Visual Basic Forum for Visual Basic Programmers VB

[vbman995]

I was wondering which version of Visual Basic that VB programmers were planning to use for developing their software. Please cast your vote before this Poll is over!

[P.T.A.M.]

Since the Express edition is only going to be around till the full/normal version of VB.Net 2005 is released it doesn't really belong in the poll

At the moment I use VB6 but when .Net 2005 comes out I'm planning to buy a book...
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No one is completely useless. They can at least be an example of what to avoid.

[vbman995]

Microsoft plans to sell Visual Basic 2005 Express in a few months for $49.99. It won't have all the great features the Visual Basic 2005 will have, but it will be designed for beginners.

[P.T.A.M.]

That's expensive for begginers IMO
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No one is completely useless. They can at least be an example of what to avoid.

[dougthomas]

Of course, over here it will be £50.00 ! I would guess far too much for beginners. IMHO Microsoft should produce an Educational Version FOC for students and the like (not just Schools and Colleges)

If you look at the history of Java, released by Sun Systems back in the 90's totally free, with loads of example code, books and the like, the concept of being totally portable with the implementation of the Java VM. I remember being at the launch of Java in the UK and predicting that it would never take off as Business and Industry would not put up with the idea that someone could write some code which would be automatically downloaded to your machine and executed with you having no control - how secure was that ? (especially bearing in mind that we were in the Defence industry). Guess I was slightly (totally) wrong ! look how prevalent it is now.(Mind you, look at the security flaws in Operating Systems it has exposed - so I guess I was nearly right !)

It's a wonder that schools and colleges don't teach Java mainstream, instead of the more "traditional" languages like VB and C.(I guess again that no one has taught the Teachers) Boreland et al then jumped on the bandwaggon and we had J+ and J++ (I've got a free version of J+ somewhere), no doubt there will be a J.NET... and on and on it goes. In fact the cycle is nearly ready for the next language to be launched. Perhaps a Poll to guess what it's going to be called would be fun !!

I don't think it will be long before beginners and students are going to want to be able to write apps for their Mobile (Cell) 'Phones. I've written a couple of apps and it is as "easy" as VB, C or any other language. The major problem is that the 'phone "operating systems" are changing so rapidly it's just about impossible to write an app that will work on all 'phones. Give it a few more years and I suspect we'll have windows for 'phones and VB.PHONE.NET

What I don't understand is what a "beginner's version" actually is. If you look at some of the projects the beginners and students using this Forum are attempting to do, I would suggest that a "beginners" version is not going to be enough. It appears to me that more and more of their requirements involve the APIs and SDKs (Why are people terrified of using the API by the way - it's just another set of routines that you don't have to write !)

In my days of teaching and lecturing, getting students(most of them teachers, by the way !) to write a program that would calculate factorials of numbers and work out combinations, and things like that was considered tricky. Now, of course things are much better, there's scope to do a million-and-one things which 10 years ago would have been considered far too difficult for a non-professional.

I mean, look at recent postings, people are complaining that they can't think of anything to write !!

How sad is that ? Me - I just think of a bit of VB that I don't know much or anything about, and then try to use it. Once I've done it, it becomes a reference in case I ever need to use it again. I don't normally bother with the user interface unless its graphical - debug.print is good enough for me! (now how sad is that !!)

Anyway, I'm straying from the subject so I'll get off my soap box now.

Regards
Doug

[dougthomas]

Hi again,

As I was saying.........

No. I've just read through my previous response and come up with an idea for an App that people could have a go at. How about a Cross-compiler from (a subset of) VB to Mobile Phone ? Development kits for Mobiles are freely available from people like Nokia and Motorola together with some example code. This might be the next solution looking for a problem !! =D

Regards
Doug

[vbman995]

There is special software for designing software for mobile devices.... it is called the Mobile Internet Toolkit and is available free from Microsoft. It is a addin for Visual Basic.NET.