>>Hi Morgan,
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>>You might be surprised to find out the number of large enterprise-sized companies that using both VB.NET and C#. The main use of VB.NET is for the UI portion of the app and everything else in C#. There are many clients of mine that are doing this very approach because of the skill base of the developers involved. The focus of the languages are very different and will be even more so in the future.
>>
>
>I wouldn't doubt that a lot of large enterprise-sized companies are using both VB.NET and C#, but it seems like another layer of possible confusion to add. I mean, if there are both skill levels for developers, and that is the beauty of .NET. But, ideally I would think that it would be better to keep to as few of languages as possible. I mean, if I would need to bring some back-end developers to a UI part of the application because time restrictions. I just think it adds another level of potential problems.
>
>Morgan

Morgan;

Your point is the one we are very interested in.

It is the direction that Microsoft intends and finally does take with .NET that is of interest to me. Where will C# and VB.NET be say in two years? If we read the comments from Microsoft it looks like more emphasis will be placed on the UI and IDE using VB.NET, in future releases of Visual Studio .NET.

The Microsoft recommendation of using C# for classes and VB.NET for the UI seems reasonable. You can use whatever you like however, for maximum power and productivity I think I understand the plan.

You can choose your route and have to be satisfied with the result. I think Microsoft is describing an “ideal” use for each of these languages but each programming environment will be a little unique. Some might follow the Microsoft recommendations of using C # and VB.NET and others may standardize on one language.

Learning the framework etc. takes the real effort. It seems that whatever language you choose is not too important as it is not difficult to learn a new language as far as our group is concerned.

Within our work environment we want to be able to help each other. It is critical to our company’s success. The fact that we have choices is nice but can be confusing. Standardization of one language may be our best route. Having people experienced in one or both languages (C# or VB.NET), is something that might evolve but I cannot see us standardizing on both. It is an interesting topic and we have a ways to go before we decide on our path.

Our reality is this is not an academic institution. One minute of production downtime costs $36,000 and if we have a problem it is good to put all resources on it who have common knowledge. By the way we did rule out COBOL as our .NET language of choice! So we are getting close to a decision. :)

Tom