Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: A Mac and VB Question... 17
One of our interns has a new Mac. He has a CS class which is requiring Visual Basic. Although he can use a computer at the school, going to school full time and working a couple jobs puts enough of a dent in his time that being abole to use VB on his Mac would be preferable. He's seen stuff online about running Windows as a virtual machine (at least that's what the description sounds like) since VB won't run on Macs, but doesn't know much about it and is on a budget.
I am much ignorant of the Mac world and haven't ever played with VB, so any help or thoughts anyone can offer would be appreciated...
I am much ignorant of the Mac world and haven't ever played with VB, so any help or thoughts anyone can offer would be appreciated...
You will need Windows... (Score:1)
Off-topic: VB? Even MS is trying to get away from VB and move everyone over to C-Pound. (C#)
I call it C#, because... well sir, I don't like it. Rather use Java. Better yet: C++.
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I happen to really like C# and I was a long-time Java developer. That aside, I have to agree on your VB sentiment. Yecch... what the hell kind of backwards CS class teaches Visual Basic these days? Whoever came up with the class should be compiled and then executed posthaste.
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I guess my issue with C# has more to do with the gawdawful
C++ is my first choice, but even I wouldn't want to write managed C++ code.
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C#, to me, seems like Java, only different enough to not get sued by Sun.
After years of writing Java code, C# was like a breath of fresh air to me. I see it as what Java ought to have been from the start.
I guess my issue with C# has more to do with the gawdawful .NET runtime than it does with the syntax and semantics of the C# language.
What's bad about the runtime? Are you doing some fairly esoteric coding?
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Aside from some minor syntactic differences, Visual Basic.NET and C# are pretty much the same, seeing as how they are both .NET languages and use the same CLR, namespaces, etc. So if you think that VB.NET is "backwards" then you must logically think that C# is "backwards", but unlike me you are probably a Professional programmer who overvalues what he does (the anthropic principle as applied to Professionals). In the past I've heard "real" programmers bad mouth VB over C/C++. I've always found these antagon
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Aside from some minor syntactic differences, Visual Basic.NET and C# are pretty much the same, seeing as how they are both .NET languages and use the same CLR, namespaces, etc.
So you would contend that any language which can be implemented on top of the CLR and use common frameworks should be considered pretty much the same? That's quite amusing.
So if you think that VB.NET is "backwards" then you must logically think that C# is "backwards", but unlike me you are probably a Professional programmer who overvalues what he does (the anthropic principle as applied to Professionals). In the past I've heard "real" programmers bad mouth VB over C/C++. I've always found these antagonisms to be lame. I guess Visual Basic still has a stigma attached to it as somehow being a RAD environment (and therefore unworthy).
If you really want to appear keen then you should program in assembly and reference only the API's of the operating system rather than relying on any type of (.NET) framework.
Are you done mentally masturbating now?
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So you would contend that any language which can be implemented on top of the CLR and use common frameworks should be considered pretty much the same?
Nope, I was only comparing VB.NET to C#. I'm sure there are very syntactically different languages out there that would provide enough differences to provide variety; I just haven't seen them yet. The differences between Visual Basic and C# however are trivial.
This isn't just my observation. From The Wiki:
The Abstract syntax tree for Visual Basic .NET and C# are closely matched and the intermediate language produced by the compiler is virtually identical.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_C_sharp_and_Visual_Basic_.NET [wikipedia.org]
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Nope, I was only comparing VB.NET to C#. I'm sure there are very syntactically different languages out there that would provide enough differences to provide variety; I just haven't seen them yet. The differences between Visual Basic and C# however are trivial.
That's all well and good, but I still don't like VB.
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As a musician, you should know that "C sharp" is the most complicated key signature, including toe tapping favorites B-sharp and E-sharp as scale tones.
Which sums up Microsoft pretty nicely.
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Close, I'm a guitarist.
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As far as key goes... I own a capo. I know, not very metal but I still occasionally play acoustic for a church choir...
Virtualbox (Score:2)
Virtualbox is free, and works well for me on Linux and Windows. I see they have an OS X package available.
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There's also Microsoft's own (free) Virtual PC.
Microsoft Office (Score:2)
CS..VB? (Score:2)
The mind boggles...a CS course requiring VB? VB?
VB is baby talk for computers. BASIC means Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. They should be teaching something a little more advanced on a CS course!