What is visual basics and C++?

I've been thinking about learning some more advanced computer languages, now what I've seen alot of people talking about is C++ and Visual Basics.
Now what are these?

Could some one explain to me what kind of computer language C++ are, and what it is mostly used for?
And the same question for Visual Basics.

Which of these are the hardest and most advanced?

Which of these would you recommend and why?

Would love to get some replys to this one, thanks in advance.

What is C++?????

Though C++ is created from C, I will say it a new programming language and far efficient than traditional “C”. C follows the structural programming methodology. If u r familiar with “C”, then u must know what a structural programming language is. In contrast, C++ follows a new and advanced methodology, “Object oriented” which is far more efficient and modern than traditional structural programming.
The base or “Object Oriented” is obviously object. The other two terms is also associated with object: class and encapsulation.
Now what is object??? In c we don’t give any importance to the input/output data. We made a code (method) for a problem and don’t specify which data will apply on that method. In C++( or any object oriented) language we give most importance to data and also specify which data have to be use on a particular method (code). Now, such method and data make a unit called Class.

Thus, Class = (Method + data). Thus we r making a capsule with method and the data which have to apply on the method. This quality is called encapsulation.

Now, Object is a instance of a class. Class is a logical entity and object is its physical instance.

Again, C++ have two more feature on C : reusability of method & code (Inheritance) and polymorphism ( the same code behaves differently in different environment).

There are many other characteristics of C++ but these three (Encapsulation, Inheritance, polymorphism ) are the most basic.

C/C++ is use in many fields such as making system software like compiler, assembler etc, it is also use in telecom domain or in networking.


What is Visual Basic???

It is a advancement of the language “Basic”. VB is a popular Microsoft programming language used by software vendors and developers to build graphical client application interfaces. It is comparative simple programming language then C / C++ or others Because of its Drag and drop facility. I found It is very useful in frontend creation and other simple application. For many things, u practically don’t have to code, only drag and drop will solve ur purpose. It also have many inbuilt method, which u can use efficiently. u don’t have to code for then, only u will use then and get that functionality. May be for a functionality u have to write 2/3 page’s coding in C/C++, in VB u can get the same functionality with a few line code. This is the beauty of VB.


Suppose u want to make a software which will support the detailed operation of a library or a bank or a retail shop or a school. Here u can create the frontend (user view of the software) by VB. And u can use oracle or pl/sql as backend. So these backend will help u to manipulate the data and the VB (frontend) will use for presentation purpose.

Which of these are the hardest and most advanced?

Of course, C++ is harder. I will not say any of VB or C++ is more advanced But I can say one thing “C/C++ is evergreen”.


Which of these would you recommend and why?

It is wrong to recommend u any language bkz I don’t know ur background and in which purpose u will use this language.
If u r confident in C, I will suggest u to learn JAVA ahead of C++ and all others language like VB bkz JAVA is going to rule the next computer world. It will be JAVA age. Java is a OOPS like C++ and is made from C++. The most important thing is that this programming language is platform independent. Bkz of java’s high efficiency and Effectiveness and platform independence quality the language like VB cannot survive against JAVA. But still in many organizations VB is used, so I cannot say that learning VB is of no use.

hi Bubla,
Thank You Very Much

Hi there cinderella,
Im a novice programmer and learning c++ right now.
what babla said is totally true and very well said.
but if ur not related to prtogramming then it wud seem to u like "ki bole ke jane".
i think thats the thing. so here is a simplified form.

c++ and visual basic are both programming language as u know. there job is to create the softwares u use like windows itself or suppose, photoshop.
c++ is the most populer language and the greatest thing about it is, it is the complete language.
as u can see about structaral and object oriented it can be said as a style of programming. It will take some time to understand these.
just know that in c++ u can use all the programming styles including structural,object based,generic and more.

and visual basic is not a programming language actually.
it is basically a software like photoshop to create softwares and u can't use real programming function.
u are limited to the built in fuction given by windows. thats why vb programs will not run in other computers untill the proper set of components is installed.
this is not the case for c++.
a software written in c++ will run in all windows pc.


iqbal

Well said Iqbal. Thanks 4 simplifying things. Now it is easy for laymen.
But I am afraid I cant be agreed with:

	Quote:
	and visual basic is not a programming language actually. it is basically a software like photoshop to create softwares and u can't use real programming function. u are limited to the built in fuction given by windows. thats why vb programs will not run in other computers untill the proper set of components is installed.

I don’t want to say it as partially true also. Though I haven’t worked with VB but what I know, it is not justified to compare VB with Photoshop. Photoshop is only a tool where VB is a full flagged programming language. Because u can use ur mathematical logic to build different code which will satisfy certain requirements in VB which is not true in case of Photoshop. The built in functions which u use in programming in VB is a facility given by the programming language and that should not be count as a negative factor for which you will not accept VB as a programming language.Almost all the high level language has such built in functions but in some other form. VB has all the characteristics as a programming language , not only the drop down like a tool.




It is absolutely wrong that to run a software written in VB u must need to install "proper set of components" to ur operating system. you can make a package of any VB program and run in any operating system independently. One of my friend created a software which was working like winamp and worked absolutely independently in windows operating system without any such "proper set of components".

what he meant by other computers is, if u compile a vb code on an xp machine and with like visual studio 2003, there is a chance tht it wont run on older os's unless u update the vb runtime files.. and it wont definately wont run on any other os other than Windows,

"Although programs can be compiled into native code executables from version 5 onwards, they still require the presence of runtime libraries of approximately 2 MB in size. This runtime is included by default in Windows 2000 and later, but for earlier versions of Windows it must be distributed together with the executable." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_BASIC


and the reason he said VB is not really is a programming language can be found in the article below. if u read it carefully then u will find tht it doesnt have the most important characterstics for being an Object Oriented Languages. I think i am not good at programming but when we were taught we were specifically told never to use VB, well i used it though and it sux.. its buggy and its slowwwwwwwww...(not vb but the runtimes and executables). i will always say C and C++ is the best.. u can use it to create anything.. VB is good if u just wanna code and show that u r a programmer.. atleast it has got windows ( and its easy to design one.. ).. but its the trend isnt it.. windows ..

but c or c++ or even VB is not photoshop or close to it..
Controversy

Visual Basic is a controversial language; many programmers have strong feelings regarding the quality of Visual Basic and its ability to compete with newer languages. It was designed to be a simple language. In the interest of convenience and rapid development, some features like compile time type-checking and variable declaration are turned off by default. This leads to some programmers praising Visual Basic for how simple it is to use, but also can lead to frustration when programmers encounter problems that the features would have detected (e.g., a typo generating an "undefined variable" error message).
Many critics of Visual Basic explain that the simple nature of Visual Basic is harmful in the long run. Many people have learned VB on their own without learning good programming practices. Even when VB is learned in a formal classroom, the student may not be introduced to many fundamental programming techniques and constructs, since much of the functionality is contained within the individual components and not visible to the programmer. Since it is possible to learn how to use VB without learning standard programming practices, this often leads to unintelligible code and workarounds. Second, having many of the checks and warnings that a compiler implements turned off by default may lead to difficulties in finding bugs. Experienced programmers working in VB tend to turn such checks on.
Many of the criticisms fired at Visual BASIC are in fact criticisms of its ancestor, BASIC. A famous formulation by Edsger Dijkstra was, "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration [2]." (Dijkstra was no less scathing about FORTRAN, PL/I, COBOL and APL.)
However, many proponents of Visual Basic explain that the simple nature of Visual Basic is its main strength, allowing very rapid application development to experienced Visual Basic coders and a very slight learning curve for programmers coming from other languages. Additionally, Visual Basic applications can easily be integrated with databases, a common requirement. For example, by using controls that are bound to a database, it is possible to write a VB application that maintains information within the database without writing any lines of VB code.
Visual Basic is also a conglomerate of language features and syntax, with less consistency, but more tolerance, than many modern programming languages. Many language features like GoSub, On Error, and declaring the type of a variable by the last character in the name (i.e. str$) are legacies from Visual Basic's BASIC roots, and are included for backward-compatibility. The syntax of VB is different than most other languages, which can lead to confusion for new VB programmers. For example, the statement "Dim a, b, c As Integer" declares "c" as integer, but "a" and "b" are declared as Variant. Other characteristics include the entry of keyword, variable and subroutine names that are not case sensitive, and an underscore "_" must be used for a statement to span multiple lines. Some Visual Basic programmers perceive these as strengths needed to avoid case-sensitive compiler errors, and accidentally omitting line-termination characters some languages require (usually semicolons). For example, the ability to enter variable and subroutine names in any case can be used to the programmer's advantage: by declaring all names in mixed case, but entering them in lower case elsewhere, allows the programmer to type faster and to detect typos when a token remains in lower case.
The language continues to attract much praise and criticism, and it continues to cater to a large base of users and developers. The language is well suited for certain kinds of GUI applications (e.g., front end to a database), but less suited for others (e.g., compute-bound programs). The language is simple and human readable which eases maintenance and support, especially when performed by developers that did not originally author the software. Its simplicity and ease of use explain its popularity as a tool for solving business problems — most business stakeholders do not care about technical elegance and effectiveness, and concentrate instead on the cost effectiveness of Visual Basic.
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Programming constructs not present in Visual Basic

• Inheritance. Visual Basic versions 5 and 6 are object oriented languages but do not include implementation inheritance. VB5 and 6 do however include specification of interfaces. That is, a single class can have as many distinct interfaces as the programmer desires. VB.NET implements the full set of object-oriented features. Visual Basic provides a specific syntax for access to attributes called Property methods, and this is often implemented using getters and setters in C++ or Java. Python has an equivalent notation to VB6's property Let and Get.
• Threading support not present prior to Visual Basic .NET.
• Structured exception handling prior to Visual Basic .NET. Error handling is controlled by an "On Error" statement.
• Built-in support for bit shifting. This feature appears only in Visual Basic .NET 2003 (7.1) or higher.
• Typecasting. VB instead has explicit conversion functions.
• Equivalents to C-style pointers are very limited.
• Visual Basic is limited to unsigned 8-bit integers and signed integers of 16 to 64 bits. Many other languages provide wider range of signed and unsigned integers.
• 32-bit and 64-bit Visual Basic is internally limited to UTF-16 strings, although it provides conversion functions to other formats (16-bit Visual Basic is internally limited to ASCII strings).
• Visual Basic doesn't allow constant variables to contain an array. Therefore extra processing is required to emulate this.

While Visual Basic does not naturally support these features, programmers can construct work-arounds to give their programs similar functionality if they desire.
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Behaviors present in Visual Basic

VB has the following uncommon traits:

• Boolean constant True has numeric value -1. In most other languages, True is mapped to numeric value 1. This is because the Boolean data type is stored in the same way as a 16 bit signed integer. In this construct -1 evaluates to 16 binary 1's (the Boolean value True) or 16 0's (the Boolean value False). This is apparent when performing a Not operation on a 16 bit signed integer value 0 which will return the integer value -1. This inherent functionality becomes especially useful when performing logical operations on the individual bits of an integer such as And, Or, Xor and Not.
• Logical and bitwise operators are unified. This is unlike all the C-derived languages (such as Java or Perl), which have separate logical and bitwise operators.
• Variable array base. Arrays are declared by specifying the upper and lower bounds in a way similar to Pascal. It is also possible to use the Option Base statement to set the default lower bound. Use of the Option Base statement can lead to confusion when reading Visual Basic code and is best avoided by always explicitly specifying the lower bound of the array. This lower bound is not limited to 0 or 1, because it can also be set by declaration. In this way, both the lower and upper bounds are programmable. In more subscript-limited languages, the lower bound of the array is not variable. This uncommon trait doesn't exist in Visual Basic .NET and VBScript.
• Ability to run the application without performing a full compile or making an executable, allowing for edit-and-continue changes.
• Relatively strong integration with the Windows operating system.
• Banker's rounding as the default behavior when converting real numbers to integers.
• Integers are automatically promoted to reals in expressions involving the normal division operator (/) so that division of an odd integer by an even integer produces the intuitively correct result. There is a specific integer divide operator (\) which does truncate.
• By default, if a variable has not been declared or if no type declaration character is specified, the variable is of type Variant. However this can be changed with Deftype statements such as DefInt, DefBool, DefVar, DefObj, DefStr to name a few. There are 12 Deftype statements in total offered by Visual Basic 6.0