Excellent introduction for programming newbies (Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition)

Member Name: GroundZero

Product:	Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition
Date:	29/09/00 (699 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very easy to learn, nice development environment

Disadvantages: Some features missing, not as powerful as C++

A friend of mine lent me his copy of VB6 Learning Edition last year, just about the time I started an IT course at university. As things turned out, they use VB to teach the basics of programming on the course, so that was a happy conincidence!

Visual Basic is one of the easiest programming languages to learn, with a much more straight-forward syntax than C++ for example. It also deals with OO concepts in a much more simple manner.

The Learning Edition comes with a number of videos, which take you through building simple applications. These demonstrate some of the most important concepts in GUI programming.

As someone who learnt programming the hard way, VB is a bit of a revelation, it is incredibly easy to create simple projects. Components can be dragged and dropped onto a form, making graphical design extremely easy. The Development environment is very user-friendly, and fully customisable.

For around £60, VB6 Learning Edition is an extremely good introduction to programming. You may want to move onto something more powerful once you've mastered the basics though.

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