I'm A VB: Sven Knoch

· How long have you been using VB?

Since 1996

· What industry do you work in?

Software Developer

· How big is your development team?

1 (myself)

· What kind of apps do you most commonly build?

My main application, a logbook software for scuba divers. People can log their dives, download data from their dive computer and create their own printouts for their paper logbook.

· What’s the most interesting app you’ve ever built?

Diving Log. It’s very exciting, because I have to deal with serial interface programming, web services, database development, charting, printing, mobile devices, syncing and so on. There are so many challenges and everything could be done with VB.

· Please tell us about an app that you’re working on at the moment.

Currently I’m porting my VB6 version to VB.NET, which is 90 percent done. I’m very excited when this will be completed and I’m finally fully in the managed code world. First I thought it would be a big pain to do all this conversion, but now I think it is a big chance to fix design errors from the past and start with a new stable redesigned application.

· What other technologies do you most commonly use?

.NET Framework 2.0, VB.NET, ADO.NET, Access databases. In future maybe Silverlight and WPF.

· What are some of your favorite VB features?

The language and syntax

· What do you like most about VB as a programming language?

While I can read C# I still like a lot more the VB syntax. It’s more natural and has still the same power as C#. The code editor and debugger works in VB better than in C#.

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