VB.NET rant

June 08, 2005 @ 4:02 pm

I was forced to spend some time with VB.NET in Visual Studio today, and all I can say is that the experience was frustrating to no end. My project had to do with some Web Browser interop and so I had imported the rather huge mshtml library. This absolutely killed the VB editor. Anytime Intellisense needed to look up a class name, the whole IDE froze for about 10 seconds. And I’m not exaggerating!!!

While debugging I couldn’t edit code – hmmm… interesting concept – Edit and Continue is there, but well, I can’t edit the code actually. WTF? There’s an option in the Configuration options but it was set Allow editing code while debugging. Go figure. BTW, I’ve seen the same behavior with Edit and Continue in VS2005 with C#. Once enabled, I can no longer edit source code. This makes no sense. What am I missing here?

Who was the genius that came up with the concept of sticking the Event hookup options into the Editor page in VB instead of on the property editor, where it makes most sense? Ok, maybe I’m partial, but it seems everything else about a class is visible in the property editor, shouldn’t the event hookups be there too? Nope, they’re in the editor and you have to dig through all the controls to find the right one, find the event to connect to. Talk about unintuitive UI design…

Next, I was working with delegates and dynamically hooking up delegates to the MSHTML document object. It works flawlessly in C#, but in VB the code would simply not work. The delegates were hooked up to the document events but the events refused to fire. And the whole delegate syntax – man what a mess.

Somehow it looks like VB is calling event delegates differently than C#. The code uses a DispId attribute and to handle the event invocation fired from the HTML document, but for some reason the VB code would not fire the event which attached to a generic object not an explicit event.

This project needed to interface with a VB application hence the need to do things with VB, but after 45 minutes of trying to struggling with this stuff, I created a small wrapper C# DLL that manages the event hookups and 5 minutes later everything was running fine. Thank god for interoperability in VS.NET, but this was a very frustrating experience.

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re: VB.NET rant
by Rich June 09, 2005 @ 7:03 am

Rick, you're right about the slowness. VB.NET is dreadfully slow, even on my 2.5GHz 1GB Ram desktop. 2.5Ghz!!!! It takes forever to open projects and switch from form design to code. Often is pauses for 5-10 seconds for garbage collection presumably. It really interrupts your flow of concentration and prevents you getting into "the zone"

I far prefer maintaining legacy VB6 stuff. On this machine VB6 starts, loads, compiles and executes code unbelievably fast.

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 09, 2005 @ 2:01 pm

A few thoughts.

1) Background compilation is very definitely a good thing-- I miss it desperately in C# where I have to build, build, build all the time just to find I made some stupid mistake that the background comp would have caught immediately. It's incredibly tedious. But I dunno, maybe you guys are so awesome you never make mistakes. ;)

2) But, it should be a toggle. For very large projects or very slow computers (or the large COM import scenario Rick describes) background comp can be a definite drag. All or nothing is not a good policy, and that's exactly what we have between C# and VB.net. Always on for VB, always off (unavailable) for C#.

3) 2.5ghz is not a fast machine. I can build you a barebones 4500+ Athlon 64 system (a trivially overclocked 90nm 2.4ghz venice core, with 1mb L2) for about a thousand bucks. Computers are cheap, fast, and getting cheaper and faster every day. As a developer, unless your time is worth very, very little you should always be working on the fastest machine you can afford.

re: VB.NET rant
by Rick Strahl June 09, 2005 @ 2:18 pm

Hi Jeff,

I have to disagree with you on the 'fast' machine issue. It's kinda ridiculous to have a machine that is as fast as 2ghz machine and have it be a dog. This is a result of bloatware and visual studio is the ultimate in bloatware. It's powerful but I can guarantee you that lots of code inside of the VS.NET IDE is inefficient. Having an run at 120 megs routinely in the IDE is bound to be slow as it's trying to walk all that in use memory.

I work on a notebook always - you can't get much faster than 2.4ghz unless you want to lug around a cement block. Look at the minimum requirements - a product should run reasonable in that environment (I think it's 1ghz with 64 megs - yeah right).

I get your point about the background compiler. But I tell you yesterday I was getting really fucked by it. This wasn't a big project even, but it was choking on the mshtml typelib (not sure why the compiler would be involved in this - maybe it's actually something else). At the very least the thing should be able to turn off. And what's up with the not being to edit code while debugging???

I've noticed a few times that a lot of things are habit. C# actually catches a lot of errors on the spot without compilation. So common syntax errors like invalid var names and missing constructs etc. are actually tracked.

Maybe I don't know what I'm missing but if I loose my flow because the bg compiler is slow that is a lot worse than waiting for 4 seconds for a project compile when I ask for it <g>...

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 09, 2005 @ 3:52 pm

> At the very least the thing should be able to turn off
> I get your point about the background compiler. But I tell you yesterday I was getting really fucked by it.

I agree, bg comp should be a toggle. No argument at all there. But it absolutely *should* be there, because it's super productive when it's working.

> I've noticed a few times that a lot of things are habit. C# actually catches a lot of errors on the spot without compilation. So common syntax errors like invalid var names and missing constructs etc. are actually tracked.

Background comp should be available for C#! Or you can buy Resharper and get effectively the same thing.. with all the (stupid) outcry over vb.net refactoring, people tended to miss the fact that resharper is an incredibly popular third-party add-in because it effectively provides the missing background compilation for C#. See Jeff Key's blog:

http://weblogs.asp.net/jkey/archive/2005/01/29/363227.aspx

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 09, 2005 @ 3:52 pm

> I work on a notebook always

I obviously can't (and don't want to) dictate the way other people work, but *personally* I'd much rather have two really fast desktops than a single moderately fast laptop. Or two really fast desktops and an additional laptop I use when I really need to (which is the way it currently is). Sync is rarely an issue, but when it is, I use web-based services and I carry a 1gb flash drive with me to shuttle files around.

Not only is the Athlon 64 faster than the P4 in absolute terms, it's also WAY faster than the P4 when compiling. Like 33% faster at the same PR rating. So the time difference is really quite substantial.

Anyway, as a developer, consider carefully: how much is your time worth? Personally it can never be fast enough for me. I plan to upgrade to the entry level dual core Athlon chip (4400+, dual 2.2ghz on the same die) for around 5-600 bucks when it's released. How many hours of billable time is that? A drop in the bucket. And I'll actually save/make time.

re: VB.NET rant
by Brian Vander Plaats June 10, 2005 @ 10:49 am

I agree with Rick. 2ghz and 512 megs of RAM should be more than enough to have a responsive development environment. I think the whole upgrading to the fastest possible machine game is getting a little old, especially for what you are getting in terms of actual software experience. There are always going to be environments that tax a computer to the limits, but developing run-of-the mill business apps shouldn't require the fastest computer money can buy to have a decent development experience.

I'll also disagree with Jeff somewhat with the point that computers are getting faster and cheaper every day. Look at the video card market. The average top of the line video card has been about 500 dollars, and today I saw a 512mb card for 750!!! Not only that, but you can add a second card to increase performance! Imagine spending over a thousand on video cards just so you can run the latest games smoothley. Take into account the huge power supply you'll need, it will be expensive just to run the thing. Of course, game developers will keep on bumping up the min requirements, but at the same time not offering a whole lot more, save for "better graphics".

From a hardware perspective, we've seen some pretty amazing gains in the past several years, but I honestly don't think it is starting to matter anymore. I used to be that I could rattle off just about every single spec on my computer. Now if you ask my how fast my processer is I have to look it up...

re: VB.NET rant
by Rick Strahl June 10, 2005 @ 11:11 am

Jeff, I don't agree. In real terms the performance of a top machine vs. a mid stream machine is marginal. I'm using a 2 and a half year old machine now because I don't see a reason to upgrade to get a 10% performance gain if even that (that's talking notebooks).

I've always been a believer in living one generation behind the bleeding edge with hardware which gives you the best bang for the buck and adequate performance. I used to buy a new machine once a year, but I don't see a reason to do that at the moment.

There haven't been really ground breaking performance breakthroughs in computers for 5 years when the P4 came out originally that were a 'must have' hardware upgrade.

Whatever marginal hardware improvements there have been since then - mostly in video and disk speed - have been eaten up by software publishers writing monstrously huge monolithic applications and polluting our machines with all sorts of shit daemon software running in the background which is a chore to keep in check.

I always think it's so ironic that VS.NET is the epidimy of a Monolithic application that Microsoft is strongly advising against. VS.Net is by far the biggest software pig that I run followed right by Outlook. Good apps, but inefficient as all get out...

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 11, 2005 @ 1:08 pm

> In real terms the performance of a top machine vs. a mid stream machine is marginal

Not so-- check out these VC++ compilation benchmarks:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000029.html

The slowest P4 shown there is a 3.4. Say you had a 2.5 P4; if you upgraded your PC to a modest Athlon 3400+, you would cut your compile time literally in half (possibly even less). Now consider how many times do you compile per day. And consider how many times you run the app with debugging, breakpoints, etc which would be commensurately faster as well.. that all adds up.

It's kinda like cutting your morning commute time in half. And who wouldn't want to do that?

> I used to buy a new machine once a year, but I don't see a reason to do that at the moment.

In this case, it's really about desktop speed and flexibility vs. laptops. I say have both. It's pretty easy to pop out a motherboard and upgrade your memory, mobo, and CPU for ~$700 every year. You can keep using the drives, case, and obviously monitor/kbd/mouse.

> Look at the video card market

That's a whole different thing, really. You can get a very good gaming video card for $200, beyond that it's about penis size, oops, I mean, what resolution you can run ;)

re: VB.NET rant
by Rich June 13, 2005 @ 6:38 am

>>> I agree with Rick. 2ghz and 512 megs of RAM should be more than enough to have a responsive development environment.<<<

Absolutely right Brian. On my machine all my own apps perform perfectly well, as do Office 2000, VB6, VC6, even Outlook 2000. It's only VS.NET that is a big lumbering dinosaur.

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 13, 2005 @ 3:12 pm

> Office 2000, VB6, VC6, even Outlook 2000

Office 2000 was released in 1999. VB6 and VC6 was released in 1998 (well, January 1999 if you're counting). At that time, the fastest PC available was around a Pentium II 450 or thereabouts.

So.. I guess the lesson here is that if you use 6 year old apps, they run fast and stuff?

Although I highly doubt you'd think these apps ran "fast" if we hopped into a time machine and used them at the time of release.

re: VB.NET rant
by Rich June 14, 2005 @ 9:47 am

I have always found the performance of VB6/VC6, etc., at least acceptable and usually very good, on whatever hardware was current at the time.

From my point of view I now have a new development environment on current kit whose performance is far, far worse than my experience has led me to expect.

re: VB.NET rant
by Rich June 14, 2005 @ 9:56 am

I should have said, "VB6/VC6 and their predecessors"

re: VB.NET rant
by Gabe June 14, 2005 @ 12:16 pm

VS.NET needs a lot of ram, this is the nature of the beast with a managed compiler and the incrediable intellisense / background complile / auto help stuff they have going on. I doesn't really matter how fast your machine is, if you don't have AT LEAST 512MB of RAM, VS will crawl with all but the smallest projects. As a developer, I can tell you that 1GB of ram and a fast hard drive will make your life much better. If you are using a notebook, keep in mind that most ship with a 4200 or 5400 rpm hardrive. These drives are super slow and have a noticable impact on overall system performance. You can now buy 7200rpm notebook drives (I just did) and let me tell you, it's worth the upgrade!

On the bright side, I've used several Java IDEs before, and let me tell you VS.NET flies compared to those things.

re: VB.NET rant
by Rick Strahl June 14, 2005 @ 4:13 pm

I have 1 gig and a fast hard disk it still sucks...

re: VB.NET rant
by Rich June 14, 2005 @ 4:16 pm

>>>On the bright side, I've used several Java IDEs before, and let me tell you VS.NET flies compared to those things.<<<

No argument there!

re: VB.NET rant
by Jeff Atwood June 15, 2005 @ 9:39 am

Well, IMO, the current VS.NET 2005 beta 2 performance is far worse than 2003. I don't know how much faster it'll get when it is formally released, but somehow I doubt it will be significantly better.

So get ready for a whole new round of complaints.. ;)

In the meantime, I can't recommend the Athlon 64 highly enough. I just built an entire 4500+* system up for a coworker:

- Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4 --> 2.7)
- 2gb RAM
- 300gb NCQ IDE drive
- DVD-R
- GeForce 6600gt 128mb
- Asus VENTO case

The cost? $1500. You could cut out some of the fluffier stuff and get it down to $1000 easily. Or if you're upgrading an existing system, just get the mobo + cpu + memory + video, which is even cheaper.

* well, it will be once I'm done overclocking it. These new 90nm chips overclock so easily!

re: VB.NET rant
by Ryan Jentzsch June 22, 2005 @ 7:38 am

Hi Rick,

I feel your pain -- I now refuse to do any VB.NET projects now.

Small wonder that the VB6 folks are ticked off at being forced to move to the .NET platform. VB.NET is a nightmare even for seasoned programmers. At least in C# things kind of make sense, and usually behave as documented :-)

re: VB.NET rant
by Subrat July 28, 2005 @ 8:16 pm

Hi,
Can anyone come back to the initial discussion and let me know how we can disable the background compilation option in VB.Net?

re: VB.NET rant
by Rick Strahl July 28, 2005 @ 10:02 pm

You can't...

re: VB.NET rant
by Coding Is Fun August 01, 2005 @ 7:57 pm

I have developed software in vb for years and finally stepped up to vs.net. I understand the compiler issues you all mention in vs.net. As a business owner I see much more value in the re-useability and managed code provided by vs.net. Extra Compile time is a very small price to pay. I also like the robust functionality, lets face it vb --> vb6 lacked many things, that vs.net has made much easier. This has saved me and other programmers hours/days of useless code writing and work around hunting for complex apps.

DLL hell has caused my peers major bucks and many careers, which is the real bottom line. You're all missing the point. Write better code and learn from your mistakes, de-couple every class you build and test with Nunit. When you get to that point you won't care about the extra 20 seconds it takes to compile your applications, because you won't have to compile it more than 2-3 times.

VS.NET was written for C# not VB, they made it work with the MSIL compile for vb so everyone could ramp up to the new language. The world of programming has changed dramatically over the years and has demanded that we all change if we want to survive.

re: VB.NET rant
by Rick Strahl August 01, 2005 @ 9:37 pm

Well, I don't think anyone here is pining for VB 6... The point is that VB.NET is slower than molasses in the VS.NET IDE. Compared to C# it's a tremendous dog in the editor. I don't care how useful background compile is if you can't turn it off and I have to sit for 5 seconds before getting my keystroke to take when I'm loading a large project or external assembly. That's beyond ridiculous.

Jeff, if you really try to justify the fastest machine possible to do away with what is obviosuly a design flaw in the VB.NET editor, be my guest. You can justify anything that way by buying bigger hardware. The fact that this is not hte case in the C# editor speaks volumes to the problem...

re: VB.NET rant
by Severe Rant September 14, 2005 @ 1:56 pm

Arrrrggggg I cant believe that if i miss an 'And' and put the cursor to the next line im locked up for 30 seconds.

The is one good thing about background compile is that i check every line before moving the cursor off, that way i dont hang for 30 seconds every few minutes. Kinda defeats the purpose.

My God please fix this in 2005

re: VB.NET rant
by GeneralKludge October 23, 2005 @ 11:35 am

I can tell you the speed of the machine doesn't matter when you have a serious project. I've got a 20,000 line-plus monster app, and to add a button takes 20 seconds easy, just to double-click and look at the code. The worst is when you just remove a sub and it freezes while it reknits all the code. I'm running on a 3.4 Ghz, latest Intel MB, 2GB ram (the fastest), a PCI-express pro ATI vid card, the works. It's a brand new $2k system, and VS transmogrophies it into a steaming turd. Possibly, a RAID drive would help, I'm not running a super hot drive, but really, it's the design, they need to be able to turn it off, or syntax check only the current mod at least without going thru the whole linking process as an option. Something to make a big project workable....

re: VB.NET rant
by David Mifsud December 22, 2005 @ 6:08 am

Have you heard of modular design? break up our little 20,000 app into smaller bits and it'll work better.

David Mifsud
Software Engineer

re: VB.NET rant
by Darius Sutherland June 03, 2006 @ 5:37 am

Just a quick entry here..

VB.NET is amazingly frustrating and not a rapid development tool. They've just got it completely wrong, the only benifits are the OOP programming which we VB developers managed without. VB was powerful enough if you delved down into it. .NET I reckon is just aimed at internet development.

So many small annoying things that have just built up into loads of things.

I could go on and on. Suffice to say nearly everything I try and do takes me down the road of problems further down the line...

Sort it out...

D

re: VB.NET rant
by Darius Sutherland June 03, 2006 @ 5:40 am

They have just overcomplicated everything in my opinion. Keep things simple is my motto and that goes to you programmers too...

D

re: VB.NET rant
by Gary July 28, 2006 @ 5:48 am

VB.net is crap

re: VB.NET rant
by Dee November 04, 2006 @ 8:12 pm

AS much as you rant about vb.net is exactly how I feel about c#shit and all the cryptic , case sensitive, unreadable syntax.