VB_Alien

I'm really sick of looking for sample code on the net
and finding out it's for another program to run.

It seems that no matter what i'm searching for, most
of the links will say it's for .net. You take your chances
on what you get, i guess.

Since the .net frame work came out, we now have
VS.net, ASP.net, VB 5 though 10.net and everyone
just mixes them all into one, like they are the same
language.

It's so hard to find anything for VB Express 2010 but
everything else is coming up first. People need to start
specifying what language they are asking about and
what language their tutorials or demo sample codes
are for.

AtmaWeapon

It's one of the only decent points for the "Microsoft should have named VB .NET something else" argument.

C# is really easy to read if you're half-decent with VB .NET and unambiguous in searches. You'd do yourself no harm reading something like this and trying a few small projects in C#. It also feels like there's 2 C# examples for every 1 VB .NET example on the net. Not to mention knowing two languages makes you eligible for more jobs.

Gruff

As Atmaweapon points out usually the thought process behind the code is more important than the language.

However I do feel your pain as there are times you want to gain a better understanding of a particular Language tool and Microsoft Help for whatever reason is not enough.

Are you aware that the google search tool (And others I imagine) Have advanced search options? For example:

"VB.NET" Threads -VB6 -ASP -C#

Will return only VB.NET hits for the keyword Threads.

If this seems like too much effort you could always roll your own VB search tool by using a VB Project and the WebBrowser control. Automatically add the search filters of your choice to the search URL.

VB_Alien

Hey Gruff:

I just got introduced to googles new search feature
yesterday when i followed a link to it. It automatically
typed in what i was searching for and went straight to
what it found. I'll be using google a lot more now.

hDC_0

I agree it's not always easy.

This is the default page for .Net on PSC, but you'll notice that VB.Net and C#.Net are lumped together in one tab, whereas most of the other tabs are single language only.

I might change this to:
"VB.NET" Threads -VB6 -ASP -C# -C++

Also if you are searching a specific site
you can specifically tell google to narrow your search
to that site:
site:xtremevbtalk.com "VB.Net" "A*" "pathfinding"
(the xvbt forum doesn't let you search for two letter search terms)

Although there is are ways to narrow your internal search results on the CodeProject site,
its not always very readily apparent or intuitive,
like the fact that the VB.Net is "categoryid=a5_87_" as in:
http://www.codeproject.com/search.as...egoryid=a5_87_
Gives you a wildcard search designed specifically for
those pages dealing with VB.Net (but gives no results),
whereas
"http://www.codeproject.com/search.as...egoryid=a5_87_"
does give 19 results but certainly by no means all the articles and/or
code associated with the VB.Net language on the CodeProject site.

However, the Google search:
site:codeproject.com "VB.Net"
gives "334,000 results".

Lessons learned: I've found more VB.net code on the CodeProject
site using google than the search engine of the site itself.
Same with doing google based, site specific searching for
sites like vbHelper, the bobpowell.net site, stackoverflow, etc.
..and sounds like you will be using it better.

It should maybe also be noted that on the index page for the sister forum of this XVBT forum,
there is not always a clear distinction between languages
in the various sub-forums off this main index page.
(although there is a "Syntax Specific" sub-forum).

The sister forum also has a KnowledgeBase section,
with sub-forums for Code Library and Tutor's Corner,
but when you download an attachment
it's not always totally clear what language
you are going to get in the attachment.
(and of course you can not internally search
on that site for something like:
"only posts whose attachments contain VB.Net code" --or C#.Net code).


Uhm..I might put a qualifier on this statement.
"For AW and other expert programmers
C# is really easy to read if you're half-decent with VB .NET.."

For beginners to either language
it can take a while to learn a single language,
let alone be cross-proficient in both.
(Especially if you are coming from a VB6 background like VB_Alien,
and may have a little "unlearning" to do
in moving from a VB6 mindset to a VB.Net mindset.)

Suggested/assumed percentage breakdown of .net code on the internet by language type:
C#.Net - 70 %
VB.Net - 25 %
C++.Net - 5%
..from the third post of this thread.

I used to download a lot of C++.Net code
and starting out using Visual Studio C++.Net Express Edition.

One has to realize that a lot of the C++.Net code on the internet
uses MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) and/or ATL,
which the Express edition of V++.Net does not support.
(I suppose because MFC was popular with Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.)

I have seen very few C++.Net code samples that explicit cite they are for the Express edition only,
or take explicit note of the fact that MFC is needed to run the code samples.

AtmaWeapon

I understand your point, but disagree. 99% of code concerns these activities:

• Create or obtain a reference to a .NET Framework object.
• Set properties.
• Call methods.
• Handle events.

Constructors, methods, properties, and events work the same in both VB and C# because they share the .NET Framework. If I want to add items to a ListBox, the code is barely distinguishable between the languages:
I think it's a falsehood and a disservice to teach people they should ignore C# until they feel like they're experts. It is an insult to tell someone that the presence of a curly brace or semicolon is likely to confuse them, especially when there's a handy guide that reviews the big differences. If you can't spend an hour a week for a month learning C# to save yourself untold hours of useless searching for a VB example, you aren't the right kind of lazy.