eric_h - Friday, September 23, 2011 7:08 PM:
I have some previous programming experience, and have read quite a bit of code (not saying I always understand it.) I am starting to see the need to learn either VB.NET or C# for some of the things we want to do with Aras. I was wondering if anyone could give me some input based on the following:
* My guess is VB.NET is easier to learn than C#, especially for someone who has some (dated) Basic experience in the past and no C/C++ experience.
* Although VB.NET and VBA are different, I imagine learning VB.NET could be leveraged if the need for VBA ever arose (e.g. creating an Excel spreadsheet that tied into Aras (via COM+?)).
* My understanding is that I should be able to do in VB.NET all I can do in C# as far as creating methods (for events) goes. I have heard C# is more of a developer's language, but that I really should not lose much abilities with VB.NET.
As you can tell, my points above are biasing me toward learning VB.NET. I wanted to originally learn C# because I figured it might be more powerful, but I am thinking that the learning curve for me would be much less for VB.NET, and it should suffice. Not to mention I have no plans on becoming a C# developer in the foreseeable future, and being able to leverage VBA would probably have more value for me.
Can anyone confirm my train of thought here or give me any feedback or input. Any 'food for thought' would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Eric
Brian - Sunday, September 25, 2011 6:38 AM:
Hi Eric,
VB.Net and C# are essentially two sides of the same coin.
To my knowledge there isn't anything you can do in one language that you can't do in the other.
This is why there is a big jump from VB6 to VB.Net.
C# and Javascript are very similar syntactically. which means that you don't have to remember different styles for branching, looping etc. which you do if you use VB.Net.
VB.Net will allow you to leverage any VBA you have but personally I find it to be a clumsier language than C#.
I have developed in VB and VBA for over 15 years but decided to use C# when I came to Innovator. I have also written software in C++ so in that sense the shift wasn't too big anyway.
In the end you won't lose anything going with VB. But you may find, as I said before, that the similarities between Javascript and C# make it easier to use them as your Client and Server programming languages.
Cheers,
Brian.
eric_h - Monday, September 26, 2011 11:17 AM:
Thanks Brian,
After I posted this I actually thought about how I had heard JavaScript had a lot C type syntax, and I have also dabbled a little in PHP which I think kinds of fits as well. After seeing what you wrote and thinking a little about it, maybe JavaScript and C# would be the better choice.
Eric
