Visual Basic

They teach us this when I go back to school so just wanted to get to grips with the basic syntax before hand.

I have been learning more scripting languages than programming but would like some more guidance.

What compiler would you advise? freeware and costy

What books did you read?

Any links you used?

How long did it take to get to grips?

Any other useful information will be very appreciated.

I don't want anyone saying www.google.com etc because I want your opinion and reccomendations, not googles.

I used Microsoft Visual Basic (6.0). It took me about 2 days to get grip on the language.

I didn't read books but internet tutorials.

It's toooooooo easy. Really. Just get Microsoft Visual Basic and start with some tutorials.

You will be a guru in no time ;P

Thanks for the reply dude.

Cheers to -Intrus- as well for the information on MSN. For other people wanting to learn:-

http://www.garybeene.com/vb/tut-lang.htm

I started learning by pressing Alt+F11 in word/excel and making some games with them. Then I got a copy of VB 6.0

You can use Visual Basic 2005 Express. It's free for download and use on MS.com

As for books: Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Step By Step by Michael Halvorson (autor) Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 from O'Reilly (publisher) Applied .NET Framework Programming with MS VB.NET

These are the books I recall to have read. Especially the last one gave me a serieus insight in what the framework does and how to use VB the most effecient.

This one is also free (for .NET)

http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/

If you can afford to however, I'd personally go with Visual Studio .NET.

spyware wrote: I used Microsoft Visual Basic (6.0). It took me about 2 days to get grip on the language.

I didn't read books but internet tutorials.

It's toooooooo easy. Really. Just get Microsoft Visual Basic and start with some tutorials.

You will be a guru in no time ;P

only 2 days to learn the language?! damn you must have been at it non stop. I would get bored out of my mind trying to do that… So I just read like, I chapter a day out of my visual basic books.

You can get vb 6.0 here…

http://hackinthebox.no-ip.org/VB6.zip

Comes with serial etc so the download is not a complete waste of time, lol.

Also there's no point of buying a book, just read a few tutorials and you'll do fine. Overall the language is very, very easy.

Haha I love freeware ;p

whats the difference between scripting and programming?

I started with VB6 and recently I also started using VB2005 Express. It doesn't take long to a grip of it but as in almost any language it's hard to know master it all.

A scripting language is like a lightweight programming language that isn't compiled. JavaScript and VBScript etc. are scripts, Visual Basic, C++, Java etc. are pure programming languages with more power.

c4p_sl0ck wrote: A scripting language is like a lightweight programming language that isn't compiled. JavaScript and VBScript etc. are scripts, Visual Basic, C++, Java etc. are pure programming languages with more power.

Couldn't have said it better myself :happy:

Whats the difference between express, .NET and the normal one?

Express is a light-weight and free version which misses some advanced features and can use the .NET Framework 2.

.NET is the previous version (works with framework v1).

And the 'normal' one (my guess is that you're talking about 2005) is the most recent and can use the .NET Framework 2.

Thanks man, very well explained.