Those aren't the same thing at all. You can't write C in visual basic. The guy you were responding to was comparing what it would take to get your application working with Heroku vs. what it would take to set up your own server providing some of the same services that Heroku does.

If you were trying to set up a similar question, it'd have to be more like: "Should I use gcc or should I write my own C compiler?" Clearly the correct answer here is "Use gcc" if you're trying to get work done, but that doesn't mean nobody should ever write their own compiler, either. It's just not the right choice for most people, even though I'm sure there is a huge reward in learning how to do it.