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In article 4902@sctc.com, bright@sctc.com (David A. Bright) writes:
>I would like information on Visual Basic (the Windows variety).  Can anyone
>give me pointers to books, magazine articles, or ftp-able documents that
>describe VB?  Since version 2.0 is due out soon (available now?), I am
>especially interested in information pertaining to that version.  What am
>I looking for?  I would like to do some programming under Windows but am
>short on time (this is a spare time project and my spare time has dwindled
>to almost nothing).  From what I've heard so far, VB is supposed to handle
>a lot of the tedium for you.  For those of you bemoaning the constant BASIC
>bashing, I'll admit to programming in C at work; however, I am not averse to
>using "off-beat" languages (I've been known to dabble in ICON, Forth, and
>other lesser-known languages).
>

David, VB has been reviewed in a number of computer magazines this past year,
however just this last month, two major magazines reviewed the three top
selling Windows BASIC packages... VB, The Realizer, and GFA BASIC.  Check out
the Nov 92 issues of Computer Language and Byte.  Both reviewers tended to
give the nod to VB over the other two, due in large part to its ease of use
and complete, relatively seamless package.  No one has reviewed VB 2.0 yet
as it is not yet released (I think).  Interestingly, GFA BASIC is undoubtedly
the most powerful of the three and has the most complete command set (and
also the closest to the C syntax, BTW) but was panned due to it's lack of a
decent tutorial, inadequate documentation, and inconsistent editor.

Personally, I _prefer_ the GFA package but then again I come with several
years experience using GFA on the Atari platform so my learning curve was not
as steep.  I also like the ease of converting from GFA-DOS to GFA-Windows or
vice-versa and no need to spend more $$$ for a "Toolkit"... it's all there.

But VB is a slick package and all indications are that VB 2.0 will be a major
improvement (especially in performance) so that's what I'd most recommend.
---

___________________________ John "HUTCH" Hutchinson _________________________
_________________ Fair Dinkum Technologies     Member - IAAD  _______________
________________ "No worries, mate... it's from Fair Dinkum!" _______________
____________ email: hutch@bellman.lanl.gov   GEnie: FAIR-DINKUM _____________

In alt.lang.basic, hutch@bellman.lanl.gov (John Hutchinson) writes:

>In article 4902@sctc.com, bright@sctc.com (David A. Bright) writes:
>>I would like information on Visual Basic (the Windows variety).  Can anyone
>>give me pointers to books, magazine articles, or ftp-able documents that
>>describe VB?    [ ... stuff deleted ... ]
>>a lot of the tedium for you.  For those of you bemoaning the constant BASIC
>>bashing, I'll admit to programming in C at work; however, I am not averse to
>>using "off-beat" languages (I've been known to dabble in ICON, Forth, and
>>other lesser-known languages).

VB an off-beat language?  No wonder we don't have our own group yet! :-) :-)

>David, VB has been reviewed in a number of computer magazines this past year,
>however just this last month, two major magazines reviewed the three top
>selling Windows BASIC packages... VB, The Realizer, and GFA BASIC.  Check out
>the Nov 92 issues of Computer Language and Byte.  Both reviewers tended to
>give the nod to VB over the other two, due in large part to its ease of use
>and complete, relatively seamless package.  No one has reviewed VB 2.0 yet
>as it is not yet released (I think). 

Good suggestions...  BasicPro magazine just did a very good article on VB 2.0.
From the article (and my upgrade literature) MS seems to have fixed some
of my "complaints" about VB 1.0.  They've improved the debugger, easier
properties window, added 256 color support (?) and mdi child support!
They still compile p-code rather than a true exe yet so the #@!@##! runtime
dll is still there, at least they've made it faster (maybe by VB 3.0???).

I can't tell you much more about VB2.0 yet though as I'm awaiting my upgrade...
As for VB 1.0 I usually use it rather than TPW or C.  I dunno if that tells
you anything...  :-)  Once you get out of the old BASIC programming mindset
(straight-line execution) and into the Windows event-oriented way of doing
things VB becomes an exceptionally easy to program for Windows!

- Galen -
galenr@hpgrla.gr.hp.com