VB for WP7 RTW - SilverLight projects only, still no XNA, Expression support

Jason Zander's WebLog - Announcing: Visual Basic Windows Phone 7 Support RTW

“I’ve personally been enjoying using my Windows Phone 7 device, and it’s been a lot of fun seeing the phones come to market across the world. As a developer, it’s an intriguing opportunity to see so many people buying Windows Phone 7 devices and starting to purchase applications on the Marketplace. With all this excitement around Windows Phone 7, I’m often asked by Visual Basic developers when they’ll be able to submit their applications to the Marketplace. I’m excited to announce that day is here!

Today we’re releasing “Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools – RTW”. This release is available in the same five languages as the Windows Phone Developer Tools:

…

Summary

You can find the full source code for the Visual Basic Tip Calculator application here. The application uses general Silverlight and Visual Basic features, which are available in other application types, and now also apply to the phone. As a VB developer, you’re well-positioned for success creating Windows Phone 7 applications.

Enjoy!

"

(Via Scott Lovegrove)

From the ReadMe.txt (Leached in Full);

“Visual Basic for Windows Phone Developer Tools - RTW

Prerequisites:

- Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW
- Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium, or Ultimate

Known Issues:

1. XNA projects. XNA is not currently supported in Visual Basic. Developers using this release can create Visual Basic Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7; however, there are no Visual Basic project templates available for XNA at this time.

2. Integration with Expression Blend for Windows Phone. Visual Basic Windows Phone applications are not currently supported in Expression Blend for Windows Phone.”

Cool that this has shipped. Nice to see a little VB love. But as much as this pains me to say, I almost wish this were not available. I think it’s about time to pick a one .Net language to rule them all and put VB to bed. Now I’ve been using VB for forever (I’ve a production app in every version of VB for Windows… yes, even VB1) but what is the “real” future for it? I mean, really? Sure Microsoft says VB is alive and well, that it stands on an equal footing with C#, that there’s a bright future for it, etc, etc. But what VB programmer isn’t either consciously or subconsciously thinking about moving to C#? Which language would you want your kid to learn? Again, I’m glad Microsoft has made this available, as I still dream in VB, but the partial support, i.e. still no XNA (we’ve only been asking for this since XNA v1) or Expression support, makes me wonder… Okay, I’ll call it as half-full and be happy… ;)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Visual Basic Support CTP for Windows Phone 7 Development Tools (but no XNA,Expression)