Originally posted here by |The|Specialist
Trust me... if your starting out never start out with a language like VB. For one thing the syntax will throw you off when learning new things, mostly all languages won't correct you as much as VB does, and another thing is it makes you lazy as hell. It will tottaly put you in a block when learning new stuff. Trust me I started out with it. And now I feel as if I had completly wasted my time on it. If you ever plan on moveing to new things you might as well jump straight into some form of C since it ties into the same familiar qualities of other languages so well.

Experiences are subjective. Just because VB has impaired you, doesn't mean everyone will have this problem. VB 3 was the first language I ever studied. Now I actively use several languages, as do many other developers. And since you mention VB's syntax lets have a look at a quick comparrison.

a VB conditional: if(condition)then [< >] end if
a C/C++ conditional: if(condition) { [< >] }

Is that really that different? I don't think so.

How about istantiating a new object.

a VB object: dim objName as new object_type
a Java object string[] strVariable = new string[]

Is that much different or obfuscated? Not really. I think VB is MUCH more clear and concise as far as legibility goes.

But to each their own!

-sbg