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Is it possible to add keyword to C# or VB.NET?

I know it might not be worth it but just for education purposes I want to know if there is a way to inject your own keywords to .NET languages.
For example I thought it's good to have C++ asm keyword in C#.
Remember I'm not talking about how to implement asm keyword but a general way to add keyword to C#.
My imagined code :
asm{
mov ax,1
add ax,4
}
So is there a way to achieve this ?
The answers which cover implementing keyword{ } suits enough for this question.

This isn't possible at the moment. However, there's a Microsoft project in development called Roslyn that can be summarised as "the compiler as a service." It allows you, amongst other things, to extend or modify the behaviour of the compiler through an API.
When Roslyn becomes available, I believe this should be something that (with caution!) is quite doable.

You can use whatever tools you would like to pre-process your code before sending it to the C# compiler. For example, you might use VS macros to do the pre-processing, mapping a given syntax that you invented into something that does compile into C# code, possibly generating an error if there is a problem. If VS macros aren't powerful enough for you then you can always use your own IDE that does whatever you code it to do to the text before sending it to the compiler.
There is no built in support in the compiler for specifying your own keywords/syntax; you would need to handle it entirely independent of the compiler.

Unfortunately this is not possible. You can't extend or alter the languages in any way.
You could in some obscure way use PostSharp to read and parse strings and transform them to custom code at compile time (a pre processor). But you would not get very happy with that, as it is very error prone and you won't get any kind of intellisense or code completion for your magic strings.

According to MSDN keywords are predefined and cannot be altered. So you can't add any, because you would need to tell the compiler how to handle them. Insofar, no you can't.

Transitioning from C# to VB.NET

Any suggestions on how I should approach this? Thanks.

Take a look at this VB to C# Comparison chart for some of the syntax and keyword differences.

I have to do this often - and my biggest hang-up is the semi-colon. Never fails that my first few days of writing VB after a longer stint of C# coding, the VB compiler is always barking at me for putting a semi-colon on every line of VB code.
Other than that, it shouldn't be too painful. If you're fluent in C#, moving to VB might be stressful for the first few days, but after that you should be smooth sailing.
Code converter tools come in handy to help you remember/learn/re-learn all of those odd syntax differences that you forget easily. The one I normally turn to first is http://converter.telerik.com/ - and if that won't do the trick, a quick google search for code converters will turn up a handful of other good ones.
Another pain point that I've had in the past too is Snippets. Snippets in C# rock - but in VB rock a bit less. Get to know the differences between those and life will be much easier. (Come on VB team - get that enter key working like the C# snippet team has it...)

A good C# to VB.NET converter will help.

Aside from revulsion and horror I recommend (from experience - ugh) to just start. Build a simple app. The magic is in the experience. It doesn't make sense until you have spent lots of time trying to figure out why something doesn't work.

I went the other way (VB to C#) and found the syntax to be so similar that the transition was painless. I can now pretty much program in either platform – thanks a lot to the IDE intellisense.

Take advantage of the "With" statement! One of my favorite parts of VB.NET.

It's not as difficult as it seems at first. Took me about a month from going strictly C++\C# to VB to get comfortable.

If you are familiar with programing you should just have to learn the syntax...why would anyone want to go from C# to VB? who knows :)

My first question would be 'Why?'. I'd like to think that you can pretty much get the same thing done with either C# or VB.Net. Given that it's managed code, why not just leave them as they are?
Let's just assume you have your reasons :)
1) There are a couple of tools that will do this (see http://www.developerfusion.com/tools/convert/csharp-to-vb/ for a sample).
2) The other option is to manually convert the code, compile, fix errors, and repeat. Painful.

It's a pretty straight-forward thing, actually. VB.Net is a perfectly good (if, imo, verbose) language with most of the expressiveness you've grown accustomed to in C#. Just be aware that certain specific keywords are different and that you've got a different background culture and you'll do fine.

You can also use a tool like CodeRush from DevExpress (no affiliation). The short-cut keys for any operation are the same for both languages and will produce the correct output for the language.
For example: key combo "mv" yields:
In C#
public void MethodName ()
{
}
In VB
Public Sub MethodName()
End Sub

Use XML literals and marvel how resentful fellow C# programmers suddenly are.

There were some useful articles in Visual Studio magazine back in Jan 2008.
What C# developers should know about VB
And for completeness: what VB developers should know about C#

C#'s edge over VB [closed]

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What in C#.NET makes it more suitable for some projects than VB.NET?
Performance?, Capabilities?, Libraries/Components?, Reputation?, Reliability? Maintainability?, Ease?
Basically anything C# can do, that is impossible using VB, or vice versa.
Things you just have to consider when choosing C#/VB for a project.

C# and VB are basically the same however there are some minor differences. Aside from the obvious grammar differences you have the following differences:
C# can call unsafe code
VB has optional parameters (Coming in C#4.0)
VB is easier to use when making late bound calls (Coming in C# 4.0) This and number make 2 make using VB to do office automation much cleaner.
VB has a bunch of "helper" functions and class like the My namespace; however, all of this are accessible to C#
VB is case insensitive
C#'s syntax follow a similar grammar to c and java, which make it a much more comfortable transition from those languages, where as VB can be more comfortable to VB users. As far performance, and libraries or components they are nearly identical.
As for which one to choose, unless you have a need to do unsafe operations, then choose the language which is most natural to you. After years of being a VB developer I loved not having to write If yadada then.....End If if (yadaya){....} saves my carpal tunnel a few extra keystrokes (Which can then be used on answering SO questions)
Edit
Just learned one more difference btw C# and VB is that VB supports filtered exceptions so you could something like this pseudo:
try
{
//do something that fails
}
catch(Exception ex when ArgumentException,
ArgumentNullException, FormatException)
{
//Only handle these three types
}
This should not be confused with the ability to do:
try
{
//something that fails
}
catch(ArgumentException)
{
//Log Error
}
catch(ArgumentNullException)
{
//Log Error
}
In this case you are going to handle the exceptions differently in the VB world you could define one piece of code to handle multiple types of Exceptions.
Edit
Some more differences.
VB's Is operator compares two objects to determine if they are the same it compiles to the CEQ IL instruction where as C# compiles to isinst IL. So the following are equivalent statements
c#
if (foo is FooObject){}
vb
If TypeOf foo is FooObject then
Also as mentioned in the comments and I wish I could see them to give you credit but C# doesn't have a like parameter. You need to use the RegEx class.

I think this blog post by Kathleen Dollard provides an excellent overview to the question:
What a C# Coder Should Know Before They Write VB
and her first advice is:
1) Get over the respect thing or quit
before you start. VB is a great
language.

Street cred among geeks.
(And don't pretend that's not important!)

Others have covered a lot of the differences - as has been said several times, they're nearly equivalent languages. A few differences which haven't been covered as far as I've seen:
VB9 has:
XML literals
Mutable anonymous types (urgh)
More LINQ support in the language (C# only covers a few operators)
A whole bunch of extra bits in the language which get compiled down to calls to the Microsoft.VisualBasic assembly. (C# prefers to be a small language with the weight of the .NET framework behind it.)
DateTime literals
C# 3 has:
Better support for lambda expressions: IIRC, you can't write a lambda expression with a block body in VB.
Iterator blocks.
Syntax for extension methods (instead of decorating the method with an attribute)
I suspect there is more, but I thought I'd just throw those into the mix.

When you hit a problem, you'll often be able to Google for a code sample that shows how to solve it in minutes. This is a significant factor in improving productivity. When I was working with Delphi, I had to convert code samples from C into Object Pascal - doable, but tedious, i.e. lots of friction. So don't underestimate the fact that...
The vast majority of .Net code samples are in C# !

In early versions of VB.NET, the difference was more obvious, however with the current version, there are no significant differences.
VB supports XML literals directly in code, which is not supported by C#. C# supports unsafe code and VB don't. Technically these two are the biggest differences. There are many small variations but they are not important. I like C# more because I think the syntax is much less bloated. It's easy to recognize the blocks of code instead of seeing a bunch of keywords, but that's a pure personal preference.
Choose the one you and your team are more familiar with.

VB.Net has a root namespace and C# has a default namespace which is not the same. Because when you have a root namespace in VB.Net it will always add that before the namespace.
For example: if you have a rootnamepsace in VB.Net named namespace1 and then you add this to your file.
Namespace namespace1
Public Class class1
End Class
End Namespace
then you will have to refer to it as namespace1.namespace1.class1
in C# if you have a default namespace called namespace1 and you this in your file.
namespace namespace1{
public class class1{}
}
Then you can still just refer to it as namespace1.class1

My favorite feature of C# that VB doesn't have is the yield statement. It lets you easily return an lazily evaluated IEnumerable from a method.
Here is an article that covers it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163970.aspx

VB has a better feedback on errors. In C# you have to compile more often to get all the errors in your syntax.

The big advantage i see with C# is that the vast majority of open source projects, sample code and blog snippets are written in C#. Although it’s easy to convert these to VB.NET with tools (or your head) it is still a monotonous task for VB devs (like me).
Even if you write in VB.NET day to day, you will still need to be able to read C#
Technically, they share the same framework with same performance and memory characteristics and same type systems, so I find it hard to hard to split the two.
Most good developers should be able to shift between the two with a few days adjustment time.
My core frustaration lies with the hundreds of time I have written:
String lastName as String
and wondered why it never compiles!

In C# you can have more fine tuned control over events/delegates. But you rarely need this.
There are a lot more code examples for C#.
In VB.Net it is (a lot) easier to use late binding. For example to COM objects (in C# from version 4.0).
I use C# for 90% in my projects
I use VB.Net for interop to Excel, etc
As soon as I know F# better, I will probably use it for the parts that F# is better suited for.

Performance?
No difference, though VB historically uses a weird indexing in loops which means that you have to subtract 1 from the highest index most of the time:
For i = 0 To someArrayOrString.Length - 1 …
Though I doubt this impacts performance in any measurable way.
On the other hand, due to background compilation, VB actually compiles seemingly faster. Some people claim that this makes the IDE react sluggishly but I've never noticed that myself.
Capabilities?
In a few instances, C#'s yield statement is really useful. VB requires more manual work here. Also, lambdas are much better implemented in C#, especially syntactically. Consider these two statements:
Parallel.For(1, 10000, i => {
// Do something
});
versus
Parallel.For(1, 10000, Sub() _
' Do something '
End Sub)
Besides the fact that VB can't do this yet, and that a comment at this place is forbidden, it's just more clutter and generally a no-go.
Libraries/Components?
Identical.
Reputation?
Not important. “Street cred”? Sorry. Not a factor. Get over it, Nick.
Reliability?
Maintainability?
Ease?
More or less identical. I claim that VB is easier but that may be biased and in any way, it's only marginal.

As I understand it, there are differences between the languages though they are minimal. I would suggest working with the language that you/your developers would feel most comfortable with. If they already have VB experience then I'd suggest VB.Net/vice-versa.
Though I prefer the terse syntax of C# personally. :)

Since C# and VB.Net both compile into MSIL, both have nearly identical Performance, Capabilities, Libraries and Components. Reflection can deassemble MSIL code into either C# or VB.NET (or a number of other languages)
This basically leaves us with, C# looks a lot like Java and C++ which gives it more credibility.

I think Josh gave a good rollup on the language differences.
Tooling Support
There are however also differences in how Visual Studio handles these languages.
Code Snippets are easier to use from the C# editor and the refactoring is better also.
The VB-editor simplifies intellisense by not showing all options at all times.
I'm sure there are more things, but those are the ones that I as a C#'er (doing very little VB) have noticed.

Here is another point not yet covered in this trail:
Higher Degree of Employability + Better (more) Dev Resources
Now I don’t agree with this point of view however:
There are more C# dev shops that VB shops
Some backward c# employers will put you at a serious disadvantage if you are stronger with VB. So maybe C# is the better choice here.
On the flip side, when you go to hire people for your C# project, you will be able to attract more candidates to iterview and get better skills as a result – I don't think detail should be overlooked.

I have to say it's been my experience when using Google to search for examples or documentation that C# examples are of better quality than VB examples. This isn't to say that there aren't bad C# examples, but if you search for something like "dictionary drop down" adding C# will provide a better quality answer higher on the list.
This doesn't apply to examples that display both C# and VB code side by side.

for the moment VB.Net has a very poor implementation of lambda expressions. Meaning that you can't do the neat things that you can in C#. Well you can, but it needs a very ugly workaround in most cases.
This is solved in VB.Net 10.0.

Free from old cruft, array declaration in C# is not padded with extra element. VB.NET array is padded with extra element, so legacy VB6 code migration is easier.
C# is more consistent than VB.NET
Button1.Color() = Color.Red
Button1.Color = Color.Red
I can't give an answer when one student asked me when to use parenthesis on properties of VB.NET. It's hard to give an insightful reasoning for this kind of misfeature.
Consistency with instance and static members. VB.NET allows accessing static members on instance e.g. yarn.Sleep(1000), this is a misfeature. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/312419/language-features-you-should-never-use

New vb.net enhancements?

I've been hearing/reading a lot about the new language enhancements for C# 4. I'm a little curious if these same enhancements are also going to be applied to VB as well, or what. Does anyone know where I can get some insight here? With all the new changes happening to C#, it seems like there will very little reason left to be using VB unless you happen to like the syntax. Are there enhancements that MS isn't making to VB this time that are getting included in C#, or visa versa?

I'd actually overlook the dismissal of VB.Net by Lou Franco. Checkout Panopticon Central:
http://www.panopticoncentral.net/archive/2008/10/31/24803.aspx
http://www.panopticoncentral.net/archive/2008/10/29/24764.aspx
For example:
Then Lucian did a really wonderful
demo of VB 10.0, which is shipping in
Visual Studio 2010. He showed (IIRC)
the following features that should be
familiar to the readers of this blog:
array literals, collection
initializers, automatic properties,
implicit line continuations, statement
lambdas, generic variance, and a
feature that embeds primary interop
assembly types in your assembly so you
don’t have to deploy the PIA. I may
have missed some, so check out the
video when it’s posted!

Some of the changes to C# (e.g Named Optional Parameters) were already in VB. The main strength of VB.NET over C# was Office/COM integration, and the new C# is addressing that.
If you need to target an older .NET version, VB.NET will still be the one to use if you need these features.

Something still missing from C# that vb.net has had a little while: xml literals. But this isn't exactly new.

What are the most important functional differences between C# and VB.NET?

Certainly there's the difference in general syntax, but what other critical distinctions exist? There are some differences, right?

The linked comparisons are very thorough, but as far as the main differences I would note the following:
C# has anonymous methodsVB has these now, too
C# has the yield keyword (iterator blocks)VB11 added this
VB supports implicit late binding (C# has explicit late binding now via the dynamic keyword)
VB supports XML literals
VB is case insensitive
More out-of-the-box code snippets for VB
More out-of-the-box refactoring tools for C#Visual Studio 2015 now provides the same refactoring tools for both VB and C#.
In general the things MS focuses on for each vary, because the two languages are targeted at very different audiences. This blog post has a good summary of the target audiences. It is probably a good idea to determine which audience you are in, because it will determine what kind of tools you'll get from Microsoft.

This topic has had a lot of face time since .Net 2.0 was released. See this Wikipedia article for a readable summary.

This may be considered syntax, but VB.NET is case insensitive while C# is case sensitive.

This is a very comprehensive reference.

Since I assume you can google, I don't think a link to more sites is what you are looking for.
My answer: Choose base on the history of your developers. C# is more JAVA like, and probably C++ like.
VB.NET was easier for VB programmers, but I guess that is no really an issue anymore sine there are no new .NET programmers coming from old VB.
My opinion is that VB is more productive then C#, it seems it is always ahead in terms of productivity tools (such as intelisense), and I would recommend vb over c# to someone that asks. Of course, someone that knows he prefers c# won't ask, and c# is probably the right choice for him.

Although the syntax sugar on C#3 has really pushed the bar forward, I must say some of the Linq to XML stuff in VB.Net seems quite nice and makes handling complex, deeply nested XML a little bit more tolerable. Just a little bit.

One glaring difference is in how they handle extension methods (Vb.Net actually allows something that C# doesn't - passing the type on which the extension method is being defined as ref): http://blog.gadodia.net/extension-methods-in-vbnet-and-c/

Apart from syntax not that much any more. They both compile to exactly the same IL, so you can compile something as VB and reflect it into C#.
Most of the apparent differences are syntactic sugar. For instance VB appears to support dynamic types, but really they're just as static as C#'s - the VB compiler figures them out.
Visual Studio behaves differently with VB than with C# - it hides lots of functionality but adds background compiling (great for small projects, resource hogging for large ones) and better snippet support.
With more and more compiler 'magic' in C#3 VB.Net has really fallen behind. The only thing VB now has that C# doesn't is the handles keyword - and that's of debatable benefit.
#Tom - that really useful, but a little out of date - VB.Net now supports XML docs too with '''
#Luke - VB.Net still doesn't have anon-methods, but does now support lambdas.

The biggest difference in my opinion is the ability to write unsafe code in C#.

Although VB.NET supports try...catch type exception handling, it still has something similar to VB6's ON ERROR. ON ERROR can be seriously abused, and in the vast majority of cases, try...catch is far better; but ON ERROR can be useful when handling COM time-out operations where the error can be trapped, decoded, and the final "try again" is a simple one line.
You can do the same with try...catch but the code is a lot messier.

This topic is briefly described at wikipedia and harding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_C_Sharp_and_Visual_Basic_.NET
http://www.harding.edu/fmccown/vbnet_csharp_comparison.html
Just go through and make your notes on that.

When it gets to IL its all just bits. That case insensitivity is just a precompiler pass.
But the general consensus is, vb is more verbose.
If you can write c# why not save your eyes and hands and write the smaller amount of code to do the same thing.

One glaring difference is in how they handle extension methods (Vb.Net actually allows something that C# doesn't - passing the type on which the extension method is being defined as ref): http://blog.gadodia.net/extension-methods-in-vbnet-and-c/

Yes VB.NET fixed most of the VB6 problems and made it a proper OOP language - ie. Similar in abilities to C#. AlthougnI tend to prefer C#, I do find the old VB ON ERROR construct useful for handling COM interop timeouts. Something to use wisely though - ON ERROR is easily abused!!