Visual Basic is one of the most stright forward and easiest languages to learn. If you are a first time programmer or have programmed before, visual basic is a great choice. Unlike C/C++ the code in visual basic is more like English than it is code. You just type in the name of an object and the property that you want to edit then the value of the property. The only thing required to learn visual basic is Microsoft Visual Basic 5 or higher or Microsoft Visual Studio

When you double click on a object such as a text box, the code window appears. From here you will see the name of the object and preceded by "Sub Procedure" This is where you type in your code. The only code that may be outside of this Procedure is Varible Declarations and API calls. To edit the properties of an object you would use something like this objectname.property = setting For some things the = may be left out, but I will tell you when that is ok. Place a text box on the form then double click on the form. The form load procedure comes up. To change the text of the textbox when the form loads you place
textbox1.text = "Text you want displayed" in the form load procedure. To change the font size you would use textbox1.font.size = 12 In Visual Basic you do not need to declare a variable before you assign it a value, though doing so may cause errors. To declare a variable you put the word Dim followed by the varible name followed by the type you wish you declare it as. Dim temp as string would create a varible named temp which would hold strings. The different varible types are String, Integer, Double, Boolean, long, single, or variant (which is any of the types) To place the text of a textbox in a varible you would use the statement- Varible = Textbox1.text To add two strings together you use the character & for example the following procedure would place the text of textbox1 and textbox two in textbox3

Private Sub form1_load()
Dim temp1 as string, temp2 as string
Temp1 = textbox1.text
temp2 = textbox2.text
textbox3.text = temp1 & temp2
End Sub

No two varible or object names may be the same and visual basic does not distinguish between Capital and lowercase letters. I know this first tutorial did not teach much but there is still alot more to come. The next tutorials will not have as much introduction and will get straight to the point. If you would like any of my tutorials in advance or would like any help you may e-mail me at This E-mail address. here are a few good links to try if you want to start learning visual basic.

http://www.a1vbcode.com
http://www.codearchive.com
http://msdn.microsoft.com
http://www.vbforums.com
http://www.codeguru.com
http://www.mvps.org/vbnet/
http://www.developerfusion.com
http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb/