Brief explanation of programming?

Paramount

Paramount

Paramount

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Joined
6 Jul 2003
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Howdy all,

I've been asked by my boss to learn VB.NET (I'm a part time techie at a small online business). I'm happy to do this as I'd like to be able to programme applications and am even thinking about taking it forward as a career. But upon doing a bit of light research myself I've discovered there's many similar languages and it's all a bit confusing. So if anyone has the time I'd appreciate it if you could answer a few of my questions :)

Is VB.NET any different from other versions of VB like VBx?

What is it most commonly used for, and what else is possible? What could I expect to do from a professional standpoint if I knew this language? What about from a leisurely/hobby standpoint?

Can it be used in conjunction with web development? If so, in what ways?

Can it do the same things as C?

How long would it take for a beginner like me to at least get to grips with the language enough to understand what it's capable of and how I advance myself to achieve that?

I think the business aim is to make something for the tech support team to manage and reply to support tickets. Is this the best method for this?

Any other tips or info I should know? If you were new to this what would you want to hear? Where should I start?

Again, thanks to anyone if you have the time to answer :)
 
Briefly:

VBx languages, e.g. VB4, VB5, VB6 - are the older versions, i.e. non-.Net Framework versions. They are interpreted, and quite outdated - today they are primarily involved in legacy applications.

There is also VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) which is used in scripting Office apps like Word and Excel.

VB.Net uses the .Net framework, so you have access to multithreading, remoting, etc. It can also be used for web-development, in code-behind pages through ASP.Net.

From a hobbyist standpoint you can create your own standalone apps, database apps, mobile apps, and websites and webservices. Professionally there's less demand for VB.Net than, for example, C#.

There's a lot of online resources for .Net generally, and VB.Net specifically - you could do worse than starting on microsoft's own msdn.

I would *strongly* recommend that you consider C# as a preference. You can do just the same, and given that you're starting from scratch the learning-curve will be similar. VB.Net may seem a little easier, but C#'s syntax has more in common with java and C++.

Download a free copy of Visual Studio Express to try them out. Whichever language you choose primarily, its not that difficult to learn the other as most of your time is spent learning the .Net framework and what features and functionality are available to you. You might also take a look at the msdn magazine (online version) for plenty of startup/beginner/101-type examples.

hth, :)
 
I'd also say that C#is the better language to learn as it has more support, more tutorials and there seems to be more positions available requiring it, should you want to take it up professionally.

With any .Net language you can create most kind of applications, web, mobile, windows, services etc.

With regards to the length of time it takes to learn, I'd say it depends on what you already know. If you've had some exposure to object oriented languages before it's just be a case of picking up the syntactical differences and off you go. However if you've never had any coding experience before it'd be quite a steep learning curve. I'd say it'd be at least 6 months before you'd be able to work autonomously. Not that that should put you off - I just want to give you some expectations.

If you're looking to make a support ticket system the best place for you to start would probably be to find a freeware .Net one and pick it apart to try and understand how it works and then build your own to meet your company's specific requirements.
 
IMO, this is everything that is wrong with software development - not with you wanting to learn to code, but your boss expecting you to learn how to learn programming and then create software that will be used by the business.
I'm guessing that there aren't any resources in your company that know how to program to be able to create this?

Learning to code by creating some software that will be used in a production environment is a bad move and, while it will probably help you understand how to do things better, you will most likely end up with a horribly written piece of software, especially if there is no one to support and guide you.
Again, this is not a criticism of you, all developers write horrible code when they first start out (and many continue writing horible code for the rest of their career, but that's a different matter ;)) but expecting your first experience of development to be a production system is way off the mark.

As already said, I would have a look at some free software, a quick search on Google shows that there are many open source support ticket applications already out there.

Try this for starters.
http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/

Having said all of that I would definitely encourage you to learn how to program, but I just don't think what your boss wants is the right way.
 
This is a message to your boss :

YOU ARE CHEAP AND YOUR BUSINESS IS GOING TO SUFFER BECAUSE OF IT.

Direct him to this thread XD
 
Shoseki said:
This is a message to your boss :

YOU ARE CHEAP AND YOUR BUSINESS IS GOING TO SUFFER BECAUSE OF IT.

Direct him to this thread XD
Click to expand...

And then direct him to this post:

Don't listen to everything you hear, the worlds 2nd biggest building company,3 of Japans leading motor industries and the worlds largest primary resources company all use applications developed in the language you have chosen.

And then ask him to make his own decisions.
 
~J~ said:
And then direct him to this post:

Don't listen to everything you hear, the worlds 2nd biggest building company,3 of Japans leading motor industries and the worlds largest primary resources company all use applications developed in the language you have chosen.

And then ask him to make his own decisions.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the comment was referring to the choice of language.
 
Wow, thanks a lot for the responses guys.

Ha yes I'd agree with the cheap comment. They're not particularly big and do outsource most of the website dev, but would like to move as much as they can internal and because I've been a loyal (and cheap!) employee offered it to me first. I will beable to get support from someone who knows what they're doing when I get into the full swing of things - my work will be checked and fedback and there's no way they'll let my sloppy learners code go live, but the actual learning will be done by myself in my own time. Plus I'm at uni atm so the chance to pickup some real world experience doing this at the same time can only be a good thing for me. The support ticket app will likely just be the start as I become more comfortable with the language.

I've got no direct language experience but taught myself html and php by looking at examples and picking them apart so if it's possible to do the same here I'm sure I won't find it too hard.

So, first things first - I'll propose C# as this isn't the first time I've heard about it's superiority. I've also been scouring MSDN and have watched a few introduction vids which makes me feel a lot better.

Great, feeling much better and deffo more confident about the whole thing. Thanks a lot everyone. I'll update this with my progress.
 
Sorry I didn't mean cheap because of the vb comment, I meant because he is forcing it upon you for high caliber software.

Nothing wrong with you wanting to become a developer, but without proper training and experience, what you will produce will be sketchy, its only natural. So, he has invested nothing and you have made all the investment, and he gets "highly sketchy". His loss.
 
Paramount said:
- my work will be checked and fedback and there's no way they'll let my sloppy learners code go live, but the actual learning will be done by myself in my own time.
Click to expand...

No offense but that is untrue. There is absolutely no way you will produce code that is acceptable for a production environment. That is no reflection on you or your skills, it's just that I find a lot you learn about programming, you need to learn by doing, and you aren't going to produce fault tolerant, scalable, maintainable code on your first programming project. I cringe at code I wrote after programming for 1-2 years.

I'm not trying to put you down, good luck with learning to programme, there will be plenty of help here for you. I do recommend c# over vb.net, I have coded in both and prefer c# immensely more than vb.
 
c# is a better language to work in. There is no point in java unless you required something to be truly cross platform (or extensively web based). The best advice I can give you is don't learn to program on the application you are being tasked to write.

Make a few applications for learning purposes, and complete the entire SLC on them, before you even begin to tackle the original requirement.
 
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