I am looking for an opinion from a VB.Net experienced person and hopefully also a experience C# or C++ experienced Person .NET edition of course. I have read that VB.Net is just as powerful now as C# and C++ is this true. Has anyone done any DiretX with VB.NET. I am experienced with VB 6 I was very good at it. But DirectX had quite few functions that C++ could use but VB couldn''t can VB now do all of those things. Some of which had to do with palettes but I can''t remember specifically. Overall my question is - Is VB.Net as powerful as C++ or C# - should I take the time to learn C++ or C# instead.

Ok - I''m saying this as someone who has some knowledge of VB .Net and C++, and a little of C# - as far as I know, the main difference in terms of "power" between VB and C# is that C# allows you to have unmanaged sections (pointer manipulation and stuff, I think) - whether these are usually used or not, I''m not sure - to me it feels that if you want to go that deep you should probably be using C++ anyway.

For DirectX Development you shouldn''t see any difference between VB and C#, I''m not sure how complete the new managed interfaces to DX are when compared to the C++, but I''d say probably quite complete.

My advice to you, if you know vb6, is to just jump to vb .net - it should take you less time to learn just because the syntax is more familiar (you''ll find yourself going into the help to find out how to do something less times than if you jump to C#).

That said, C++ still has some benefits when compared to C# and VB that derive from the relatively lower level of the language - I would still recomend investing some time in learning it, if nothing else as a personal development thing.

"I woke up sweating and clutching my pillow. Thankfully the powerful and reassuring visage of Optimus Prime staring back at me from my pillow case served to ease my frayed nerves. Like the giant robotic father I never had he always knows just what to say" - Gabe, Penny-Arcade

Alexandre Moura