Basic and puts it into one. Fast, simple and still powerful. The visual design tools and the debugger are the best I have seen. And if you really don't like pascal syntax you can always use BCB...

I have only listed Visual Studio .Net IDEs because my employers have decides to move up from Visual Studio 6!

So, basically I have no choice but to learn a new language as VB.NET is supposed to by completely different from VB6.

The reason why I was asking about these IDEs is because VC#.NET and VC++.NET might be better than VB.NET. VC++.NET might also be better than VC#.NET.

I just wanted to know if you guys know which is the most powerful language?

I also have another question! Do VC#.NET and VC++.NET use C++ coding?

I would pick Java over any of these choices, and I despise Java. If I had to pick from these though, C++ is probably where I'd go. Visual C++.NET is effictively Visual C++ 7. I'm using it at work, and it's not an issue to program non-.NET stuff (traditional windows apps, MFC, etc.) I haven't tried C# yet for comparison.

What's powerful for you? Easy to learn, easy to use, more syntactic sugar, fast executables, portable, easy to debug? They all have pros and cons...

Regarding .NET languages: My guess would be that VC#.NET is for C# (C sharp) and VC++.NET is for C++...

I was reading an introduction to Visual Studio .Net. It included a small comparison between VC#, VC++7, and Java

Most of the coding in these 3 is almost identical!!!

So I thought, if I learn C++ it should be a good foundation for expanding to VC# and/or VC++7. Is that a good idea?

I have seen one very good advantage for VC#. Its supposed to have the ease of use of VB6 but power like VC++6 ???

@ ErikS - Powerful to me is, small exe size, less CPU usage, faster execution

You'll definitively get the fastest execution when using C++ (or VC++ ) - but I recommend C# for learning a new language, because it's very easy to learn and has much in common with Java. So if you decide to learn C#, it'll be a small step to learn Java too.

edit: According to an article in the current issue of a german computer magazine (c't), Delphi has the largest execution times compared to C++ (1), Java (2) and C# (3) when doing integer arithmetics.

Regards,
~ Florian

I also concur. I use Perl, anyways and sometimes C++ compiled with mingw32 (GCC) if I need more power (or one of those odd things called an 'executable' ).

I'm currently learning C++, it seems a good starting point to branch out to other languages. To be honest, C# and Java come recommded from friends as well, so learn them all!

One of the tips of The Pragmatic Programmers is: learn one programming language per year

~ Florian

First of all, some facts (to all anti VB zealots out there):

VB is the most widely sold microsoft development product. AFAIK, It's got more users than the rest of Visual Studio combined. It is the bread and butter of millions of programmers out there.

Further more, Current plans say MS will be supporting VB6 until the year 2012, longer than any other Microsoft product, and a notable rare exception to the stanard 7years-post-FCS policy which again proves VB importance in the software development world.

Now to the Poll in question, my favorite was VB6, but now is VB.Net.
The .NET Framework is a real improvment over old ways of programing in the windows environment, and the Improved VB.Net adds alot of important elements to the VB language.

every language is the best language. you can just decide which language makes your life easier. if you want to rename a few hundred jpg's you can write a batch file, shell-, perl-, python-, or a vb script. you can write and compile a c program for every platform, you can write a hand full java classes, write a nice gui using M$ visual things, you can write a nice gui using assembler and the windoose api (fast as hell) or a c++ application using qt or gtk. you can write a php script embedded in a html site and run a local websever to rename a few images.

Perl is my language B)
BadHorsie

I'd really like to read that article... Do you have the magazine with that article? If yes, could you scan it for me?

Only one? I'm already working on three so far this year, not counting Path (which definately shouldn't count).

*goes into a spastic fit, flailing his arms around like a little girl* Delphi! Delphi! Delphi! Delphi! Delphi! *catches himself*

:ahem: Yeah... Erm... I don't use Visual xxx products. Can you guess what I use?

I think it should read: Learn at least one programming language per year

~ Florian

There is no such thing as "the best programming language" but "a good suitable one for the job"

Oh, so what are the languages/ides in the original poll supposed to be used for?

JEN,

From your second post in this thread, I assume you will be doing .NET development, is that correct ? I'm asking because upgrading to VS.NET does not automatically mean you'll develop for .NET. It is still perfectly possible to write native software in VS.NET 2003.

Last year, between two projects (I'm a contract programmer), I had the opportunity to learn .NET, and I got the freedom to choose whatever programming language I wanted. Maybe my findings can help you.

Since I had an extensive C background (about 5 years of professional experience), and I always wanted to learn C++ but never got around to do it, I chose C++.NET.

I was also in charge of coordinating a small .NET development team, and as a proof of concept, other team members chose other languages (VB.NET and C#). The plan was to integrate several pieces of code, all written in different languages, in one project. Also important to know is that VS.NET 2003 was not available at that time, we used the first edition of VS.NET.

To make a long story short, after a while we all used C#.

Part of the reason was that C# was much better supported in the VS.NET IDE. For example, with C++.NET, there was no graphical forms designer, much more restricted IntelliSense usage, no graphical code outlines, etc... Some of these things are probably improved in VS.NET 2003, but since I never used this version I can't tell for sure.

I would recommend this: for any new development in .NET, use C#: not only is it better supported in the IDE, but it's also much easier. You'll be more productive when you don't have to think about boxing/unboxing, using different operaters for value and reference types, pointers, __gc operators, and lots of other things you always have to keep in mind when doing C++.NET development. C++ isn't an easy language to begin with (especially coming from VB), and the managed extensions Microsoft added to it make it even more complex. Keep in mind that you can not only mix managed (.NET) and unmanaged (native Win32) code, but also mix managed (garbage collected) and unmanaged (non-garbage collected) data. You can even mix managed and unmanaged members within a class ! And then you still have to write proper destructors for the unmanaged types.

Just for fun, see if you can get your hands on the book "Essential Guide to Managed Extensions for C++" by Apress (ISBN 1893115283). If your head isn't spinning by the time you get halfway through this book, you can consider using C++.NET.

C++.NET fits one particular purpose very well: if you already have legacy C++ code that you want to expose to .NET (e.g. for usage within another .NET program), you can use C++.NET to wrap the existing native classes in managed classes. This way, you can reuse existing C++ code when moving to .NET. For new development, I think C# is the way to go.

I also recommend C# over VB.NET. As you already mentioned, VB.NET is quite different from VB6 anyway, so learning C# probably won't take much more time than learning VB.NET, and at least with C# you can use almost everything the .NET environment exposes. For example, IIRC you cannot automatically generate XML documentation with VB.NET, but you can with C#.

But changing the topic title to something that is not so misleading as the current one would be a good idea IMHO.

@_Balint_ - I am unable to change the titles, but I can change the heading above the poll, i think?

What do you think I should change it to?

@PoisonDan - Thanks for the advice! I know have a better idea about the IDEs.

Python is my language of choice for just about everything these days. The exceptions, of course, would be something like DSP libs or any other task where very heavy speed optimization are necessary. Even then though, Python can serve as a nice frontend or interface.

Cool Python-ish things:

• Psyco
• Py2exe
• wxPython
• Zope
• ZPT
• PyXML
• mod_python
• jython

...to name a few.

I like PowerBasic for Windows and its Console version too. Can't wait till they have a console equivalent for Linux. Extremely fast, small, tight code and executables.


David
www.classicbarongs.com

I agree with PoisonDan for the most part. C# is excellent stuff, and if you don't have to learn VB.NET, it might be better to learn C# instead. However, apart from some syntactical sugar, they are quite similar. The only thing C# has that I miss in VB.NET is the using {} block, which doesn't have a first-class VB equivalent.

Both languages compile to MSIL, an object-oriented assembly language. When a function is first run on a new machine, a just-in-time compiler generates native code from the MSIL, and caches it. Subsequent calls use the native image.

In both cases, the Visual Studio IDE is state of the art. C# might have the edge, though; the Intellisense editor seems a bit better. Writing add-ins that generate code is practical and useful.

In the NEXT version of the .NET languages, both VB and C# get generics and partial-class files, which is going to save me a bunch of code. The focus for the next version is to add really advanced language features to C# (like anonymous inline lambda functions) and to add really advanced ease-of-use/speed-of-coding features to VB (I have no idea what that's going to look like).

In either case you will be working with the .NET Framework Classes. These are mostly excellent (I don't like how the System.Collections namespace is put together very well. It works, though).

As a VB6 programmer, switching to either of these languages gives you much more power and control than you've ever had before, at the cost of having to learn about lots of details you didn't need to know before (thread synchronization, object inheritance, exception handling). You don't have to learn these things, but if you don't, you don't get the full benefit of the new features.

C# programmers tend to make about $8,000 more per year, and this may factor into your consideration of what to learn. It is also less likely to get you laughed at by the ignorant when you say what language you use.

Basic? I used C and C++ extensively, and like C the best (C++ is a mess). I enjoy coding in Prolog, LISP, etc. too but C is lovely if you want the lowest level hardware access. It is almost like assembly but generally portable across platforms. That's why C is the language of choice for OS kernel design.
Thus I use Intel C Compiler command line compiler, with gvim editor. I can't think of a better development platform.

BTW I'm actually interested to see what Pyhon is these days.

Microsoft Visual Basic 6 here. Very easy, and powerful (not so powerful as C or any other, but you can't say it is bad).

PS: Don' flame me now...

Edit: Oops... I missed the question. I don't think Visual Basic 6 is the best. I only use it and it is the language I know best. However, C is in my oppinion the best language. If you want to do hard code stuff, ASM should be your choice.

Visual C++ 6. The .NET version I've heard is a bit of a bloat and the code is slower. C++ is the most powerful language there is.

You heard wrong . It is a pain to make sure users have msvcr70.dll and/or msvcr71.dll (for 2003) but the C++ .NET compiler is far better than the 6 version. With multi-file interprocedular optimizations, the C++ .NET compiler is much closer to the speed of Intel's than 6 is for pretty much everything I've tried. You might have been hearing about C++ with Managed Extensions, which runs in the .NET Framework. That was pretty slow in .NET (now known as .NET 2002) but I've found that in .NET 2003, it comes quite close to the speed of unmanaged code. The difference between managed and unmanaged code for a lot of things is so close I wrote a simple raytracer (3d renderer) in C# and C++ over the summer.