We all knew this was coming one day, right? VB.Net and C# theoretically started as equals, with the traumatized ex-VB6 developers that didn’t abandon Microsoft migrating to VB.Net, and C++ developers trying out the new C# language.
Then C# started getting all the examples and documentation, and Microsoft announced the self-contradicting statement of C# being “first among equals”. Then came cutting edge C# specific technologies such as Xamarin and Blazor.
In a relatively recent post published Nov, 2018, but updated Oct, 2019, Microsoft wrote:
- “We will do everything necessary to keep it a first class citizen of the .NET ecosystem.”
- “Visual Basic.NET has a dedicated programmer base that includes hundreds of thousands of developers. Microsoft will continue to work on the right balance of stability and innovation for Visual Basic.NET.”
- “We will keep a focus on the cross-language tooling experience, recognizing that many VB developers also use C#.”
- “We will focus innovation on the core scenarios and domains where VB is popular.”
Microsoft recently updated that post and put this at the top:
Update: March 12, 2020
This strategy described in this 2018 post has been replaced with the one in this post.
The new strategy announced March 12th, 2020 is “We do not plan to evolve Visual Basic as a language.” In other words, “all those things we said…, yeah jk.”
VB.Net now joins the ranks of VB6, DTS, Silverlight, and other technologies Microsoft said they would support – until they didn’t.
Now is the time to convert your VB.Net code to C#! Use our tool, or use the competition’s, but for God’s sake don’t use a free one. See a detailed comparison of converters here.
