Visual Basic

[JohnK]

First of all I wanted to say hi to everyone here (you may know me from IRC).

Now for my question:

I'm going to attempt to learn Visual Basic (lol) and I was wondering if anyone had any tips or could recommend any sites, etc.

Thanks!

-John

[shanenin]

let me know if you find some good info. I program with python a bit, but am curious about visual basic. I like the idea of making something useful that will run on windows.

edit added later//

python can be used to program for windows, but I thought maybe visual basic may be more suited for some tasks.

Edited January 17, 2007 by shanenin

[iccaros]

Shanenin

for you I would suggest C#, as its closer to plython

with sharp develop you can have a full IDE with debuging and GUI builder (winForms)

I find VB useless now that it compiles to the same binary as C# and C++ .net

and I also find VB unreadable and much harder after you learn a C like language.

here is VB

DIM sString as String;

C#

String sString;

which makes more sense to you?

[jcl]

for you I would suggest C#, as its closer to plython

Or IronPython.

here is VB

DIM sString as String;

C#

String sString;

which makes more sense to you?

VB's declaration syntax sort of makes sense. The leading DIM makes the meaning of the statement unambiguous (it's clearly a declaration) and the trailing type declaration can be made optional with overly complicating the grammar. Lots of languages use the same structure.

OTOH, the keywords are retarded.

Edited January 22, 2007 by jcl

[shanenin]

Thanks for the suggestion.

[shanenin]

I am just vaguely researching. I don't really have a coding project. If I wanted to try coding something with vb.net or c#.net do I need to purchase(yuck) something from microsoft? Is visualstudio.net a necessity?

Edited January 24, 2007 by shanenin

[iccaros]

no sharpdevelop will do 99% of what visual studio will, we use both at work and If I am not using a widget that is licensed to Visual studio I use sharpdevelop. it shares projects with VS 2005 but no cost. plus adding ndoc allows you to auto generate documentation.

plus they plan on adding ironPython support so you could in the future do Python.net for windows.

I like C# plus you can use MonoDevelop in Linux and get a lot of the same code to run on linux with MONO.

[jcl]

There's also Visual Studio Express.