Question

You’d think both are the same.

But maybe it’s the compiler that Microsoft has used, but I’ve noticed that when compiling two very small programs, identical logic. VB.NET uses more IL instructions.

Is it true than that c# must be faster, if only because its compiler is smarter.

Answer 1

This is really hard to respond to definitively with the limited amount of information available. It would help a lot if you provided the code from both samples and the compiler options used.

To answer the question though, no C# is not inherently faster. Both languages generate to IL and run on the CLR. For most features they even generate the same IL. There are differences for some similar features but they rarely add up to significant performance changes.

VB can appear slower if you run into some of the subtle differences in the languages and environment. A couple of common examples are …

• Many environments default to checked integer operations for VB.Net but not C#
• Subtle coding issues can lead to late binding where it appears to be early binding
• Believing switch and Select have the same semantics

Once these are removed the languages perform with very similar performance profiles.