Language to learn alongside VB6 ?

quotidian

quotidian

quotidian

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5 Jul 2012
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In computing we're learning VB6 which isn't that great a language as far as I can see and since I want to apply to EE or Systems and Software engineering next year. I was wondering what anyone would advise me to learn in tandem with VB6 at home just to broaden my knowledge and give me something proper to talk about at an interview or in my personal statement.

In school we're not just focusing on solving problems in VB6 but we're also learning some of the theory like why you use constants and loops and stuff like that not just VB6?

Thanks
Al

PS. I asked a similar question a while back but I wasn't doing VB6 at that point and don't want to be mixing something with vb6 if they're not really that similar or helpful to learn together?
 
If you're looking to develop in a professional environment, learn something Object Orientatated, eg. Java, C# or C++.

Hearing people come on here and say they're learning VB6 makes me cry, you're busting your balls to learn a completely obsolete language of no use to anyone.
 
Spunkey said:
If you're looking to develop in a professional environment, learn something Object Orientatated, eg. Java, C# or C++.

Hearing people come on here and say they're learning VB6 makes me cry, you're busting your balls to learn a completely obsolete language of no use to anyone.
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I'd hardly say we are busting our balls, its like the easiest but relevant class I could find to make up my a level choices.

I tried C before but got stuck at pointers and arrays as I didn't really understand what was going on?

Although I did do some C++ programming on a engineering experience week and I seemed to follow it better but we didn't do anything with arrays or pointers as we were using it for micro controller circuits.
 
Brian The Snail said:
Don't any institutions teach Pascal as an introduction to OO and data types?

A collegue of mine at Uni was marked down for using VB. That was a fair while ago though
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I think they must have used it in the past as there's like a whole stack of pascal textbooks on one of the window sills.

I'm think about maybe trying C or C++ but I liked the way with VB6 you can make something quite quickly with the forms creator?
 
In that case use C# with Visual Studio Express. The UI will be familiar to you, it's just the syntactic changes from VB6 to C# you'll need to learn. Shouldn't be too much of a jump, but make sure you get a good grounding in OO - can't stress that bit enough :)
 
quotidian said:
I'd hardly say we are busting our balls, its like the easiest but relevant class I could find to make up my a level choices.
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...but you are going to spending time learning a VERY old language that isn't really used these days. Microsoft has long since moved onto VB/C# .NET.

Why waste time learning an old language, when you use that (precious) class time, to learn a commonly used language?

Ans: my guess is that VB6 is all your school has - in terms of teachers, books, literature and software which is already set-up on your school computers. I can't believe that of all the languages available, your computing department would actively decide to teach VB6, by choice.

quotidian said:
I tried C before but got stuck at pointers and arrays as I didn't really understand what was going on?
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I learned C++ at a basic level and it was very difficult.
C# and Java are much much easier.
C++ is hardcore.
 
I wouldn't say using VB6 at school is necessarily all that bad (hell, that's how I started 11 years ago, also with A Levels). It's very easy to follow and very easy to demonstrate coding principles which of course are the same for all languages, and that's really what they need to be teaching at A Level. The only issues is you'll probably end up learning some VB6 specific things which are basically worthless these days.

I'd definitely learn some .NET at the same time if you can. Express version of Visual Studio is all you'll need. In terms of finding employment you'll find C# gives you more options, but there are still quite a few software houses and agencies that use VB.NET.

Just don't look at PHP whatever you do ;)
 
sunama said:
What's wrong with PHP?
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Well...

I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there.

You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes.

You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails with the middle of the head holding it sideways.

You pull out the pliers, but they don’t have those serrated surfaces; it’s flat and smooth. That’s less useful, but it still turns bolts well enough, so whatever.

And on you go. Everything in the box is kind of weird and quirky, but maybe not enough to make it completely worthless. And there’s no clear problem with the set as a whole; it still has all the tools.

Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox who tell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re all I’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you the houses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof is upside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapses inwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.

That’s what’s wrong with PHP.
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http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
 
Hehehe.

Thats funny.

I don't work with PHP, so I can't really comment on it. However, I've seen plenty of jobs advertised, requiring the applicant to be know PHP. So, it might be useful, if only to be able to put it onto your CV.
 
Thanks for the advice guys,

I've installed visual studio 2010 and had a play around with it and I was just wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of some good C# tutorials or example problems etc.?
 
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