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what do you think about Vb.net

PeterNgam

Joined
8/6/13
Messages
9
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13
Hi there, I'm second year math major. Last semester, I took math integrated computing class. We used vb.net to solve the real world application. For instance, model the fish farming, simulate double pendulum, calculate the mean, stDev, skewness of the return of each stock. I feel like vb.net is useless, since the only language in this thread I see is C++ and C. So, has anyone use vb.net in real life? Btw, I can hand my assignment in another language. I did Java for a bit in my high school. Should I start learning different language?

Thanks
 
for simple real world application, vb.net is fine. for working with big data, vb.net and java is a no no. python or R would be simpler to learn.
 
VB.NET should be compared to C#. In that case it has exactly the same functionality, efficiency as C# so make the choice. The syntax is a bit verbose IF ... ELSE ... ENDIF compared to C#.

I have not seen it (mentioned) in finance although it is used in other areas, e.g. AutoCAD. It is the ideal language for engineers etc. who are not full-time programmers but who need to developer (smallish) applications.

It is probably easier to learn than C# and integration with Excel is somewhat easier. And you can call C# from VB.NET and vice versa.

The point is to become good at programming, in any language. So, your dept has made a good choice IMO.
 
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for simple real world application, vb.net is fine. for working with big data, vb.net and java is a no no. python or R would be simpler to learn.

As I mentioned, VB.NET is the same as C#. BTW I don't seem how big data is relevant here.
 
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Keith Tan said:
... for working with big data, vb.net and java is a no no.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you read that Java is a no no for big data but I think you are not correct since there are multiple projects geared towards what people call "big data" developed in Java, for example: Hadoop.
 
pingu said:
I don't know where you read that Java is a no no for big data but I think you are not correct since there are multiple projects geared towards what people call "big data" developed in Java, for example: Hadoop.
Click to expand...

sorry, i work with (not read) millions of data points everyday and some simulations and vb.net and j2se just love to crash on me. Maybe j2ee works smoothly but i'm not a big fan of automatic garbage collection. Can you explain how GC works on the above 2 mentioned languages?
 
Keith Tan said:
sorry, i work with (not read) millions of data points everyday and some simulations and vb.net and j2se just love to crash on me. Maybe j2ee works smoothly but i'm not a big fan of automatic garbage collection. Can you explain how GC works on the above 2 mentioned languages?
Click to expand...

OK. VB.NET is not for big data. That is not enough to invalidate it as a useful language.

It was built for desktop applications ansd is a sucessor of VB6. That's all.

VB would not be the 1st choice for millions of data??

There are many VB.NET developers out there.
 
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Keith Tan said:
sorry, i work with (not read) millions of data points everyday and some simulations and vb.net and j2se just love to crash on me. Maybe j2ee works smoothly but i'm not a big fan of automatic garbage collection. Can you explain how GC works on the above 2 mentioned languages?
Click to expand...
Before I'll go into details, let me ask you some of questions regarding your application.

- When you say millions of points, how much space are you referring to in GBs?
- Are you working in 32 bits or 64bits? Which flavor of Unix/Linux?

I used to work with around 40GBs of data on a daily basis and ran an application in java to deal with it. This is not remotely close to "big data" and java handled it without problems. No need to tweak the garbage collector at all or anything like that. It's all a matter of the right algorithms and data structures.
 
alain said:
Before I'll go into details, let me ask you some of questions regarding your application.

- When you say millions of points, how much space are you referring to in GBs?
- Are you working in 32 bits or 64bits? Which flavor of Unix/Linux?

I used to work with around 40GBs of data on a daily basis and ran an application in java to deal with it. This is not remotely close to "big data" and java handled it without problems. No need to tweak the garbage collector at all or anything like that. It's all a matter of the right algorithms and data structures.
Click to expand...

chill. vb.net is great for being quick and dirty, as it was designed to be.

a million data points x ticker codes x dates x last close x volume on a daily or tick basis wouldn't take up that much space. mostly 32bit and results seems the same on windows, fedora and debian. my conclusion is that java does the job but it still runs on a JVM afterall, and a potential speed bottleneck exists. can't have this happening when positions are open. And then came along SAS as a paid solution to do all these work, but it'll be out of topic.

http://java.dzone.com/articles/should-i-use-32-or-64-bit-jvm
 
Still, if my goal is to work in financial industry or data science, should I start learning C++, Pyton or R instead?
 
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Phume said:
Still, if my goal is to work in financial industry or data science, should I start learning C++, Pyton or R instead?
Click to expand...
these are two different things. Do you want to do Data Science or you want to do Finance? If you want to do finance, what are you looking for? C++ might not be the right answer and while some employers in Finance might like it, people from the Data Science camp are not too fond of it.
 
Keith Tan said:
chill. vb.net is great for being quick and dirty, as it was designed to be.

a million data points x ticker codes x dates x last close x volume on a daily or tick basis wouldn't take up that much space. mostly 32bit and results seems the same on windows, fedora and debian. my conclusion is that java does the job but it still runs on a JVM afterall, and a potential speed bottleneck exists. can't have this happening when positions are open. And then came along SAS as a paid solution to do all these work, but it'll be out of topic.

http://java.dzone.com/articles/should-i-use-32-or-64-bit-jvm
Click to expand...
the whole NASDAQ infrastructure is written in Java so there is some sort of a contradiction here. NASDAQ is not the only one, the LMAX exchange is also completely written in Java. The whole speed bottleneck is something very rare nowadays (it was 3 years ago). Check the LMAX architecture and the Disruptor pattern (http://martinfowler.com/articles/lmax.html) when you get a chance. Also, read this blog http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/ . It's written by one of the authors of LMAX. This is high performance java at its finest.

I haven't done heavy duty java for at least 2 years so I'm sort of disconnected from the cutting edge but the problems that you are having, have been solved.

As an aside, the JVM is growing. It's extremely stable, fast and proven. Java has sort of stalled but new languages on the JVM are evolving like Scala and Clojure.
 
alain said:
these are two different things. Do you want to do Data Science or you want to do Finance?
Click to expand...

Not sure yet. I just like to have option.

alain said:
If you want to do finance, what are you looking for?
Click to expand...

Quant, Analytical or build financial model


alain said:
C++ might not be the right answer and while some employers in Finance might like it, people from the Data Science camp are not too fond of it.
Click to expand...

What other language do you suggest for Finance? JAVA?
How about for data science? Python,R?
 
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