3.4 Microsoft .NET Languages

Language choice is probably one of the most contentious debates among developers from whatever background. Partly fueled by fear (i.e., my language must be in demand, because I need a job) and partly fueled by dislikes for language deficiencies (i.e., my language has better semantics), many hours have been spent arguing the importance of different languages. Professional developers have often besmirched, those they consider amateurs, for using toy languages, such as Visual Basic.

In all this, it is important to remember that code is written to build solutions for organizations and businesses. Most business people I speak to don t know one end of Visual C++ from the other, and why should they? It has no bearing on the solution, other than the likely elapsed time to write the code and possible postdevelopment support concerns. Certainly Visual C++ has been held to be the superior development language for building packaged software applications, and Microsoft uses it for most of its development work.

The problem is that it takes most people two to three years to reach a proficient level of skill in Visual C++, which in turn leads to a more costly skills shortage.

Languages like Visual Basic, on the other hand, can be picked up by most IT literate and motivated individuals within a couple of weeks, and certainly within a year, one would expect a developer to have become quite proficient in Visual Basic development. The reason for this is that the development environment and...