Which should I learn? Visual C# or Visual Basic ?

Hi all - I have a bit of a dilemma. I am currently planning to spend a few weeks learning either Visual C# or Visual Basic using Visual Studio 2010. I need to write some desktop apps and I am uncertain which language to learn.

I would really appreciate some advice.

Here is my current experience :

I started off programming about 25 years ago with 6502 and then 68000 assembly language (and still love it LOL).

After that I did a fair bit of work in VB, eventually stopping VB work around the time of VB 6.

I then moved over to web based work and have written a lot in PHP and Javascript.

I never really touched C, C++ etc... at all. I have played with fringe languages such as Darkbasic / Purebasic / Playbasic / Blitzbasic etc... (BASIC seems to be a theme here LOL)

So, with that background in mind, should I be looking at C# or VB? My apps will be quite varied but the initial ones will involve quite a lot of web-scraping and I will also need to build in FTP capabilities.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

C# definitely. You can do so much more with it. When I was doing Visual Basic, it was so boring.

C# definitely. You can do so much more with it. When I was doing Visual Basic, it was so boring.

Thanks for the reply - I am really swinging towards C# but the purist coder in me keeps telling me I should master C++ first! Maybe the purist view is just daft however and, these days, I should just use the language that is more productive?

I guess if I was going to write real-time programs that ran on dedicated hardware (or games) I would use C, C++ or assembly but my target market is Windows desktop machines!

Thanks for the reply - I am really swinging towards C# but the purist coder in me keeps telling me I should master C++ first! Maybe the purist view is just daft however and, these days, I should just use the language that is more productive?

I guess if I was going to write real-time programs that ran on dedicated hardware (or games) I would use C, C++ or assembly but my target market is Windows desktop machines!

Starting off on a language like C++ is not a good idea. It can be very complicated. But C# is like C++ except it is simpler. Once you have learned enough of C# however, then learning C++ will be much much easier, as a lot of the syntax is similar or even the same.

Starting off on a language like C++ is not a good idea. It can be very complicated. But C# is like C++ except it is simpler. Once you have learned enough of C# however, then learning C++ will be much much easier, as a lot of the syntax is similar or even the same.

I did play around with C a little in the old Amiga days and then on the PC with Borland C++ (I remember it distinctly for the HUGE box it came in) but never really developed any programs (of any note) with it.

I think I will just go back to 6502 assembly on the the C64 - Things were a lot simpler then with no operating system (apart from the kernel) to get in the way LOL :)