Where is the Basic, in Visual Basic?

[SpacemanSpiff]

In considering the current Visual Basic offerings (.Net), I am struck by just how HOSTILE .Net is to the casual programmer... by this I mean, someone that needs to fire off a quick and dirty program... a simple interface... and not really become a "programmer". Us engineers have other things to do than to become full on code monkeys.

This is what BASIC used to mean.

You know, the B in Basic.

You could teach yourself just by looking at some code.

With .Net now at the front... it has many (most?) of the advanced OOP language features, making it vastly more complex.

So much so, I am considering learning VB6 instead (I hear it is good through Win8)

Since .Net has roughly the same learning curve as C++, C#, Java (or so I am told), what exactly it the *point* of VB.Net??? You certainly don't see a beginners language anymore, and I can't see people that need to do casual programming to support their primary activities (I have CNC LASER and robotics control that I have to accomplish, hardware AND software), being all that happy about dropping everything for a few weeks, in order to learn .Net in order to write a small program or two every year.

Again, I am NOT going to be a programmer. But I need some programs to do engineering. What should a regular Joe like me do, and why?

Is my notion of sliding "back" to VB6 a wise or a foolish choice in this instance? (I don't know VB6 or VB .Net, but I know various BASIC implementations as well as VBA)

Just doing a sanity check.

Thanks ever so much for sharing your opinion.

SMS