DevCon is over! As fast as it started, it ended. I did two great sessions today, a repeat of my ADB302: DataGrid session and ADB206: C# for Visual Basic Developers. I had a lot of fun doing these sessions and the evaluations were great so far. I have really moved to C# and it is great to explain C# to other people who are considering moving to C#.
"Confessions of a C# from VB Convert"
I have been programming in VB for about 8 years, so it took a lot for me to mentally make the switch-but once I did, I honestly felt that C# is a more natural language for me. I don't regret all the years I spent in VB, the language treated me very well. But now that I am using C# (and have been for almost a year), I can’t ever see going back. Part of it is ego-you feel like a better programmer since you are using a more “advanced” language, and the perception in the marketplace is that C# developers are more valuable, a recent survey said that C# developers make and average of $26,000 a year than VB developers. But the other part is the strictness of the language. I am a anal-retentive control freak and C# is an anal- retentive control freak language. That is why I love it so. I use to mock C# and say it was not a good language, but I was WRONG. Sorry to Patrick O’Toole and Conrad Frix who are still the die hard VB holdouts and feel betrayed by my conversion. (The evil Al Cadalzo had to tell them!)
Mike Groh was one of the speakers who attended my session on C# today and he and I spoke at lunch about some of the points that I made in the session. He said that the arguments I made were sound. He likes how C# is so much more compact than VB and thinks that the demos that I have show illustrate that point. I tend to think that C# just forces you to create more tight code than VB. Not allowing implicit conversion and forcing you to use a variable really appeal to me. Some things in VB really piss me off, like OrElse or my #1 gripe using = for comparison as opposed to every other language using ==. An equals sign is for assignment not comparison, except in VB! Ok, enough about C# v VB, at the end of the day it is just a "lifestyle choice".
"Tumi Bag Obsessions"
All of my speaker friends use Tumi bags. You know that we are silly people and geeking out if we spend about 20 minutes talking about the bags. Ken Getz gave us a demonstration on how to put the bag on, you put your arm through the strap, hold the top handle with your free hand and then pull it over your shoulder to pull the other arm through. At no point is the weight of the contents of the bag on the strap. See we are geeks. No wonder why girls don't hang out with us. :)
