...about how much better VS is when using VB then C#.
Not really no. C# and VB are far far better supported the C++, and the differences between VB intellisense and C# intellisense are far and few between.
That and it's case insensitive, which frankly, all languages should be.
No.
Do you guys think C++ will be able to maintain it's dominant position in gaming as the massively-multicore age dawns?
If you like playing games that don't suck, yes.
C++ is unfriendly at it's best in a single thread
If you have no idea what your doing, yeah.
and multithreading has to make that even worse.
Not really, no. Unless your doing things you shouldn't be doing. It only becomes a problem when you start modify the same memory locations from different threads, and you really shouldn't be doing that in the first place. Thats a problem even in C#, its just that in C#, it TELLS you that your being a complete dip**** instead of just blowing up.
With massively parallel hardware, I'm wondering if efficient hardware use isn't going to have to take a backseat to efficient development
Your saying it hasn't already? Do you know how many bull****-filled, horrifyingly inefficient, retarded Java games are out there? Do you know how unbelievably ****ing annoying working with XNA is? Efficient coding died YEARS ago, and its currently rotting in its grave as a bunch of retards with keyboards scream "OH HEY I CAN MAKE A GAME HAHHAHAHA" as they run across it. No, the only thing that matters nowadays is protecting idiot programmers from themselves so they don't blow up your computer. Everyone seems to dislike C++ because its a scary language and no one can understand how it works so they don't want to use it; they want to have 5 inches of fluffy padding on their walls before starting up their computer. Heck, *I* hated C++ because I couldn't understand it. Then, of course, I taught myself how to use it, and would now rather use it then any other language.
Seems like it's just about time for a new language which has parallelism as a focusing point from the ground floor.
We do not need more languages to argue about.