I recently read in one of these threads that VB is easy, I've had it for about a week and I'm trying to teach it to myself... I'm finding it quite difficult, should I quit while I'm ahead?

You can see my first program on www.jord.da.ru, (send to target extension v1.1.17)

VB is easy, but...

If you are learning it without any tutorials you may find yourself going round in circles, you are best buying an introductory book to help you out (Sam's VB in 24 hrs or such like is a good start).

There are a few tutorials online also, take a few hours to download as many tutorials as you can to keep you going and work through them.

The microsoft MSDN (online developers reference) is an outstanding reference for all the standard functions and components in VB, just take a look on the web and you will find everything you need.

If you get stuck, there are loads of forums you can ask for help in (including this one)

So don't give up, it is always difficult at the beginning, but you will probably be programming VB applications in no time!

Visual Basic is easy - for a programmer with a wide breadth of experience. Always realize that many people are assuming you are at least pretty good at programming itself. For a novice, or someone with a limited experience involving one language only, any other language can be confusing.

Aint that the truth, Joe Neal! I have been programming in basic so long, that I think in basic. As a result, C is a bunch of gobbledygook to me.

Visual Basic is a 'RAD' Rapid Application Development programming language. There are two parts to this. The first part is Visual and probably the easiest to learn. Before 'Visual' programmers would spend 80% of there time developing a user interface. The second part is 'Basic', this I guess is what you are finding difficult. Take it slow and forget the 'Visual' part for now with it's associated Events, Properties and Methods and concentrate on understanding the real tools of programming. Make a list of all the programming functions from the help file and attempt to learn 3 a week. Write very small programs that use and test these functions eventually incorporating them into a larger project as time goes by. Given a year you will surprise yourself on how easy it is to associate your programming knowledge with the 'Visual' aspect of VB.

I agree that you should get some tutorials. I got the Microsoft Press books and they helped me alot with VB. If you are struggling with the syntax then get a language reference. I struggled a bit with VB at the start but it all made sense after a while.