Visual Basic vs Xojo
When comparing Visual Basic vs Xojo, the Slant community recommends Xojo for most people. In the question“What is the best programming language to learn first?” Xojo is ranked 53rd while Visual Basic is ranked 62nd. The most important reason people chose Xojo is:
Easy to make compiled native apps.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very simple and efficient language (in terms of number of lines of code)
Pro Easy to learn
Pro Capable language
Compiling to the same intermediate language as C# and compiling against the same .NET libraries, the differences between C# and VB are largely syntactic. Most VB features even have a 1:1 correspondence with C#.
Pro Huge community
Being Microsoft's introductory language, visual basic has a strong and large community.
Pro English-like syntax
Pro Flexible, won't get in the way of a beginner
A beginner developer can worry about the code logic first, and then learn the language. Visual Basic lets you do basically anything if you really want, while still having the power to be a fully statically-typed and object oriented.
Pro Sibling to C#
If you don't want to start with C# because of its high learning floor, you can start with VB. It is dead easy to switch between the two.
Pro Easy to deal with Win32API
Using platform invoke, it's very easy to use the win32 api in vb.net. Neat and clean syntax. Not a mess like c# (meaning those "{}"s).
Pro Easy to use
Easy to make compiled native apps.
Cons
Con Almost as bad as Python, but less used
Con Bad reputation
Being a visual basic programmer, you're unlikely to be taken seriously by other programmers. According to the 2015 Stack Overflow survey, it was voted the second most dreaded language among developers.
Con Tends to get clunky due to prebuilt assets
Con Subscription-based/Not free
Using this product you're betting the company will still be around. If they get bought out by an enterprise that wants to use the tech internally, all they need to do is stop offering subscriptions and suddenly you're scrambling to rebuild your entire app on other technology.
Con No Android support
They plan to eventually support Android, but for now, they only support iOS.