19 replies to this topic

[alapidus]

i wanna learn VB but i know that it costs money. for someone like me who justs want to learn, experiment, and make some basic (no pun intended) programs, what are my best and cheapest options? and where can i buy it?

if i can get VB bundled with a book tutorial that would be great!

[Galahad]

Easy way to learn VB? Well... VB is pretty easy by itself, but download as much source code as you can, READ it, UNDERSTAND it, and yes... read HELP... That always helps

As for bundled software.. I believe there is VB Learning Edition, but I don't know if it comes with books...

[de4ws]

Im not sure where you can get the VB Student edition, or whatever, not sure what it is called, but i know there is one. I got it at my school (in comp sci 1). My professor burned a bunch of copies. He has real version, then got a liscense to burn 50 or so (without all the features) and sold them for 5 bucks (because the liscense cost a lot of money. It comes with most of what i need for making my basic programs, the only thing i miss is the Change to .exe function. This is the best way to go, i imagine you can find them on Amazon.com or ebay or something. Good luck

[joeblow1102]

i found a book at my local library that had a working version of vb on it. however, it was a demo and didn't have all of the features. i think i just couldn't make a lot of programs and i couldn't make them .exe. that sorta sucked. or do what someone before said to do and take a class at school.

[dropout21]

ethical or not, you can download the torrent of visual studio 6: visual basic 6 and visual c++. one major problem, especially for learning, is that the MSDN files are not included, a section of these files, is the help files. so its best to find a good tutorial online if you dont have the MSDN files. the visual studio 6 takes a ... while.. to download... if your on dial up i wouldnt attempt it

[Arbin Gurung]

Looking at others' source code also help besides going though books this is a very fast and effective option. That's what i think.

[Matt1eD]

I have never found VB books to be good. Most start with extremely intuitive basics which (I assume) are v. simple to someone who must be pretty computer proficient / IT literate before they'd start think of programming. Experiment and then use a book, you are not going to write a virus that destroys your boot.ini files just from experimenting. Studio .NET is not very new user friendly and the saving system is very trying to be helpful but not (a bit like Win XP {and Longorn}. However try:

Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours by Perry Hettihewa - www.samspublishing.com included a copy of the working model of VB6, which prevents you from creating *.exe(s) and does not include the MSDN library (e.g. just v. simple help on a few topics) however it is available on Microsofts website.

Visual Basic 6 In Easy Steps by Tim Anderson; available on Amazon (it has a lightbulb on the frontcover). Visit the publishers site for more info.; Computer Step Publishing. They've updated it since my edition too.

Also for making games and teaching you along the way ISBN only as getting tired now! (0-7615-3553-5). Amazon do it.

Someone earlier said VB was simple and quite (forgive the pun) basic; try reading Professional Visual Basic 6 - The 2003 Programmer's Resource, ISBN (1-86100-818-x). You might start getting a bit perplexed at both the cost and content. And no it isn't just SQL database links... it gets worse.

I think that you can download a free copy of the Beta Express edition of Visual Basic 2005; but I still recommend VB6 - certainly for beginners.

I thoroughly recommend you learn VB6 before getting involved with the .NET framework which can add complications (and franckly VB6 is much nicer; despite a few less features).

Well I hope this helps, but the lightbulb book is the best to start. Most important of all - have fun.

Matt Dickins

[Matt1eD]

Also:

Try and get a programming friend to write the code for a program you want (binary calculators are a good start) and then talk through it with you - and work out future versions of the program and then talk through the code. N.B. not all programmers have good social skills and even less are good teachers.

However second to that I am setting up a programming forum site soon; purely for newbies. Where everyone exchanges their code and discusses why it works or not and then when working posts it up again and says why it was wrong. That's the second best way to learn. And most computer people have computer interaction skills but not human skills - so in some respects it works better than idea 1.

Third to that get the books I recommend!

[ARNEL]

alapidus, on Dec 6 2004, 06:46 AM, said:

i wanna learn VB but i know that it costs money. for someone like me who justs want to learn, experiment, and make some basic (no pun intended) programs, what are my best and cheapest options? and where can i buy it?

if i can get VB bundled with a book tutorial that would be great!

Well, If you really want to learn visual basic 6.0, off course you need to spend for books and read the basic there. when you know the basic of visual basic 6.0 then try this link:
Free Source Code for VB6.0

You can find many source code there and try to read and understand each lines of code...

If you want to become a good programmer you should read, read and read... thats the only cost you need to spend...

Hope this will help .

[ARNEL]

Ohh I forgot to mention, that links contains a lot of source code not only vb6.0, it has also code for Perl, PHP,SQL,VB, LISP,Java/Javascript,Delphi, COld Fusion, C/ C++, ASP/VBScript, and VB.net.. just go there and choose your flavor...