Forum Discussion
Solved
OneStream .Net Platform Language
Was the OneStream product itself built using VB.Net?
If so, I'm pretty impressed!!
If it was built using C#, I'm wondering why customers are then forced to use VB.Net for business rules? It seem...
We appreciate your passion for this topic. I suggest adding your recommendations to IdeaStream here on OneCommunity. Our Product team can weigh your considerations with our current Product roadmap
https://community.onestreamsoftware.com/t5/Platform/idb-p/PlatformCore
Just spotted this statement in the new Finance Rules and Calculations Book, published last week.
ChristianW
OneStream Employee
OneStream EmployeeThe platform itself is build using C#, but the market place solutions are build in VB.net. The main reason for VB.net as the business rule language is its similarity to the Excel macro language VB for applications.
Functional-vise, I think they are very similar, the C# syntax is shorter and I can understand, why programmers prefer to use it, but you can do the same things (till now).
Thanks for the reply. Are you aware of any technical reasons why we are limited to VB.Net?
Also why is it important for the business rule language to have similarity to the Excel macro language VB for applications? Much of our interaction with the API will use advanced programming concepts, like sessions and classes and interfaces and datasets. And the BR's can grow quite large. You mention macros, but I would only categorize a small number of our BR's as "macros".
I can understand why your underlying platform is built with C#. For exactly the same reasons you picked C#, some would rather pick C# for our custom extensions in OneStream.
I think I've heard that we can import our own assemblies, and use VB.Net as a simple shim. But it would be nice if C# was a first-class citizen of OneStream, just like VB. It doesn't sound like you had mentioned any technical reasons why OS is restricting customers to VB.Net, so it seems like the choice of a programming language should be left up to the customers.
Ideally VB should not be forced on us, especially if you aren't using it for the platform itself. Depending on the amount of customization, some customers may end up writing 10's or 100's of thousands of lines of code in OneStream, and ideally it wouldn't be a massive pile of VB code. I guess that last part is just my opinion.
BGrantwe understand where you are coming from. Traditionally, mostly users in finance departments have been tasked with administering OneStream, and since they heavily use Excel and macros, VB was preferred. As OneStream's footprint has grown, users outside of the Finance department are taking a more active role, and the preference for C# over VB has been something we have heard more of.
We agreed that the customer should have a choice, and we are in the process of enhancing shared business rules to support both VB and C#. The project is on track for the 7.1 release, so keep an eye out for the release webinar and announcements!
- ChristianW
We just think, the acceptance for VB.net from business users is higher than C# (because it’s similarity to VB for applications) and for them it looks much easier. There is no technical reason for VB.net.
