Programming classes

[ViperMagic]

Ok guys, I need some help. Next semster I'm enrolled in a Programming in VB class, and thats considered 'Level I". 'Level II' is Programming Java & C. The thing is, the VB teacher hates me a lot and she isnt much of a teacher, to boot. Since I'm considered 'Gifted' I'm granted some leeway in my scheduling and things, so I think if I had enough of an argument that I could get trhe level II course as an independent study class, get the credit for it, stay away fromt the teacher and not have to learn VB, because I have n o desire to learn VB. So I guess what I really need is an argument as to why learning VB won't be of much use when I try to learn C (most of the class is C). I dont really care if it will help or not, because the way those courses are set up is like gym class.... you try, you pass. So anyone want to help? Thanks

 

[notfred]

Show that you already know how to program VB, or show that you have a bit of experience w/ C++ or java.

VB syntax is all screwy, I don't likeit.

 

[gopunk]

vb will be helpful in that you will have some idea of what programming is about. do you know what a variable is? loops? conditionals? okay, you're ready to learn C.

 

[silverpig]

The only VB I learned was in my differential equations class. It's just learning how to set up an algorithm really.

I've taken a C++ class and did very well in it, and now I'm doing a Java class. You don't need VB to learn either.

 

[Reel]

I am assuming you are in high school. Most colleges teach their intro classes in Java. At UF, the majority of my computer classes are Java based, next assembly, then Perl, PHP, etc. You can try the better prep for college routine and assure them that if you screw up in the class because you didn't take the one before it, you won't come back crying to them.

 

[DoNotDisturb]

Originally posted by: gopunk
vb will be helpful in that you will have some idea of what programming is about. do you know what a variable is? loops? conditionals? okay, you're ready to learn C.

they teach u what those are in c++...

 

[ViperMagic]

Ok, thanks for all the help. Does anyone want to give me a reason about why knowing VB wont help me learn C? Something techincal sounding, maybe

 

[DoNotDisturb]

well, vb is not "directly" related to C. You may be aware of all the basic features that languages might share, but C++ and C are way more complex than VB.

 

[Reel]

Java and C++ are Object Oriented languages. VB is procedural (someone confirm.. I have avoided it). Object oriented is much more progressive of a language paradigm and fairly popular in recent years.

I wish you could hear one of my professors speak. He'd give them an earful about this stuff. He loves to hear himself speak and he loves object oriented.

 

[DoNotDisturb]

heh, same for my profs also.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: notfred
Show that you already know how to program VB, or show that you have a bit of experience w/ C++ or java.

VB syntax is all screwy, I don't likeit.

That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard from a Perl monger. VB does have a lot of syntactic salt, but that begs the question: is an overload of syntactic salt (VB) worse than an overload of syntactic sugar (Perl)?

Java and C++ are Object Oriented languages. VB is procedural (someone confirm.. I have avoided it). Object oriented is much more progressive of a language paradigm and fairly popular in recent years.

Fairly popular in recent years? 😀

VB is not procedural, nor entirely OO. VB is in fact OB--object-based. The only quintessential OO facility not present in VB is that of implementation inheritance. You can, however, inherit user-defined interfaces thereby facilitating polymorphism (arguably the most important facet of OO). Encapsulation is obviously present as you can control the visibility of user-defined classes. VB's concepts were tightly coupled with that of COM, which also offered no implementation inheritance (but was real big on interface inheritance).

 

[Apathetic]

Hey! You're from Erie! Which high school are you going to? I graduated from McDowell in 85. I miss Erie. If there were any jobs there (other than $7/hr plastic jobs) , I probably never would have left.

Anyway, take the class that interestes you. If you have no interest in VB and you cannot stand the teacher, then take the other class. C is generally a bit harder to learn then VB because you can do so much more in it (there are wonderful things called "pointers" in C that let you do all kinds of nifty stuff).

Dave

 

[DoNotDisturb]

Originally posted by: Apathetic
Hey! You're from Erie! Which high school are you going to? I graduated from McDowell in 85. I miss Erie. If there were any jobs there (other than $7/hr plastic jobs) , I probably never would have left.

Anyway, take the class that interestes you. If you have no interest in VB and you cannot stand the teacher, then take the other class. C is generally a bit harder to learn then VB because you can do so much more in it (there are wonderful things called "pointers" in C that let you do all kinds of nifty stuff).

Dave

Try PMing them instead

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: DoNotDisturb

Originally posted by: gopunk
vb will be helpful in that you will have some idea of what programming is about. do you know what a variable is? loops? conditionals? okay, you're ready to learn C.

they teach u what those are in c++...

huh? i was just saying that is probably why his school would have VB as a prereq for C/java

 

[ViperMagic]

Originally posted by: Apathetic
Hey! You're from Erie! Which high school are you going to? I graduated from McDowell in 85. I miss Erie. If there were any jobs there (other than $7/hr plastic jobs) , I probably never would have left.

Anyway, take the class that interestes you. If you have no interest in VB and you cannot stand the teacher, then take the other class. C is generally a bit harder to learn then VB because you can do so much more in it (there are wonderful things called "pointers" in C that let you do all kinds of nifty stuff).

Dave

I go to Seneca, and I'm quite familiar with McDowell. I'm fairly sure we played them for homecoming last year 🙂

I'm going to talk to guidance tomorrow, hopefully I'll get to skip VB and go to C

 

[KingNothing]

VB won't help you learn C because:

1) By default, it doesn't require variable declaration.
2) It is event driven/object oriented while C is linear.

That said, I learned QBasic, then Visual Basic, then C++, then C. You haven't said if you have any programming experience or not, but personally I think Visual Basic is a great thing to learn. It gives you some idea of how to use VBA (built in VB in Office), it's good at writing database applications, rapid prototyping, etc.