07 May 2003 10:55
Usage of Microsoft's popular Visual Basic development language -- used by about half of all professional programmers -- may be on the wane, according to a recent study.
Market researcher Evans Data on Tuesday said 52 percent of software developers surveyed use Visual Basic today, but 43 percent of them plan to move to other languages, including Java and C#, a Java-like language developed by Microsoft.
Visual Basic is widely used in corporations because it is seen as a tool for quickly building Windows applications. By contrast, languages such as C, Java or C# require more developer skill and are generally used for applications that require faster performance.
Because the Visual Basic programmer population is so large, Microsoft has a big stake in keeping those developers within the Microsoft tools fold. But the Evans Data survey of 600 developers in North America found that many Visual Basic developers are exploring non-Microsoft options, like Java, which they see as more suitable for new projects. Microsoft sells a Java tool, called Visual J#, but it can only be used for development of applications that run on Windows.
"As they leave Visual Basic 6.0 behind, developers are choosing languages that help them work more easily with emerging technologies such as wireless and Web services development," said Esther Schindler, senior analyst at Evans Data, in a statement.
The good news for Microsoft is that at least some programmers leaving Visual Basic are choosing Microsoft's C#. The other popular alternative to Visual Basic is Java, according to Evans Data, which has grown in use in recent years among business software developers.
Microsoft was not immediately available to comment on the study's results.
Thirty-nine percent of those developers who reported that they are decreasing their use of Visual Basic said they intend to program with C#, while 31 percent said they plan to move from Visual Basic to Java, according to the study. Of those developers who said they would stick with Visual Basic, one-third said they plan to upgrade to the latest version, called VB.Net.
Microsoft developed C# as an alternative to Java in 2000. Microsoft sells a bundle of programming tools, called Visual Studio.Net, that contains Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C# and other tools.
Tools based on Java, originally created by Sun Microsystems, are sold by several companies including Sun, IBM, Borland Software and Oracle.
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