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Is Visual Basic a Good Beginner's Language?
Austin Milbarge asks: "Ever since the .NET framework came along a few years ago, Microsoft had promised VB developers that their language would finally be taken seriously. To be honest, I never understood why some non-VB developers thought of VB as a 'toy' language, but that is for another article. Anyways, Microsoft made good on their promise and transformed VB from an easy to learn language into an object oriented power house, with lots of OOP functionality thrown in. The old VB has been discontinued, and the new VB is no longer a simple language. With all the fancy changes, is VB still the great beginner's language it once was? Would you recommend it to a beginner over C#?"
Really Short Answer: No.
.NET, for no other reason than because C# requires it) is that VB passes off this idiotic idea of grouped functions as "Object Oriented Programming". The fact that these "objects" can't be instantiated, nor can they be used as Abstract Data Types, makes them utterly useless for OOP development. I would even go as far as to say that VB's previous implemenation of OOP was misleading and dangerous.
Short Answer: Are you out of your bleeding mind?
Long Answer: Visual Basic is riddled with problems for those who are new to programming. The first problem that hits someone looking to learn programming is that he/she sees a pretty layout manager, but no code. It's quite possible to build an interface without ever writing a single line of code. When the entire point of the exercise is to learn coding, this is NOT a good thing.
The second problem is that Visual Basic doesn't clearly introduce the "programmer" to concepts like functions, interpreters, and compilers. Most of the functions in VB are automatically generated, giving the impression that these are magic incantations that shouldn't be touched by a "programmer". VB Studio has an interpreter, but it isn't interactive in the same way as BASIC interpreters. This makes it useless as a learning tool. The compiler is mostly a matter of setting a file name and hitting a button to produce an EXE. So the new programmer gains no understanding of how code gets translated into an executable. Concepts like linking, for example, are completely glossed over.
One of my personal beefs with the older versions of VB (which have been corrected in
VB also loses major points for failing to include typed variables. The automatic conversions between numbers, strings, and other types only serves to confuse a new programmer, especially when the auto-cast does the wrong thing. A new programmer should be taught to understand how data is represented by computers, not abstracted away so far that they can't understand how to fix problems.
Beyond that, VB tends to do a lot of confusing things that are not easily explainable. The lack of useful documentation and/or a good documentation browser only serves to increase confusion.
To be honest, I never understood why some non-VB developers thought of VB as a 'toy' language,
VB had/has its uses, but it's still just a RAD tool. As soon as you run into situations that the RAD tool can't handle, you should be using a real language rather than trying to hack it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Python has been suggested. I also fall in the camp that say that python is probably the best learner language. Interpreter is freely available for all popular platforms. Python has enough of the niceties of VB (no strong types, easy array/dictionary construction, etc) while having enough features of a "real" programming language (shared memory, forking, etc) to teach about the concepts.
Developing in an IDE like VS obfuscates and distances the programmer from the code. It's a necessary evil for developing some things. But throwing a learning user at the bubbly GUI to figure out the wizards for him/herself is akin to putting a new pilot in the seat of a 747. There is just too much there that would seem confusing.
For these three reasons I would suggest python:
1. All you need is a free (as in speech) interpreter and your favorite text editor.
2. Documentation, howtos, sample code is easily available (there are plenty of good VB help sites out there, but I have found many many many fantastic samples of python).
3. The syntax of VB and python would seem similar enough to a beginner.
On the other hand, I would not recommend a beginner to use Visual Studio or any of the IDE where you drag-and-drop to program.
Yeah, because programming boilerplate includes, class, main, and event handling code (which does nothing on its own) is really going to get someone hooked. Screw that. Give that code to a new programmer for free and let them add in something that does something fun, obvious, and interesting right away. That's how you'll get 'em hooked.
Look at it this way... no-one got hooked on pot because they liked making bongs.
Rapid Application Development. Tools like Visual Basic and other 4GL langauges were intended to improve software development speed and accuracy by providing tools whereby the computer automatically did as much of the work as possible. The most common type of RAD tool was GUI Builders like Visual Basic. (Though there were quite a few for database development, networking, gaming, and other areas.)
The primary issue with such tools is that they tend to fail spectacularly as soon as they get outside their intended area of use. Visual Basic, for example, came along just in time to be abused for Client/Server development. Since VB wasn't designed with networking in mind, it was often faster and easier to do the code in C (and later Java). VB's life as a GUI front-end was extended thanks to the ability to link in COM+/ActiveX controls for more complex tasks, but GUIs eventually morphed into far more complex variants that the GUI Builder couldn't easily support. (Ever notice how you can spot a Visual Basic application visually?)
At that point, most serious programmers realized that they were taking longer to hack VB to do what they wanted rather than just coding it from scratch in another language. So they gave up on it and moved back to C/C++/Delphi and the new-kid-on-the-block, Java.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I would argue that Javascript is even better for a newbie. No special software (only a web browser & text editor are needed), no compiler, and it runs on almost every platform available. It uses variables, arrays, loops and functions. You can make changes and see results almost immediately. Just refresh the page!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
On the contrary, C is one of the worst languages you can use as your first language. I've tried teaching C to first year students. You end up teaching the syntax and vagaries of C and not very much programming or computer science.
One of the first things that beginning programmers want to do is do stuff with strings. Do you really want to explain C strings to people who have never programmed before? (There's a reason that microcomputer BASICs got peoples imaginations working. You can do stuff in it straight away!)
Amusingly, about the only worse mainstream language I can think of for this purpose is VB. C's syntax and semantics at least have the advantage of being consistent. (In its defence, VB wasn't exactly designed to be the way it is. It was a fairly inextensible language which nonetheless got extended as the years progressed. "Congealed" might be a better word than "designed".)
Save C for semester 2. Semester 1 should use a language which emphasises the basics. A functional language (say, Scheme or Haskell, but not ML; ML is a cool family of languages, but the syntax is way too arcane for a first language) would be my first choice, but even Java is a better choice than C. Hell, even C++ is a better choice. The syntax is at least as quirky as that of C, but at least it has a decent standard library which lets you do stuff straight away.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Actually, Java and C# have nearly identical syntax. I would suggest learning Object-Oriented to start, and concentrating on what OO is, rather than all the power of a specific language. OO is definitely the future, but many people who transition from procedural or don't learn the power of objects from the beginning just use Java or C# as procedural languages.
I have found that in programming, taking a class will cut down on the time spent banging your head against the wall because there's someone to answer your questions, even if they're stupid newbie questions. Programming teachers are usually far more responsive than other teachers (systems analysis, database, e.g.) because it's more practical.
If you're just learning how to program, I wouldn't worry about pointers immediately. Visual Basic is powerful in that you can write applications quickly and learn really fast.
Visual Basic: Schneider
Java: Barker
C#: Barker
Whatever your choice, there are free IDE's for all this now from Sun and Microsoft, and part of learning will be learning how to navigate the IDE. It's a great time to learn to program.
Where I live, people can't find enough VB or C# programmers, and not enough Java programmers with a security clearance. Before you buy the hype of the next great programming language, check out the want ads on Monster or Dice and see what people need now.
And remember, the highest-paid programmers (not team leaders)still write COBOL for Mainframes, because nobody else knows how to do this, and the big companies still can't get all their systems off of them.
All fresher Engineers here (Cambridge, UK) have to learn to program 8086 assembler. Except they don't get an assembler, they have to enter the program using a hex keypad on the front panel.
Yes, in 2006. And no, I'm not joking, I did it last term.
Pirate Party UK
I hate to jump on the Java/VB/C/C++ lovefest, but the question was about a teaching language.
Why not something simple - like Pascal? Basic? A step up, but COBOL?
Yes, there are advantages to learning a language like C++ that you will end up using, but it's not necessarily the best approach.
One of the biggest complaints I have about a lot of the VB and C++ programmers I've been exposed to is a complete lack of fundamentals. Code that works, but sucks because they never bother to think of the background stuff ... memory, performance to name two. Multithreading is not a topic to start beginners on.
OTOH, how many people here can take the Nth root of a number by hand? At some point, you have to accept that automation is here stay. The first time I hit VB, after doing a large project in CICS, I was really happy. Tons of things that were a royal pain became relatively painless. Then the downside ... performance sucks compared to CICS. Database interface sucked. Debugging really sucked. Generally, I like having my code in one place, not scattered over screens, buttons, rollovers ...
Things are better now. SQL/SQL Server work really well together. A proper front end in some tools can be done FAST and painlessly (e.g. Brio (Now Hyperion Intelligence, to better play with the faster database around!)
I've seen a couple of multi-hundred-million dollar projects die, because of innappropriate choice of languages (VB for one, VC++ the other). But management bought into the argument New=Better.
Personally, I think C++ is a horrible choice as a starter language. Then again, I started on a virtual assembler language, designed strictly for teaching. Kinda like Pascal.
C?? Pleas...
:p). The issues that you're talking about are becoming more and more irrelevant, just as machine-language programming did (for 99.9999% of source code).
If you want to learn the *fundamentals* of programming, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is the best book I've seen, and it deals not at all with "memory management", "efficient use of resources", or other archane crap (since it uses Scheme
Not that Scheme itself is used much beyond the academic. But a lot if its ideas are showing up in modern programming platforms that are much in use (memory management, closures, etc). I wouldn't tout scheme as a "beginning programming language" but I'd tout it as a "programming language to learn the fundamentals of programs for a potential CS major". I'd tout C for neither.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000