Which Language Should I Use?

I'm a newbie when it comes to programming and I'm going to be creating small, simple program and just want to know whether what type of VB language i should use.

Basically the application will allow a user to search an Xbox 360 game they may have and have 5 games recommended to them below it based on pre-determined tags.

I will create a database with around 200ish video game titles, description and developer and adding tags to them (first person, shooter, adventure, action adventure etc...).
Users can search for games based on tags or they find a game they already have, or want and have other recommended.

Anyway, which is the best language for that?

Thank you!

ALL programming would probably allow you to do that, even PASCAL or BASIC. Because you posted on THIS forum, you will get a lot of VBA, VB6 and VB.NET folks out there all giving you an opinion on what is easier to learn quickly. "I" would recommend Visual FoxPro, but that is SO outdated not many use it anymore...Next, of course, "I" would recommend VB6 and Access as your database. However, the VB6 program is harder to come by than it's 'replacement', VB.NET (or Visual Studio.NET). You can get a FREE version of a good VB.net on the internet...just Google it....And, FOR MOST, VB.NET is a tad bid more difficult to understand unless he/she has had a lot of object oriented programming experience.
So, IF you can get a legal copy of VB6, that is what I'd say use....but you will get a whole lot more respondents with their preferences, I am sure.

Well since you asked what type of VB you should use I would say it depends on what you have available. If you have none at this point then VB Express would be the way to go since it is the only one that you can get legally for free. MS Access could do the job just fine if you have that on hand or you could use VB 5 or 6 or pretty much any other language you can think of.

Moved to the General Developer forum

Thank you for your replies. I have Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 already. As VB is a more visual based language i just assumed it would be the best language for this app

The choice between C# and VB is largely a matter of preference. The two languages are very similar, and they compile down to the same thing, but the syntax difference between the two is fairly large. C# is based on the C language, which uses LOTS of symbols rather than words, whereas VB uses more words than symbols (though there are still a fair number of symbols, such as +, -, *, /, ^, &, (), and occasionally #. Still, compared to a C language, that's a trivial amount of symbolage.

His needs actually seem better suited for development as an internet app. What he is describing sounds very much like what Amazon.com offers. In place of game titles they have products and they also recommend products based on user choice which the OP wants his software to do.

The language for this would have to be a web-based development environment like ASP.Net.

When I moved into working with PC's ten years ago - if I knew I would eventually be using Javascript I would never have gone down the path of VB.Net - I would have instead chosen C#.Net.

Same .Net library anyway...

The C-style of syntax is just more common across more platforms / areas from what I see...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by machineman

Thank you for your replies. I have Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 already. As VB is a more visual based language i just assumed it would be the best language for this app

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Visual, you say... ;)


I always find it hilarious that people from the Anybody But Microsoft ghetto of computing look at App Inventor and describe it as "Visual Basic."

MIT App Inventor

AppInventor.org: Democratizing App Building

The original Basic was meant as a tool to introduce Liberal Arts students to what computers were and what they can do for you back in the 1960s. App Inventor is targeted as a teaching and learning tool for people who don't plan to study programming in depth, using the power available today to take the idea a step further.

There is no coding at all. Instead it is based on interlinking different kinds of "blocks" in a jigsaw-puzzle-like manner and setting a few properties on each of them. The linkages between blocks sort of takes the place of method calls.

Quote:

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App Inventor is a visual language with a drag-and-drop interface. Here are some of the reasons that even non-technical people can program with it.

• No syntax -- The blocks language eliminates the need to remember and type code
• Everything is right in front of you -- The components and functions are organized into drawers. Just find, drag, and drop.
• Events at top level -- "When this happens, the app does this" is the correct conceptual model. Down with Listeners!
• High-level components -- The app inventor team has built a great library with simplicity the main goal.
• Only some blocks plug-in -- You can't do things that don't make sense.
• Concreteness -- You program components, not abstractions.

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Of course there is an amazing degree of similarity with classic VB in one way: your program is a state machine driven by events.

Unlike VB there is no way to write paradigm-breaking procedural QBasic style code comprised of goofy things like long running loops with DoEvents() calls inside.


I doubt this is what you're after at all, but this thread does bring it to mind. You probably really do want to create a simple Web application instead of any kind of program. I don't see you reaching your intended audience as easily by making them install a program, have it pull down periodic database updates, etc. It can be done but by going the Web route you also reach non-Windows clients (and even Windows RT clients, which can barely use anything else).