Is Visual Basic Worth Learning?

[Robi_g]

I can code in C and C++, but am looking to create some programs with a proper GUI instead of just command line apps.

I know you can do this on VB but is there anything better out there? I don't want to sink all my time into this only to find no one uses it for proper work.

Thanks in advance

[Xaring]

Java is cross platform, personally, I use obj-C (but i program  for mac, don't know if its got PC compatibility)

[Guest]

You can use allegro with C/C++

[Jade]

Java is cross platform, personally, I use obj-C (but i program  for mac, don't know if its got PC compatibility)

It doesn't.

 

OP: I wouldn't bother with VB if you know C#/C++ already. Perhaps pick up Java and a scripting language (Ruby/Python?).

[madknight3]

I can code in C and C++, but am looking to create some programs with a proper GUI instead of just command line apps.

I know you can do this on VB but is there anything better out there? I don't want to sink all my time into this only to find no one uses it for proper work.

Thanks in advance

While there's nothing wrong with learning VB, you should pick C# instead. It's much more popular these days, can do all the GUI stuff VB can, and is more similar in syntax to the languages you already know.

[as96]

I can code in C and C++, but am looking to create some programs with a proper GUI instead of just command line apps.

I know you can do this on VB but is there anything better out there? I don't want to sink all my time into this only to find no one uses it for proper work.

Thanks in advance

You can create programs with GUI with C++ if you want look at Qt or GTK+

But if you want to use .NET you should look at C# coming from C++ you will probably feel more comfortable with that.

[Robi_g]

@as96

@madknight3

Thanks for the advice, I'll have a look at C#

[Robi_g]

It doesn't.

 

OP: I wouldn't bother with VB if you know C#/C++ already. Perhaps pick up Java and a scripting language (Ruby/Python?).

I've tried python before, I don't really like the pickiness with spacing.

 

Also, not quite on topic, but is Ruby the same as Ruby on Rails?

[trag1c]

If you need GUI finding a good library or learning C# are much better options than learning VB in my opinion.

[MatazaNZ]

I can code in C and C++, but am looking to create some programs with a proper GUI instead of just command line apps.

I know you can do this on VB but is there anything better out there? I don't want to sink all my time into this only to find no one uses it for proper work.

Thanks in advance

I would say VB would be worth picking up if you were a beginner, as it's a dying language, but good to learn solid programming foundations. But as you already know C/C++, I would suggest either Java if you want cross platform support, or C# if you want to use the .NET framework for a Windows only application

[Art Vandelay]

A lot of businesses use VB. Probably worth learning just because of that.

[lubblig]

As most others said, C# is a really good option since its a language that will more likely stick around than VB and its honestly more powerful. (But if you ever have to learn VB for some other reason, it shouldn't be hard since VB and C# are very similar.)

 

But what I wanted to point out, is that with the release of Visual studio 2015 (currently in preview/beta) you will be able to use C# to develop for a lot more platforms than just Windows Phone and Windows. With it you should be able to compile to iOS and Android as well (though you will probably need to buy a license to Xamarin if you want to be able to compile iOS and Android apps, but I'm not sure so you better check what you need Xamarin for and so on).

 

But this is worth to note when choosing a language to learn since this can help you develop for a bigger amount of platforms, knowing only one language. I don't think it compiles to run on Linux or OS X though. But it's kind of cool of Microsoft to include support for it if you want it. Basically just another reason to why C# is a good choice over VB. Not that VB is terrible, its just old and you will probably not get that much use out of it.

[madknight3]

As most others said, C# is a really good option since its a language that will more likely stick around than VB and its honestly more powerful. (But if you ever have to learn VB for some other reason, it shouldn't be hard since VB and C# are very similar.)

 

While this may be true for a few features (can't confidently say one way or the other), VB and C# both build into the same language so it's mostly just a syntax difference.

 

But what I wanted to point out, is that with the release of Visual studio 2015 (currently in preview/beta) you will be able to use C# to develop for a lot more platforms than just Windows Phone and Windows. With it you should be able to compile to iOS and Android as well (though you will probably need to buy a license to Xamarin if you want to be able to compile iOS and Android apps, but I'm not sure so you better check what you need Xamarin for and so on).

 

You can still do that now with the Xamarin extensions for visual studio. Cool if it'll come built in now though!

 

But this is worth to note when choosing a language to learn since this can help you develop for a bigger amount of platforms, knowing only one language. I don't think it compiles to run on Linux or OS X though. But it's kind of cool of Microsoft to include support for it if you want it. Basically just another reason to why C# is a good choice over VB. Not that VB is terrible, its just old and you will probably not get that much use out of it.

 

Pretty sure you can develop for Linux and OS X with Mono although I can't say how good it is. Not sure if I would choose it over Java for a cross platform language at this time, but at least the option is there.

[vorticalbox]

As most others said, C# is a really good option since its a language that will more likely stick around than VB and its honestly more powerful. (But if you ever have to learn VB for some other reason, it shouldn't be hard since VB and C# are very similar.)

 

But what I wanted to point out, is that with the release of Visual studio 2015 (currently in preview/beta) you will be able to use C# to develop for a lot more platforms than just Windows Phone and Windows. With it you should be able to compile to iOS and Android as well (though you will probably need to buy a license to Xamarin if you want to be able to compile iOS and Android apps, but I'm not sure so you better check what you need Xamarin for and so on).

 

But this is worth to note when choosing a language to learn since this can help you develop for a bigger amount of platforms, knowing only one language. I don't think it compiles to run on Linux or OS X though. But it's kind of cool of Microsoft to include support for it if you want it. Basically just another reason to why C# is a good choice over VB. Not that VB is terrible, its just old and you will probably not get that much use out of it.

Agree i learnt visual basic in college now dong c# and it is a much better langue and not that much different from java.

 

visual basic is much more "wordy" than c# like

IF num = 1 and num2 = 6 thendoStuff()

where as c# is 

if (num == 1) && (num2 == 6) then {doStuff();}

[lubblig]

While this may be true for a few features (can't confidently say one way or the other), VB and C# both build into the same language so it's mostly just a syntax difference.

 

 

 

You can still do that now with the Xamarin extensions for visual studio. Cool if it'll come built in now though!

 

 

 

Pretty sure you can develop for Linux and OS X with Mono although I can't say how good it is. Not sure if I would choose it over Java for a cross platform language at this time, but at least the option is there.

 

You're right, they are very much a like, but there are the smaller things that I appreciate so much with C# that I'm pretty sure VB doesn't have (don't quote me on it completely tough, I may be remembering it wrong since I haven't developed in VB for a long time). For example comments works a lot better, this won't necessarily help the code but it does help to code and you can keep things cleaner more easy.

 

I didn't know that, but still. It's a good thing for C# since you can use it for multiple platforms.

 

Yes, I believe so too. After I made the post I got a bit unsure with what I wrote so I decided to google it. I still don't think that Xamarin can compile to Linux/mac (?) but like you are saying, if you use mono that should work. Since that is a compiler made by Novell and not Microsoft and should be able to compile for Linux and Mac operating systems.