Recommend a beginner's book for Visual Basic

[Doug Fuller]

>I've always found C an easier language to learn (I didn't
>really grok VB until after I'd taken enough C++ and Java to
>translate).
>
>So, I'm gonna recommend
>http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ .  Of course, the
>memory management is unnecessary (your student shouldn't be
>looking at "Advanced Concepts", as they don't exist in VB),
>and all the syntax will be different.  But, hey, that's part
>of what learning programming is about... learning that the
>syntax doesn't really matter.  What matters is what you want
>to do, and how difficult it's going to be.

As someone coming from a C/C++/Java background, I can't stand 
VB.  Why does Microsoft have to reinvent the wheel (i.e. 
standard library functions) in everything they do?  Things 
like substring functions.  In almost every computer language, 
it's called substr().  I spent an hour digging through the 
worthless help pages finding that it's called Mid$() in VB.

Now, having said that, I do want to briefly address that last 
quoted paragraph - syntax does matter, insomuch as it 
contributes to readability/maintenance.  In the spirit of 
collaboration and/or modification, knowing how to write clear 
code and document it well will save time and effort in the 
future if you or a collaborator decide to tweak parameters.
-- 
Doug Fuller
dfuller at wayne.edu
Research Assistant, Wayne State University
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences