I wrote a few weeks ago about my initial reaction to C#. I have now had a brief look at Visual Basic Express.

Perhaps a little background first. I program, mostly, in Visual Basic .NET, and sometimes in Visual C#. I have been using the 2003 version which requires the 1.1 version of the .NET framework. I need to continue using this version because I have some clients who are still using Windows 98, although I hope that this won’t continue for much longer.

Throughout last year I followed all the Microsoft hype about the upcoming 2005 version. Microsoft, especially with .NET, and going back to 2000 and 2001, have been quite adept at publishing vapourware. The announcements flow for a year or more before anything of substance is available.

Sometime last year I got hold of a Beta version of VB 2005 Express edition. I had a quick play with it but then put it out of my mind until the real thing arrived. Well now it has arrived. And I need to decide, some time, whether I will get the full version.

Actually, my mind has probably been made up for me, I will have to get it at some stage. But in the meantime, before I fork out many hundreds, or is it a few thousand, of my hard earned dollars, I thought I would go back and look at the Express editions and get a feel for whether I need all that they have to offer now, or whether I should wait until I need them. And I certainly don’t want to grab the 2005 version and have the 2006 version announced a week or two later with another swag of must have new features. This is possible because Microsoft have announced that upgrades to Visual Studio will be more frequent than in the past.

I liked what I saw with C#. I haven’t had a serious look at it, but I have written a relatively small application with it and everything went well. It was nice to use, and had some real productivity improvement features.

But Visual Basic is different. Now I need to stress that I am only looking at the Express version, and it is designed for home hobyists and people hoping to start out Visual Basic programming. But the same is true for C#.

The big difference between the two is that C# Express is a programming environment that allows you to produce proper applications. But Visual Basic appears to be dumbed down. There has long been a battle between the C programmers and the Visual Basic programmers, stretching back for years. With Visual Basic NET I thought that this war could finally be put to rest. Unfortunately, from what I have seen with the two Express editions it is likely to flare up again, and with good reason.

I wonder if this is a conscious effort on behalf of Microsoft to position Visual Basic as the language of choice for dilettantes and dabblers, and leave C# as the sole serious programming language for .NET.

I wait to see what develops.