On Mon 04 Feb, Gary Stainburn wrote:
On Monday 04 February 2002 2:39 pm, Robb Bloomfield wrote:
WRONG!!!!!!! VB is worse than many other languages. VB in it's current state is suited only to supplement Office, and is no more than a macro scripting language. I have used it myself for that purpose although thankfully not for a while, and I think using it as a teaching aid is a very bad idea.
er... what?!?!?! Are you talking about VBA? (Visual Basic for Applications), which is the macro scripter??
If this is a correct statement, why are there so many sodding programs written in it then? VB was designed for RAD development, and is great for the purpose.
OK - here's my two penneth worth... To be honest - I'm not sure it matters what you use for teaching programming - but matters is how you teach it - and exactly what you teach. Old versions BASIC used to be condemned as it allowed poor programming practices - but of course there was nothing wrong with teaching 'good practices' with it. Indeed - I used to think that because it allowed you to do good and bad it made quite a useful tool for teaching! I would probably agree with everything said about VB - good and bad. I think it moves the emphasis away from technical programming skills to user interface skills - which is perhaps no bad thing - especially for those of lesser capabilities. Of course it is not ideal for the deeper concepts of OO applications - but these really lie outside the scope of most schools. It is certainly true that most of my A Level pupils do not have the same algorithmic programming skills today as my O-level (Remember those days?) pupils had decades ago. However, they now have to cope with a wider range of (yes perhaps shallower - but nevertheless perfectly useful and valid) IT skills. VB serves a purpose in RAD which quickly gives pupils a quick sense of achievement. As ever, the best soon learn how to use a wider range of API calls and algorithmically challenging routines. -- Alan Davies Head of Computing Birkenhead School