quote: Original post by RWarden
I''m comparing an experienced VB programmer on VB with an experienced C++ programmer on C++.
So you should have said that
Either way, a lot of people in these forums are newbies or designers who may be looking to choose their first development language at this point. So the things I said may apply to them, if not to you and I quote: Once you know what you''re doing, one language offers no real benefits in development time than the other.
Well, I''d disagree. Firstly, I go along with your point that longer, and often redundant keywords in Visual Basic slow you down. But on the other hand, some things work more quickly and with less effort required in Visual Basic, and that''s a fact. Look at the MFC ClassWizard and see all the hassle involved in mapping variables to controls etc, and worrying about all the events. In Visual Basic, all controls are equivalent to member variables, or more precisely member objects, so that is done for you. Of course, this is the price of flexibility. Neither is better, just that VB is a quicker yet more ''blunt'' tool for simpler stuff, whereas VC has total versatility. It''s still quicker to knock up a quick form with ''average'' functionality in VB than it is with MFC. If you needed ''specialised'' functionality, it would take you longer in VB as you would need to work around the limitations. But that is just where knowing the right tool for the job helps. And the right tool is BCBuilder
quote: As for comparing the syntax, BASIC syntax isn''t really easier - you follow exactly the same rules, they just have a more English-like syntax. It''s not ''easier'' to declare a variable in VB than in C++, one simply looks a bit more like normal English.
Yes, this is just about the learning curve: about capitalising on what the programmer already knows, rather than asking them to learn everything anew. Any language would work just fine with random arrangements of letters for the keywords, but it helps if they are intuitive and memorable
