Is Visual Basic A Waste of Time?

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XAuTomaT1CX

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Aug 13, 2011
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I'm taking a highschool tech course and have an option of what i want to do, from what i read on visual basic on urban dictionairy they say it's a waste of time, if i'm going to learn programming, I want to actually learn programming, should i keep my visual basic plan (worked on for 2 Days) my other options are basic html & flash to summarize this course sucks
 
I have a friend who does database support for a community college district. He works in visual basic.

Learning to program is about picking up the ideas and concepts. Once you have that down learning the syntax and quirks of a new language isnt a big deal.

So, no, it isnt a waste of time.
 
considering you are in high school and wont be in the industry for at least 5 more years... i would say to learn something else.

it seems like MS wants C# to replace VB, I would learn C# if you want to stick with MS.
if you don't know any coding and want to get started, then take it
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
I'm taking a highschool tech course and have an option of what i want to do, from what i read on visual basic on urban dictionairy they say it's a waste of time, if i'm going to learn programming, I want to actually learn programming, should i keep my visual basic plan (worked on for 2 Days) my other options are basic html & flash to summarize this course sucks
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If the only research you've done is on Urban Dictionary, then do you really want to learn how to program? If so, what are some simple applications you've thought would be reasonable to do?
 
I wouldn't consider a class on it a waste of time. Even at a H.S. level it may be fairly introductory with no huge groundbreaking concepts, but if you think you might consider some kind of programming as a career then anything you do now will give you a leg up in college or professionally.

The bottom line is that you really just have to do what interests you. It sounds like you've already made up your mind that the class "sucks", and based on that you're not likely to enjoy it or get a lot of use out of it. So if you think you'd get more enjoyment out of html or flash, then maybe you should go for that. Personally, I would rather /wrists than take either of those two other classes. That's what it's all about though...gotta make a choice based on what suits you.
 
I was a business major, but took many programming classes over the years. In my opinion, VB is great for leaning some important concepts earlier. I loved my C classes too. I don't think VB is a waste of time as long as you are willing to learn. I took Html and SQL/Oracle 9i classes as well.

If you enjoy it you'll get way more out of it. You can go through the motions and not really learn anything. VB was great because you could get impressive results quickly, so it made me want to learn more on my own. If you don't like it, you can try something else, but I think VB is great for beginners.
 
visual basic will poison your mind, html is arguably not a programming language, and flash isn't useful either.

In my experience with most high school programs, you are better off learning programming on your own.
 
I'd go with a different language while starting out. It's kind of kludgy, and the syntax leaves a bit to be desired ( there are several ways of doing the same thing. Not the best teaching aid ).

Now, if you have plans of going in to network administration, then ya, you'll need VB at some point. But I consider it more a purpose specific language rather than something people willingly subject themselves to.
 
what you're getting your programming advice from urban dictionary?
 
I would go for something like C# instead. If only because a lot of popular languages use a similar C-type syntax, it will make transitioning to those other languages easier.
 
For a lower division course in college I had to take VB. It has actually helped in many scenarios since I'm actually on the administration side of things. C# would have been preferred (It wasn't an option at the time), but they can basically accomplish the same thing.

Of the 3 you have to choose from (assuming you can't do C# either), take it. It is a foot in the door and will help with your general understanding of programming if/when you begin to learn other languages.
 
Assuming we're talking about VB.NET and not VB6, that would be very reasonable language to start with.

VB.NET is and will continue to be a first class language in the .Net framework, and while the syntax style isn't always as clean and consistent as C# or Java, it doesn't get anywhere near as confusing for beginners as many other C-family languages.

And lets face it, a high school programming class is not going t expose you to a lot of higher concepts and features. VB.Net will at least expose you to a full fledged programming language, which HTML and Flash aren't (even though action script is pretty powerful within that environment.)
 
jimmyb said:
what you're getting your programming advice from urban dictionary?
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lol no, that's why I posted on this forum, anyway urban dictionairy is a great way to get a quick opinion based on the likes & dislikes of peoples definitions
 
00PS said:
For a lower division course in college I had to take VB. It has actually helped in many scenarios since I'm actually on the administration side of things. C# would have been preferred (It wasn't an option at the time), but they can basically accomplish the same thing.

Of the 3 you have to choose from (assuming you can't do C# either), take it. It is a foot in the door and will help with your general understanding of programming if/when you begin to learn other languages.
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I will keep it, I looked at other options, but I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet with my future, but I will see if it's something i would like to do, thanks for the help
 
My guess your going to be using Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 in that class, thus as I know it, you'll be programming in .NET. From what I've heard, VB6 is kind of a dying language that isn't really OOP(not 100% sure on this). Hopefully someone with more experience can chime in. Its been a few semesters since I took the class and can't remember all the details.
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
what's the difference
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Quite a lot.
VB.NET is an actively maintained and improved, modern, language that supports all the core principals of object oriented programming.

VB6.... isn't.


Not that you can't get a good feel and some good introduction to programming with VB6, but it's like learning to drive today in a 1970's car.
 
well I have no choice so i'm going to have to do virtual basic 6, I talked with my teacher, she knows it's outdated and we can't do anything about it, do to the computers being old.
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
well I have no choice so i'm going to have to do virtual basic 6, I talked with my teacher, she knows it's outdated and we can't do anything about it, do to the computers being old.
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Wow.. exactly how old are these computers? According to Microsoft the recommended system requirements for VS2008 are: Win2k or XPSP2, 1Ghz Pentium, 256MB RAM, 1024x768 video resolution and 2GB of disk space.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/4c26cc39(v=vs.80).aspx

surely, even a ten year old PC could meet those requirements.
 
What is the focus of the html&flash class? I mean i would almost rather learn good CSS&HTML practices then VB6.
 
45kicks said:
What is the focus of the html&flash class? I mean i would almost rather learn good CSS&HTML practices then VB6.
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I am absolutely terrible in flash and basic html is waste of time to me, i have researched this before, the thing i'm really insterested in is networking but my class offers nothing for that.
 
VB6 with teach you blocks you'll pretty much carry over to Ruby anyway. ;)
 
Popular little language. It defines blocks with class/end, do/end, similar to VB6 uses Dim/End. Syntactically similar, geek joke. :p
 
odoe said:
Popular little language. It defines blocks with class/end, do/end, similar to VB6 uses Dim/End. Syntactically similar, geek joke. :p
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what are some other networking languages, I haven't had much time to look into it
 
vb.net gets a bad wrap from the name association of the outdated Visual Basic and the syntax that IMO looks a little noobish compared to C style languages. From this some unfairly view VB.Net as a language geared amateurs doing simple toy projects while C# is more for professionals doing real world software. But its just as capable as C#. Yet nevertheless it does seem real world .net careers and applications tend to go more with C#.
 
VB is fine to get your feet wet at the high school level. Remember your teacher most likely isn't all that tech savvy. In my state computer teachers fall under the "business" department of education which means they don't really need to know anything about computers to get the job. They can just wing it from the book. It is hard to find someone who knows a modern language well enough to teach it who is willing to teach high school as programming languages don't always fill up a whole day for a teacher.

Also, VB is still widely used in networking, active directory/server management, help desk, and other computing venues. The idea behind learning a language in high school is to learn the concepts of syntax and get a general feel for how programming works. In high school it is an elective and even kids who will never go into programming or lack the ability to comprehend the subject matter are going to be taking the course with you. There is always college to learn other languages, and even then most colleges are teaching outdated languages as well.

It seems you are finding out right away that most of your life in a technical career will be learning things on the side and on your own time if you want to excel. School can only give you the foundation in this industry. All tech fields are so vast from one company to the next, let alone field to field. So my advice is take the VB course, learn what you can, don't expect much from a public school teacher/course and if you really have a desire to expand your knowledge take a course at your local community college one night a week.
 
Whatsisname said:
visual basic will poison your mind, html is arguably not a programming language, and flash isn't useful either.

In my experience with most high school programs, you are better off learning programming on your own.
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totally not true.....

HS programs help you learn the basic concepts of programming. they only suck if the teacher sucks.

Honestly, I learned a lot in my HS programming classes, so much so that my first year in college was pretty much review for me.

Nothing wrong with VB, it is still widely used and supported. Place I work at, everything is still VB and still program new stuff in VB (using .NET mostly)

Thing like excel/word macros are still vb script as DTS scrtips in older version of SQL
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
what are some other networking languages, I haven't had much time to look into it
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What do you mean by "other networking languages"?

Where I work everything is done in java at the application level (web based).

All of the background work is a mix of bash, java, perl, python depending on what it's being used for.

I use whichever one is best suited for the task at hand, or if I'm writing it for someone else to use later down the line...

I've been doing a lot of python for back end stuff lately and php for simple browser based utilities.

I think there could be a lot of value in starting with a scripting language...but I'm not a programmer/developer...they're just tasks that come along with the job.
 
Kaos said:
What do you mean by "other networking languages"?

Where I work everything is done in java at the application level (web based).

All of the background work is a mix of bash, java, perl, python depending on what it's being used for.

I use whichever one is best suited for the task at hand, or if I'm writing it for someone else to use later down the line...

I've been doing a lot of python for back end stuff lately and php for simple browser based utilities.

I think there could be a lot of value in starting with a scripting language...but I'm not a programmer/developer...they're just tasks that come along with the job.
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what's your job if you mind me asking?
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
what's your job if you mind me asking?
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Currently I'm a "Sr. Linux Operations Analyst" - what that means in the context of what I actually do is write and run scripts that do various things to files, or reformat them, or mine data from them and then stick them into a database.

Lately though they've been letting the new guy do all that and I've been working on system monitoring tools and applications with PHP/MySQL/etc/etc. I was also asked to take a look at "Lua" because a product we're considering buying uses Lua as it's scripting engine.

In another life though, I was one of a few network admins for a small company with various offices etc and we have hundreds of clients we did field service type work with. I used to use perl to make generating configs for various hardware we used for techs that we had that had come from a different background perhaps (we had a lot of old telco guys for their phone/wiring expertise but they were behind the curve for networking etc)

I don't know that that would be relevant today with how cisco/whoever does things, but certainly made life easier when we would do the install of a router or switch or whatever across dozens of sites (network based timeclocks, speakers...all kinds of goofy crap people would want). Another interesting bit is that a lot of the small/unique network appliances out there run on some kind of embedded linux - and use either native shell scripts (bash, ksh) or something like perl/python for a lot of their functionality - so it doesnt hurt to at least be familiar to some extent. I'm not doing that kind of stuff anymore because around here jobs for networking type stuff are hard to come by, but jobs revolving around data/software are more abundant (and well...for me, where I am, the pay was better too).

There are a lot of networking type libraries out there for perl, python, ruby to do all kinds of various things.

Just my take on it - and I don't really consider myself a programmer/coder/developer. Just some things that have solved problems for me along the way.
 
I use vb.net from time to time, BASIC and C were among the first computer languages I learnt and I transitioned from them to Visual Basic and then on to C++ and more recently in the past five years Java & JS, PHP, Obective-C (forced into due to iOS development) and Python.

It still surprises me today that a lot of programming languages I come across have very similar syntax and commands to early C and BASIC.

I like to still use vb for its quick and easy approach towards front end development in windows for mocking up tools quickly.

I still play around with Assembly for some of the toys I play with - now that's a computer language ;)
 
Why don't you learn Java? Any super old PC can run it just fine and everything including great development tools are free (eclipse or netbeans).

Lots of colleges use it for academics to teach strong object oriented programming and Java is very up-to-date and easy to understand.

Plenty of developer positions at large companies work primarily in Java. For example, FedEx Smartpost runs all systems and their website on Java.
 
Kaos said:
Where I work everything is done in java at the application level (web based).

All of the background work is a mix of bash, java, perl, python depending on what it's being used for.

I use whichever one is best suited for the task at hand, or if I'm writing it for someone else to use later down the line...

I've been doing a lot of python for back end stuff lately and php for simple browser based utilities.

I think there could be a lot of value in starting with a scripting language...but I'm not a programmer/developer...they're just tasks that come along with the job.
Click to expand...

Listen to this guy. If you want to be able to make money down the road, this is where you want to start.
 
First of, I am not a programmer, I am a network/systems admin by trade...

I first started writing batch files for GPO's and eventually progressed into .vbs, then I picked up Visual Basic. Visual Basic allows me to roll out feature-rich applications for specific tasks in a matter of days.
Eventually I would like to develop applications for Windows Phone 7 using the SDK.
 
XAuTomaT1CX said:
well I have no choice so i'm going to have to do virtual basic 6, I talked with my teacher, she knows it's outdated and we can't do anything about it, do to the computers being old.
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You'll be fine. Visual Basic 6 isn't going to be a language you use anywhere unless you're maintaining some old applications at some point in your career... but you'll learn the very basics of programming, including the use of variables, control flow, and conditional statements. In my work experience, I think I've spent about a day dealing with some old VB code. I've done some C and Java before as well, but the bulk of my work in my last three roles (including my current one) is a combination of C#, Javascript, Python, and Batch/Powershell scripting.

It'll also give you some experience with GUIs (though you'll be building your GUIs with a form editor) and help you familiarize yourself with event-driven programming.

If you're a complete newbie, you might also appreciate the verbosity of VB6.
 
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