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I wrote my first non-toy lines of code in VB6, with a (pirate) copy of the IDE that I had to ask for as a request to a dude that sold cds in a public park.

At that time, I only had a C/C++ compiler that I didn't know how to use (because I had no internet and no standard library / STL docs). The MSDN library that was preloaded in the cd was an eye opener, and the visual components made it easy to experiment.

I would probably work in a restaurant today, if it wasn't for that cd.

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I worked in a start-up straight out of college where I had done C/C++. We decided to try out this Visual Basic to see if we could get things done more quickly. VB 3.0. I was blown away by how quickly you could do things even though the language made it hard to organise any kind of structure when things got bigger. We did a lot of work in it and I assumed something like it was the future of programming.

Then the start up went bust and I was back to C++ before any newer version of VB came out. They really got reusable components right. I've never had an experience since where there is such a huge jump in productivity with a new technology.

I started with similar tools: Borland Delphi and the Object Pascal language.

I'm not really sure of the timeline, but I think Delphi pioneered the "reusable components" paradigm and VB was Microsoft's entry into the market.

Delphi came after VB3. VB3 had "custom controls" called VBX (Visual Basic Extensions), which were the reusable components. It was the precursor to OCX and ActiveX controls.

Yes - I migrated from VB -> Delphi - one of the big advantages at the time was you could compile a small executable that didn't require you to distribute several additional disks of vb runtime DLLs with your software.

I taught myself to code late in life on VB.net - amazing how easy and powerful to get going. I've done a decent amount in C# since then. When I think about C# syntax vs VB.net syntax, and consider it's all .NET under the hood, makes me wonder whether developers like feeling as though they are writing something more complex in C# than they are. Anyway, i'm indebted to Microsoft and will be a fan for life as a result.

I personally just found the C# syntax more straightforward than VB.NET, C# was new and VB seemed to have a bit of baggage. I never had much in the way of problems, even as a beginner, translating from VB.NET to C# examples though.

Fresh out of college (2004), I worked at a company that was a VB.NET shop and one of the tasks I started with was porting a bunch of ASP (not .Net) pages to ASP.NET using VB.NET.

I absolutely loved the language, coming from a Java/C++ education in college.

Then, my next job, it was a mix of VB.NET, PHP, and C# (custom software shop). I did all three and decided that C# was where I wanted to be. I simply found that VB.NET was too "wordy" with all of the "If/End If" and "Get/End Get" and "List(of Foo)". I just found it easier to follow with if(eq){}, Get{}, and List<Foo>.

Simply one's own taste, I suppose.

I have to still maintain some things running on VB6 code. It has it's whims, but there are worse things to work with as well.

I also have a small pile of vb6 code that I must support. And while it usually behaves OK there are some instances where putting it on a Windows 7 machine to run will cause some headaches.

I got my first serious code written in VB6. It is the first IDE that I bought with my own hard earned money as a kid and it was great. I still dream of a day when there is a language/framework that makes development that easy again.

You might want to look at PyCharm (Has free community edition, $99 year for pro) and Python. My eight year old writes Python!

I loved Python when I learned it back in college. That was around Python 2.3/2.4. I said back then (while doing mostly C++) that Python should be the base language for CS101 at the University level. It was much easier to work with as opposed to the nuances of C++ compilers at the time.

My biggest dream is the ability to have a cross platform Mobile App/Web App ecosystem. Something that you can use from any device with a virtually equal experience. Not so easy at the moment, especially for things that need to be charged for... app store fees are way to big in my opinion. /rant

I think Small Basic is interesting for that. [1]

I also find it interesting now how much of the professional IDE features that Visual Studio Community Edition opens up for free to students and non-profits and open source enthusiasts.

It's easy to look back with nostalgia at our own paths (mine was QBASIC, [saved up for] VB3, with dalliances into things like DJGPP, then a lot of HTML, PHP, and very early era JS), but let's not overlook that we live in an interesting era with interesting new paths (Small Basic, Squeak, Python, modern JS, etc).

[1] http://smallbasic.com/

It's such a shame you had to pirate that CD. I feel happy for young/aspiring programmers today. Open source has made programming so much more accessible.

Similar story for me as well. First major application I did was with VBA built into Office. Was bored in study hall in high school and would spend my time building solitaire from scratch in it since the actual game had been blocked on the school computers.

That led me into considering Computer Science over Civil Engineering in college and have been programming ever since :)

Same here. I was a "data researcher" (read: data capturer), at a fortune 500 company. They had an office in Cape Town, South Africa. Taught myself VBA, and then VB.Net to automate some of my work. It is a few years later and I have landed myself a job as a full time C# dev.

Hey man, me too! Almost same story, pirate CD. Though it was VB3 for me. Used to make AOL chat bots and mass mailers.

What did you build back then?

Isn't it great to note that we're now in an atmosphere where you can just... download Visual Studio... no piracy required?

I spent months getting my MSDN license personally assigned so I could get a copy at home for playing around in. So bitter...

(it's awesome)

I collected those for a while. What was your handle or group affiliation?

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