Recently, I read online where Microsoft was giving away free copies of Visual Basic.Net. VB is a programming language for Windows computers. I think, though I don’t know, Microsoft is giving this away because its use on the Internet requires using a Microsoft powered web server The web server business is one place where Microsoft has been hurt by Linux – hurt badly.
Visual Basic .Net came on a set of CDROMs. This afternoon, before leaving for work, I decided to install them. Oh my God! My installation took close to 2 hours. I sat and watched as registry change after registry change and file after file was loaded onto my machine.
Finally, it was time to go to work – but the process wasn’t complete. Helaine finished it up (calling me as she read off the screen).
I think, based on what I read on the screen, I have just given up 3 gb of hard drive space for this.
But, if it works out, and if I can learn what I’ve been told is a pretty straightforward language, I’d like to write some Windows applications which manipulate weather data from the net.
I hope I haven’t bit off more than I can chew.
Hey Jeff!!
I’m a frequent reader of your blog, and I love News Channel 8! 😛
Anyways, I’m a 17 year old Junior in High School and I started programming Visual Basic back in the 7th Grade. Back with versions 5 and 6. Unfortunatley, my interests have since changed and I haven’t had a chance to work with .NET at all. If anything, I’m sure .NET is easier to use than the previous versions I worked with.
Anyways, I reccomend you check out some books by Sams Publishing to learn the ropes. It took me about a month to get through one of those 24 Hour books — just to show how much time it takes me to understand it all. I’m sure it’ll take you much less time. One of the “Teach Yourself in 24 Hours” will work great as a starter manual and get you used to all the basic functions and syntax.
Good luck Jeff!
Geoff,
I program in VB.Net, make sure if you’ve done any programs in VB before to get a book or two, it’s quite different than the earlier versions.
As a programmer, I am a rank amateur. I have been fine at modifying other people’s code in all sorts of languages from HTML, php, css to Perl and bash shell scripts. But, I’d like to do more. So far, I’ve been working from Microsoft’s booklet, which came with the disks. I have a book on order, which had excellent reviews on Amazon. We’ll see.
My webserver is Linux – so no .asp apps here. But, I will try and write some Windows code.
Again, this is more a hobby and curiosity thing than anything else.
Thanks for the advice.
Geoff Fox