Good, good, thanks for feedback.
I had a long, not-so-pleasant talk with the teacher and since this is a IB course im taking (international diploma) there is a number of things we have to cover.

The course will be mostly "pen and paper" rather than computer work, and we are gonna learn the whole process of developing computer software (as in steps to take, planning, the economics behind it) as well as actually some coding. Of course i could't get the teacher to change to something else from VB, so VB is staying (since the teacher knows only VB and Pascal) but in addition to coding in VB we will learn a pascal-like language called PURE. At the end of this 2 year course a part of the exam will be writing a working program (pen and paper) in PURE. It's quite sad actually, i was expecting i will actually learn something useful. I am taking the course anyway, since they promised they'll give me a login for the only Linux computer on the 100+ computer network in school, so thats cool. I'll have Fluxbox while everyone else will be in windows!

For some more info on this course, check http://www.stjulians.com/cs/csintro.html
You'll see that although Java is mentioned, we will be doing VB and PURE instead, as i mentioned before, and although coding is a big part of the course, theory and "pen and paper" work is a big part too.

I know some self-taught C by reading "Absolute begginers guide to C" which was way too slow, and the K&R "The C Programming Language" which was, on the other hand, too fast for me.

I just really, really hope i'm not going to waste two years taking this course...

Any toughts?
-NSKL

If it's the only option then do it. Another option might be to take an evening class in another language or area you are interested in aswell as VB.

Obviously I don't know aything about your area but where I live the local colleges offer all sorts of IT related recognised modules/evening courses and they are usually very cheap indeed.

See if this VB thing was just a small 4 month course on just VB i would still recommend it. But since it's not i would have to say that don't bother with the program now. I mean 2 years and you only learn VB and some weird language i've never even heard of? The system design/planning you'll be doing is nice, but if they don't spend time teaching your to program then what's the point at this stage?

I would aslo agree not to get the K&R white book yet. It's not a beginner's book. Speaking of C, that's what i started with (well i did do some Java before). I liked it, though it's kind of tedious in the end (if you do everything by hand and don't look into other libraries), but it does show/teach you some fundamental concepts, which will make your overall understanding of other languages better.

Personally i'm more into C++ and Java programming right now. C++ is my love , but i love how fast i can program in Java.

As i said i already have the K&R white book, and yeah, it's hard to follow for me at this stage. I decided to take the Computer course since i need one more credit and i can take either computers or chemistry. I'm already doing Physics higher, so another science will be too hard, therefore i'm going with the Computer course...
Thanks for your oppinions, if i showed them to my teacher he just might change idea and teach us something more useful than VB.....
-NSKL

I think not nskl...

I just think he does not want to teach the other programming languages since he actually doesn't know (I think) them other than vb and the pascal thingy...

Its a shame actually because I sort of know vb already, and wanted to learn something like C# and C++, and maybe who knows, even assembly, although that is a bit too difficult

And the paper and pen thing, I still don't understand it... For me it would be much easier just to load Visual Studio and start learning the code there, than to write the code on a piece of paper and make a big mess out of it...

Hey! I'm an IB Computer Science High Level Student! And I'm almost sure you can learn Pascal, actually. We are learning C and I'm studying Java by myself, and I'm almost sure Pascal is one of IB Accepted Progamming Language.

As to the code in PURE pseudocode, yes, that will be used in your exam, but you will need to make a real program for your Dossier, I'm 99% sure