Serious programmers

[zrx1200]

Well, I may not like the answer but I have to ask.

As I play with VBA I'm beggining to get drawn into programming so I think I would like to expand my skills.

I do own VB 5.0 which was an attempt at the above a few years back but, now the understanding of things is getting better so here is the question.

My plateforms are XPpro office 2003, Win 7 ofice 2010 will the vb 5.0 produce code to work in both?

What is the next "upgrade" from VB 5.0 VB express 10 (free) and what about all this studio, .Net stuff??

Thanks

 

[shg]

Excel has an integrated development and debug environment that supports VBA 6 in Excel 2003/2007 and VBA 7 in 2010.

 

[zrx1200]

Yes, this is were I've been learning and playing but was wondering what one would use to go beyond this enviroment as well.

 

[sous2817]

I've recently started tinkering in vb.net (in visual studio 2010). So far I like it, there's still a lot more of a learning curve than I initially thought / hoped, but a lot of the control(s) syntax is similar to VBA so I'm starting off completely blind.

Really it all depends on what you want to do with it. There's a lot of .net shops out there, but my current employer isn't one of them, so I'm not really sure where my .net experience is going to take me. I know a lot of Java programmers and apparently F# is the new hot language out...so really I think you'll be a lot happier if you think about where you want to go, and which programming language(s) do you need to learn to get there, rather than thinking about "what's next on the programming language list".

 

[zrx1200]

I hear you. I found Visual Basic 5.0 to be sort of similar to VBA but a learning curve none the less.

I do know I enjoy the Microsoft Office package very much and yes it is costly but I like how it works for me which includs VBA.

I'm not a programmer just and enthusist and I'm sure VBA covering all office apps has enough to keep me busy till I die.

 

[zrx1200]

I found the thread "learning VBA" helps shed some light on the subject as well.

 

[sous2817]

Well for what it's worth, they do have Visual Studio 2010 Express, and you can select whatever language you want it for (vb, c#, f#, etc). It's not gimped too much from the professional version, and if you're just using it to tinker around and learn, you won't have any problem with it. May be worth messing around with...Good luck!

 

[zrx1200]

Funny how things come full circle eh. Your last reply is kind of what was my intention of my orignal post was.

So, what would a betting man bet on, or use vb, c#, f# or none of these. It just seems to the laman the choices are muddy (to me) in the Microsoft camp. Just curious.

To your knowledge will VB 5.0 (as I own the pakage) creat standalone apps that will run on the win 7 plateform? I would think not?? I know it will for XP.

 

[sous2817]

If I had to guess, I would say that vb5 would, but I don't know enough about it.

the syntax of c# is different (albeit similar) to vb.net. I don't know anything about f# except that it's pretty new. May want to read up @ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/fsharp/ and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp to get an idea.

Personally, with an express edition of Visual Studio 2010 available, I don't know why you'd stay in VB5 (especially because there's a VB6 out as well).

 

[Smitty]

Personally, with an express edition of Visual Studio 2010 available, I don't know why you'd stay in VB5 (especially because there's a VB6 out as well).

I'd agree on that one. Get the newest version and you'll be better off especially as it will expose things for you that older versions won't. And MS has also included VSTO in the new versions of .NET. As for which language to focus upon, it's entirely up to you, and what you're trying to accomplish. With Office Integration I've found that VB is a pretty good fit, but I also know people who rely on ASP for web apps.

HTH,