I'm starting programming lessons in school, however the only language offered is Visual Basic, because, as the teacher said "it is portable". (How is VB portable someone plz explain )
Do you think i should take the course and learn VB. Will it help me later with other programming languages once i get the hang of this one?
Thanks
-NSKL

Any new knowledge is good, but... Visual Basic ? Even M$ wants to kill it slowly in favour of it's new programming language (C#). Portable ?? Not easily. They want you to fill all your programs with W32 API calls.

You said it's the only choice...

Still, I'd say don't bother. It only ruins your style for anything you might want to try later - so it's not helpful but harmful IMHO.

Just get some books out - "The C Programming Language" by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kerninghan is a good place to start...

Ya, these guys r absolutely right...!

VB is not the language you should go for......

Start with C.....just C and only C!!! Its the base for all other programming languages.......Even Unix and Linux have been programmed using C!

C++ and Java too become easier for people who know C........and all Object Oriented languages like C#, VC.Net can be mastered soon enough, once u know C......Even shell programming borrows syntax from C......

So, just focus on C...and if possible Data Structures using C ( for a deeper knowledge).......then u can master any damn programming language in this world...

good luck

i suggest looking at C and Python side-by-side. VB will be a waste of time, really. Once you're done with Python (and still looking at C), you can easily start off with Java (i never tried C#). and when you're done with C (and still looking at Java), then you can start off with C++. and by the end, you will be able to apply for the job of your teacher.

heck, im lookin for a job, maybe i can apply, eh? :P

NSKL - ask your teacher what he means by portable? As far as I know, portable means "can run on different architectures/OS/machines" and as far as I know, VB can only run on a windows machine.

Everyone else above is right, VB isn't suited to teaching how to program...in my opinion you'd do better with C, then maybe C++ to learn Object Orientation and stuff...

Mmmm...kay

VB is a fine language. It's very easy to learn and you can make some nice programs really fast through Visual Studio. Really, VB is all IDE, the actual syntax of the language is annoying (writing declarations in reverse, array size, etc), but the IDE makes it all easy.

That being said, if you want to get into programming really fast, go ahead and check it out. Knowing any extra language is good, especially one that is fairly popular. It's also (finally) fully object oriented (it's about time they have inheritance) so you could learn something good.

So yeah, learn it, it can come in handy, just don't go overboard with it. (like all .Net languages VB uses the same foundation classes, so if you know 'em you can easily move from one .Net language to the other)

That also works in the reverse (for me it did). But as far as VB goes...I wouldn't touch it with a 50 foot pole (atleast not as a 1st language). I dont think learning VB will help you to learn C, C++
or Java.

You should also ask your professor "Portable to what??? another windows box??" Maybe he meant you could burn your code to a CD and carry it around everywhere you go...hence portable.


Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Maybe he meant that it's portable to any pc which have the .Net run time (CLR)? Just like Java is portable as long as the JVM is present.

In other words, a windows PC....not very portable by any definition. (Unless I'm misinformed and .net does run in other platforms)

Whereas Java was meant to be run on multiple platforms.

.Net is not finished, so you never know. And considering there are so many diffirent versions of Windows out already...

.Net has many other interesting features worthy of a look in my opinion.

Java promises "write once, run everywhere", but that's partially true. If you use JFC (Swing....) your software is constrained to the availability of a Sun's JVM in your particular OS/Environment. You will be depending on one company. That's not freedom.

If that's true for the portability of Java, what one could think about .NET ?? ..... that companies are, for sure, not there for the free software movement and innovation.

"They want you to fill all your software with their API's and then you will be catch-ed"

Heh, when I was in high school VB was the only programming course there too. I took it and ended up liking... despite my hatred for Windows. Then, when I got here to college and started learning other languages, I realized how truly krappy it is. Then again, if it is the only option, I would advise you take it. It will at least get you to *somewhat* be in the mindset of a programmer.

-AquamN

If you are a newbie, and do not have any C experience, DO NOT
BUY the book "The C Programming Language" by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kerninghan. I own it, and its a great book, but its anything but a newbie's manual. It is more of a reference than a tutorial. I suggest learning C as a first language, and if I were to suggest one language to master, it would be it. Id suggest getting one of those huge C books, something that spends time to elaborate on each subject throughly.

While I do agree that C is a good place to start, I must object to the assertion that C is the base for all other programming languages.

Lots of languages came before C. Fortran and Cobol are probably the two best-known. C is a good example of an imperative language, and lots of imperative languages are derived from C, but not all. Pascal and its derivatives, like Ada, were not derived from C, nor was BASIC.

Of course, there are other paradigms that C did not participate in, such as logic programming (Prolog), functional programming (LISP, Haskell, and others), object-oriented programming (Smalltalk), and modular languages (Modula). Many languages today are in fact hybrids from several paradigms. Combining object orientation and imperative languages is quite popular, giving C++, Objective C, Java, C#, and Ada.

The whole story is vastly more complicated, but suffice it to say that not all programming languages are derived from C.

Steve