Learning Visual Basic

[dharmadrummer]

I am currently an IT student and one of the classes I recently took was database development. Alhough, the class only focussed on back end development. I asked the instructor about learning front end development and he gave me a book on visual basic; now I have a few questions.

 

As my first programming language, how difficult will it be? (considering I am learning it on my own)

What are visual basic's main uses?

After learning VB, what would be a good language for me to learn if I wanted to advance my programming knowledge?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Mattie432]

I started by learning VB, i think that its a reasonable language to get the basic concepts with and isn't too difficult.
I believe that as its a Microsoft development it has integration with all of Microsofts products (word, excel, access, etc) and there is lots of online help on MSDN and other resources.

[slyfox13]

1. as a first language it's rather easy to get the hang of,  a good tutorial would be http://www.youtube.com/course?list=ECC601DEA22187BBF1 (thenewboston does a lot of different languages in case you want to learn another one)

 

2. i'm not sure what some of the uses are but you can pretty much do anything well

 

3. after VB python is good C is good, if you feel really comfortable with programming java or C++ might be good

[majorawsome]

Visual Basic is an extremely easy language IMO. The one thing I don't like about it is how you declare variables, in other languages it is more straight forward.

Python would be a good language after that because it gives you the code conventions that is needed for the real world.

[bchampion96]

If you get comfortable in VB, I'd start with C++. It's a real swiss army knife and you can do pretty much anything with it. I'm learning C++ and OpenGL side by side at the moment :D

[kamaltmo]

I Start with VB.Net too, I think its a great laguage to start with its very simple, visual studio is a great programming enviroment and it will teach you basic programing conecpts well. Assuming you understand the language you can probably learn any language you would like after words, syntax is the only major factor that changes 

[jetbuster]

Id use VB.net (if you have to) dont try VB for access youll end up breaking everything and corrupting the file itself :S
I've been through an intro to programming using java(for theory and syntax) and then C# for functional and GUI programming (given that Visual studio is drag and drop that for basic GUI Dev)
I've also seen a few old school power computer users who swear by VB so it's probably its integration into MS products not the language itself thats broken.
Theres also alot of free python 'webinars' and my high school brother likes it alot