I was writing BASIC code for everything until a few years ago -- VB.NET -- until it was really clear that it had become a totally second-class citizen and I switched to C#.
I still think VB.NET is vastly more readable than C/C#/Java etc.
I still think VB.NET is vastly more readable than C/C#/Java etc.
I feel like that kind of event-driven programming model was very intuitive, even for younger audiences.
The real Visual Basic not by Microsoft is TwinBASIC(closed source).
Unfortunately it was a one-to-one match to C#.
It would have been much netter if it was based on Visual Basic 6
VB.NET can do everything what you can do with C#. Saying that C# is better than VB.NET is like saying that French is better than Spanish.
For example, the new async/await runtime model is also for VB.
VB 6 way to do COM still wins out, though.
VB.NET and C# was treated as equals for a long time. I believe MS initially expected VB.NET to be the mainstream .net language, while C# was a compromise to attract Java and Delphi users.
But the transition from VB to VB.NET was not handled well. VB was very well liked by its users (even if non-users looked down on it) but VB.NET was worst of both worlds. Too different from VB to be smooth upgrade, and still nok considered as professional a language as C#