Will your code samples during the presentation be a mix of C# & VB or all C#? I'm just wondering if the logic of language choice for books also carries over into presentations to developers in formats like VSLive, User Groups, Code Camps etc.

From my experience, even presentations in those venues seemed to be slanted towards C#. I'm not sure if that due mainly to a preference of the presenter, or demand by attendees??

Your thoughts?

I tend to use a mix of both when presenting, though sometimes I'll do one presentation in VB and another in C#. It depends on whether there's a clean breakpoint where I can switch languages without jarring the audience too much (though it is always somewhat jarring I'm sure).

In other words, if I have one contiguous demo, I'll pick a language (essentially at random - I conciously alternate between one and the other each time I build a demo). But if I have several discrete demos I'll often switch between languages.

In my all-day workshop I always switch between languages. But I start the day by getting a show of hands with language preference, and tend to favor the dominant language throughout the day.

8 years ago when .NET first showed up, I was a vocal voice for VB. The .NET runtime really is just like the VB runtime from the 90's - just language neutral and a lot bigger. Billy is right - we were nice enough to share with the C-style world :)

But as time has gone on my interest in the language war has died. I don't have time to waste on it, there are just too many things out there that are actually interesting.

And yet I _strongly_ believe that use of only one programming language cripples any developer. It just limits their ability to see alternatives and to think in different ways.

That said, I'm not entirely sure that VB and C# fit my definition of "different languages". They are too similar, and really don't provide the mental challenge necessary to remain really sharp. Which is why I watch the XAML, Ruby, Python, F#, FlexWiki language and others to see what they are doing. All the interesting stuff is happening "out there" and we can only hope that some of it slowly trickles back to the legacy languages we all use every day...