Visual Basic or C++

[Banana]

I'm required to take Programming Fundamentals for my major. However the spring quarter they teach only Visual Basic.

I personally would have preferred C++, but I'm not sure if I really can put it off until next Fall quarter and fit it with my other required classes.

So I'm asking; is VB adequate for basic fundamentals or will it forever ravage my mind and render me useless as a on-the-side programmer?

Thanks for any advices in advance.

[ast3r3x]

The first programming class I had ever taken was VB, I took an into to C++ two years later and did fine, as well as learning PHP was really easy too. So VB didn't mess me up, although they are nothing alike. I think VB may have helped a little into baby-stepping me into programming though.

If nothing else it should at least be good for a laugh to see how bad people are at understanding simple concepts.

[spotcatbug]

I would only use VB to teach the very fundamental fundamentals of programming.

[JohnnyTheA]

I'm required to take Programming Fundamentals for my major.

What is your major? If its Engineering or physics, I would take C++ because you have a good chance of using C/C++ code in other classes and in a real job. If your major is anything else, I would go with VB because you can create programs very very fast. If you ONLY take one programming class, you can do more with VB than C++.

Java would be the best though in my opinion.... You can use on more platforms, its as easy as VB to do GUI programs, and has the same basic syntax C/C++.. But you said your options were C++/VB...


Johnny

[thuh Freak]

do u want to be a programmer? if so, do a real programming language, like c++. vb focuses largely on the visual side, the interface to the end-user. lower level languages like c or c++, while they can also compose visual solutions and UIs, typically require more effort to do so. "programmers" tend to care more about the meat and bones of a program instead of the interface. my UIs tend to be kludgy and ugly, but i think my code is damned beautiful.

i think a language like c++ would be better suited to teaching you the important concepts, if your goal is programming. a language like vb, imo, will allow you to make working visual apps quicker, and is probably better in the job market (last i checked, a few months ago, there were more vb jobs availabled than c/c++).

[Banana]

My major is CAD/CAM.

I only assume that they want me to learn it so I can do some tweaking in CADs. What languages they use there are in-houses, IIRC. Beyond that, I don't expect to go around building up a new program that will cure cancer and then some more. :p

However, I'm more interested in actually understanding how computers work by and large. If that is unrelated to which languages I take, then I'll put up with VB.

Edit- this is only one programming class I'll be required to take.

[AsLan^]

If you take VB as a requirement, and decided you liked coding, couldn't you take C++ as an elective when it came up ?

[Banana]

After a class, it hit me-

If I went and take VB, I'd have skills that's more immediately usable as I work on MS Access as part of my job and since that's what I do best, might as well develop VB, as MS Access uses.

That said, I'll just take AsLan's advice- if I happen to be short a class in subsequent quarters, I'll look into taking C++.

[Kickaha]

Wait... when did VB become a real programming language??

[Banana]

That's true. Technically, it's more like a crutching language. ;)

[bassplayinMacFiend]

It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

Kickaha,

I guess VB became a real programming language once you could find people to pay you to program in it.

[Banana]

So, I suppose I'm going to hell for this?

Kickaha, what's the running rate?

[thuh Freak]

most of my pay code is in vB, and i'm making a damn good job for a college dropout.

i still dont like to think of it as a real programming language.

BASIC is very different from modern vb though. For me, it stops being BASIC when u lose the line numbers.

(i was first introduced to programming through BASIC)

[Kickaha]

What, for VB programmers? No clue.

Put it this way. I have a very good friend who is another techie - he's a wizard with graphics hardware and low level (ie, performance) graphics, yet was the lead architect on one of the most successful graphics engines of the last few years. In other words, he knows his stuff.

My wife and I were having dinner with he and his wife, a program manager at another tech firm, when she announced she was taking programming classes, and was going to learn to be a programmer like my friend and I. "Great! What do they have you doing?" says I. "Visual Basic!" She says proudly.

My friend later took me aside and thanked me, quite seriously, for not guffawing. He said he'd had the hardest time keeping a straight face and not dashing her hopes on the ground.

You can certainly program in VB. You can also program in AppleScript. One happens to have MS's muscle behind it, but it doesn't make either one of them a particularly robust or well-regarded language.

But hey, people *will* pay you to program in VB because it's the only way to get anything 'real' done on MS systems.

[Banana]

Agreed.

and with Access being the de facto database standard, VB is almost a given for any database monkeys. So with me monkeying with my company's database, it's a decision made solely on money, not moral. Yes, I'm a money-grubbing whore, so can it. :D

I do have to agree that it's not a real programming language.. it's more like.... coding wizard, really.

And while I've never touched C++ or any other programming language other than BASIC and a bit of Pascal, I am fairly sure that VB is much more likely to cause more bugs and weirdness because it tries to code for you, and you have to cajole it to get it working the way you want it but may produce wrong undesired result.