vb.net or c++

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

VB.NET has a very good Object Oriented methodlogy with
a wide .NET range of components supported. There
are lots of .NET 3rd party components that improve
controls, codes and how it looks. Generally VB.NET
is good for office apps and with databases.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Welcome to the forum dotnetms.

Would you mind removing the advert link and info from your signature please. It is against our terms and conditions, specifically this part...

Please read all the rules before posting again

 

Theres planty of good advice here on the origins of the various languages and their uses.

You could potentially write demos or games in any modern language but to do it professionally as part of the games industry you will need to learn C++ and something like Open GL as has been stated.

There are some opportunites to write retro games in flash or java.

Games programming is one of the most technically challenging careers you can choose. Its going to be a while before you are writing the latest bestseller !

I would look into learning C first, its a very basic but powerful language that can be learnt in a few weeks. Mastery will of course take longer. Then I'd consider something like Java for a bit, just because it will expose you to many more things (Networking, IO, databases etc) quicker and with less hassle than C++. If you are really sure about systems programming or games then you might want to skip straight to C++. Just remember everythings gonna take a little longer to get working.
C++ is a highly technical language, its easy to get obsessed with learning obscure syntax, this is not always useful !

Yes learn the STL it is an excellent piece of work. It does use some basic OO concepts, it however is mainly based on template metaprogramming. C++ differs from many languages in that it supports many forms of metaprogramming both at compile time and runtime. This allows you to effectively extend the language with minimal performance penalties.

As for the the others, you need to realise that VB and VB .NET are effectively different languages with similar syntax, just like C++ and C# or Java and C#.

C and C++ are 'medium' level or system languages, they have little support for memory management the burden being on the programmer. The newer languages Java/.NET use garbage collection to remove much of this responsibilty making code easier to write but slightly less performant.

VB .NET, C# and J# are high level languages with different syntax that all run on the same virtual machine (CLR).

VB, Java, .NET as stated share many of the same advantages that make them good at business apps. High level of abstraction. Simple syntax. Good standard library and tool support. Easy integration with web servers and enterprise software etc.

Many people enter the development industry because they want to write the latest games, theres no crime in that, I did the same, just realise that theres alot of work that goes into a game and many aspects don't differ from other forms of development.

 

The thing about VB.net is it restricts you to Microsoft Windows and they have been saying for years that windows is on the way out. Ten years ago they were saying that everyone will be using Linux now it looks like everyone will be using Apple Macs. Still C++ is the language that is best suited for development and does not restrict you to one platform.

 

Well thats all pretty debatable to me :-

1. C is probably the most portable and widely ported language, not C++
2. Java support is pretty widespread on all the Major OS and hardware platforms, so that also ports pretty well.
3. Yes C++ can be portable, but it can be a bitch to do it depending on the compilers, platforms and how the code was written.
4. Mono does provide some level of cross platform support, although many non core .NET libraries are missing meaning that again your porting experience could be easy or very difficult depending on the code.
5. If Macs ruled the world its just as likely we'd be coding in Objective C, which is another language again seperate from both C and C++.
6. As a large part of Mac OS X is based on BSD, as such if your 'Macs rule the world' argument was correct, there would be some truth in the UNIX derived OS's gaining market share, unfortunately it isn't...
7. Windows should have been 'on way out' in the 3.1,95,98 days as it had many major flaws, fortunately they employed a lot of smart people that worked on DEC VMS to write Windows NT, the rest is history...

So to recap VB.NET does not necessarilly restrict you to Windows, Windows is not on the way out, everyone is not using Apple Macs and C++ is not a Golden Hammer...

Otherwise welcome to certforums !

Lastly even though this is a necropost, there are other options between VB .NET and C++, C# could be seen as the 'middle way'. Yes C# is not normally used for creating commercial games, but it is still a capable general purpose language, and there is the Microsoft DNA, and the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace.

 

Thanks for the Necropost. And im sure they will be saying that Windows is on it's way in another ten years time. Apart from that, see dmarsh's post.

 

Lol they always do still when you have to do a major upgrade to run the latest version of Windows. Still all the legacy code Microsoft uses is the root of all Microsoft's problems. Thanks for the advice still not as if I get much opportunity to show off my degree in Computer science ( at the moment.

 

This is a flawed argument. The OS X series have all been incremental upgrades that are no different than service packs in the Windows world. You can't compare those upgrades to upgrades like XP to Windows 7.

As for Java, in my opinion, the only thing it has going for it is the fact that it is more cross-platform. As someone stated, mono is not sufficient. Java has become a very stagnated language and it falls short in a lot of areas compared to C#. Not sure if anyone read the white paper regarding Java's path forward by Oracle. But it will be interesting to see it they can actually get the language to start progressing again.