Language Enhancements in VB: Microsoft Updates Visual Basic 2010

Earlier this month Microsoft released Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, the .NET Framework 4.0 (which includes ASP.NET 4.0), and new versions of their core programming languages: C# 4.0 and Visual Basic 10 (also referred to as Visual Basic 2010). Previously, the C# and Visual Basic programming languages were managed by two separate teams within Microsoft, which helps explain why features found in one language was not necessarily found in the other. For example, C# 3.0 introduced collection initializers, which enable developers to define the contents of a collection when declaring it; however, Visual Basic 9 did not support collection initializers. Conversely, Visual Basic has long supported optional parameters in methods, whereas C# did not.

Recently, Microsoft merged the Visual Basic and C# teams to help ensure that C# and Visual Basic grow together. As explained by Microsoft program manager Jonathan Aneja, "The intent is to make the languages advance together. When major functionality is introduced in one language, it should appear in the other as well... That any task you can do in one language should be as simple in the other." To this end, with version 4.0 C# now supports optional parameters and named arguments, two features that have long been part of Visual Basic's vernacular. And, likewise, Visual Basic has been updated to include a number of C# features that it was previously missing.