Best book for learning VB6 for a beginner?
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^misantropia^
- Posts: 4022
- Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:24 pm
Well, I suppose VB6 is still a good place to start if you want to be able to make windows GUI programs early in the learning process. And I understand the attraction of that.
Otherwise, I would say go with Python instead. It has a lot fewer "formalities" and syntax quirks than most other languages. It's just very straight forward. And you can use it interactively, meaning you can type commands line 'x = 1 + 2' and get the result immediately. You can also define functions and classes interactively and see the results of your changes just by pressing enter. Check out http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide
And you can write 'real' programs in Python too, BitTorrent is an example.
Python is very high-level, meaning that it's meant to make it easy for people to write programs in, as opposed to make it easy for computers to run it. In practice, that means that it's slower than programs written in C/C++. But VB is slow too.
After you've started to get the hang of Python and programming in general, you could go on to learning C. Which you need to if you want to do any real game programming. It's a pretty small language, but has got some quirks and pitfalls that can make it frustrating to work with. If you know most of C and Python, you know the basics of programming. And should be able to easily transfer that to languages like Java and C++ later. Or Perl, PHP, JavaScript, etc.
Another option is to start with a language that's somewhere in between, like Java or C# (C++ is also in between, but more complex). I learnt to program in Turbo Pascal in high school, and then Simula (no kidding) in uni. And I also learnt about electronics, microprocessors and assembly while in high school. All in all, I don't know if there's a 'best way to get started' with programming. High level (Lisp or Python) or low (boolean algebra and building logic circuits with a soldering iron), or somewhere in between. So what the heck...go for Python and C, and build on that later.
Well, it's an interesting discussion anyway.
EDIT: please disregard this post if you already know how to program and just want to learn VB6 too.
Otherwise, I would say go with Python instead. It has a lot fewer "formalities" and syntax quirks than most other languages. It's just very straight forward. And you can use it interactively, meaning you can type commands line 'x = 1 + 2' and get the result immediately. You can also define functions and classes interactively and see the results of your changes just by pressing enter. Check out http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide
And you can write 'real' programs in Python too, BitTorrent is an example.
Python is very high-level, meaning that it's meant to make it easy for people to write programs in, as opposed to make it easy for computers to run it. In practice, that means that it's slower than programs written in C/C++. But VB is slow too.
After you've started to get the hang of Python and programming in general, you could go on to learning C. Which you need to if you want to do any real game programming. It's a pretty small language, but has got some quirks and pitfalls that can make it frustrating to work with. If you know most of C and Python, you know the basics of programming. And should be able to easily transfer that to languages like Java and C++ later. Or Perl, PHP, JavaScript, etc.
Another option is to start with a language that's somewhere in between, like Java or C# (C++ is also in between, but more complex). I learnt to program in Turbo Pascal in high school, and then Simula (no kidding) in uni. And I also learnt about electronics, microprocessors and assembly while in high school. All in all, I don't know if there's a 'best way to get started' with programming. High level (Lisp or Python) or low (boolean algebra and building logic circuits with a soldering iron), or somewhere in between. So what the heck...go for Python and C, and build on that later.
Well, it's an interesting discussion anyway.
EDIT: please disregard this post if you already know how to program and just want to learn VB6 too.
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stocktroll
- Posts: 1314
- Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:44 am
I started with BASIC myself and, good Lord, what a mess!
Nowadays, I'm mostly scripting for Web applications, so I'm mainly using Perl and PHP along with SQL, working on virtually any Database server available *blech*
For more advanced stuff, I'm using C++.
So, my post ponders the question: What do You wanna do, Toxicbug?
Nowadays, I'm mostly scripting for Web applications, so I'm mainly using Perl and PHP along with SQL, working on virtually any Database server available *blech*
For more advanced stuff, I'm using C++.
So, my post ponders the question: What do You wanna do, Toxicbug?