Visual Basic

[Html]

Who has used Visual basic? There is a trial version at microsoft.com I was wondering if anyone has used it? Interesting? Complicated?

[~Shinta]

Visual Basic is a bad programming language. It is expensive and not even good. It is also not multi platform. I use Python and Ruby instead. Learning VB wll give 0 programming skill. If you want to learn drag and drop text boxes and forms, then get VS Studio. If you want to learn to program, look for perl or python. Simple as that.

[Kcarson]

Visual Basic is not a complicated programming language, and it can be used for complicated things if needed. However, he is right in that it does not teach you the finer points of programming. If you are doing this to create programs for yourself and you don't care about truly learning programming, then this can be a good place to start. It just like its name implies is Basic, and can be done visually. I wouldn't say it is such an interesting programming language, but it does allow you to create cool programs the quickest out of almost any language, but to me that is where it ends, where as with other languages you continue to find mroe things you can do with them. I personally like C/C++. One suggestion though, if you decide to take on VB, try to learn VB.net. It has alot more capabilities than VB and will teach you things you can transfer over to other .net languages (C#, C++, ASP).

[Html]

Right, well i have no knowledge of any programming languages. So i may just try this trial out. Since it's free. And i don't want to pay.

[Jonas]

We're learning VB in school now, in computers class. The book we use use examples such as labels with "Hello World" as caption, but our teacher doesn't use the book at all. Instead, he gives us snippets of code so we can program stuff like Sudoku. We're currently having a project, where me, Bjørnar (also on this forum) and another guy is making a game called SubWars. Our teacher liked it a lot, and he wants us to convert it to JavaScript afterwards, using divs and stuff for labels. He's really a linux fan, hates microsoft, and says he's only used VB on one or two occasions outside class. But he knows his stuff. I think programming is universal in a way. If you only know the syntax, the same rules apply...That said, I guess Visual Basic could be seen as useful, but I'd rather get a thorough lesson in PHP/MySQL or .NET...

[Chocolate570]

Visual Basic is a bad programming language. It is expensive and not even good. It is also not multi platform. I use Python and Ruby instead. Learning VB wll give 0 programming skill. If you want to learn drag and drop text boxes and forms, then get VS Studio. If you want to learn to program, look for perl or python. Simple as that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No offense, but you couldn't be more wrong, besides the expense part. :)Learning visual basic is a very important platform to get before moving on to more complex languages, such as c and c++ and so on. The dragging and dropping part is half true, but have you ever installed a program? Have you ever seen a pop up in windows? All of these have been programmed in vbasic. Perl and python are the next level of difficulty, but vbasic is the second language i learned, after qbasic. I highly reccomend that if you are starting programming.I own the visual studio package, and it's great. I can make lots of interesting programs. Vbasic is also used with the huge software companies when they're making programs that make tasks you always do easier. :)In short, vbasic is very useful, and i reccomend downloading the trial version from microsoft. (if you don't wanna, open excel or word and click tools>>macros>>visual basic editor)

[Reven]

Visual Basic is useful for when you want to create the odd Windows-only application that would just be used for simple things. Because of VB's simplicity, it's a short process to get a simple package deployed. VB is probably easiest to use for value-manipulations such as calculators or text converters, or perhaps COMAL is (but that's harder).VB is useful to develop the right frame of mind for programming, and you'll sure as heck need one if you want to program professionally. Other than that, it's pretty useless. Because it's not fully compiled into binary or assembly, users will also need the Visual Basic runtime files to run the program, which is annoying.If I hadn't already started with VB, I would have chosen something like Python to begin with - it is platform independent (meaning you can use it on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, whatever).