The language tends to be very verbose. This is due in part to its bizarre form of OOP mixed with its unusual carry-over syntax that was designed to resemble BASIC.

It has certain quirks that set it apart from more traditional, mainstream programming languages. Among these quirks is an apparent allergy to use of the semicolon.

The semicolon isn’t used at all in Visual Basic .NET. What tends to happen when languages forego use of the semicolon is either the use of a different symbol or forced spacing constraints. In Python, the spacing and indentation is very important.

The greatest strength of Visual Basic .NET isn’t the language itself but the IDE that is intended to be used with it: Visual Studio. It is treated as a First- Class language in Visual Studio: a treatment that not every language is given.

Only a few other languages are given First-Class treatment, let alone Second-Class or Third-Class treatment. Languages/dialects/frameworks like IronPython or Java might technically be use-able in Visual Studio.