Denaes

Not all of those are programming languages in the strictest sense. I'm pretty sure Perl and PHP are both scripting languages, of which ActionScript (Flash) is another very popular one as well as ASP and javascript. The reason why is because until recently, I think with some java apps and ASP.Net apps, you couldn't run a compiled language on a webpage and these are all built/intended for webpages. Perl is mostly what you see behind older message boards, text based web programming. PHP is newer (I think) and can do more up to date things, like accessing a database. ASP was basically a long script your browser downloaded and ran. ActionScript used to be nothing but a helper language for Flash, which aided mostly in the graphics/movies that flash made. I.E. it takes up much less space to tell single instance of a ball to move to 10 posistions, than to have 10 raster images of it in those positions. ActionScript is actually comming close to a real programming language. in 2004 MX it became ActionScript v2. It now has OOP features and honestly acts like a very high level programming language. ActionScript is bound inside of a .swf/flash graphic, which can sometimes run on your computer or directly off the internet so long as you have flashplayer. Maybe java can do that, I'm not sure, but .Net can't. I think its rather handy to build an application you can just put up on your server and use anywere or download to your laptop and use there.... or have it in both places and synch up. Now ActionScriptv2 (and v1) are both very high level languages, partially for simplicy and purpose (who needs a Internet program to reformat your hard drive?) and partially for security (again, its dangerous to have an internet app that can reformat your hard drive!) There is also a programming language called LISP. This is used mostly for artificial intelligence. Honestly, despite what their intended purpose is, what matters is their capabilities. If a program does what you intend to you, then its fine. But be wary that what you need when you start learning is what you're going to need in the future, otherwise you'll end up learning a new language to get more functionality. I think you could easily break it down to 3 languages to fit most purposes. .Net, wether C# or VB, really handles everything on a PC and is the future of PCs, plus once you learn it, its easy to apply (though not 100% the same) for ASP.Net. I think you can reuse a lot of code, but you just need to replace anything that applies with a windows form with what would happen in a browser. .Net is probobly the most Rapid App builder (RAD?). You can throw down 10 controls and set their properties and have 90% of the work done for you. Java would be a better bet currently if you want a real solid programming language, but multi platform. I know there are dreams of .Net being multiplatform, but based on the current wait, OS X and Linux will always be a few steps behind PC/Windows. Java does a damn lot, but isn't as rapid as .Net. I happen to find it tedius... but that might be the price to pay for being multi-platform. Flash/Actionscript. If you don't need a true hardcore language, ActionScript v2 is probobly for you. Its very similar to the .Net form builder. You have controls, you plop them down, you set the properties. Once you're done, for the most part, you can make a windows or mac executable, or publish a .swf file, which you can run on your desktop with Flash Movie Player or off the internet. There are places where ActionScript/Flash fully surpass .Net in simplictiy. Its also half art program. You can draw objects and make them into buttons, its not so hard to create your own controls (though its pretty easy in .net also), the way its set up, as a movie reel, its VERY easy to move between forms, make things move, etc. I'd say its much much easier to create a video game/animation using flash, but remember, its a much higher level language which is barely encroaching on programming status. Its performance has improved drastically, but still isn't up to .Net snuff. If you want to build a webapp were 1000's of people use it, I wouldn't use flash. This isn't Dissing Delphi, any of the C's, Any other Basic's or any of the other scripting languages, I'm just giving my own personal opinions based on my personal experience with ActionScript, .Net and Java. If you're strictly internet, ASP.Net, Perl and PHP are all good ideas.

Try this code, just call it from a button and see the difference Dim X As New String("ABCDEFG", 2, 1) Dim Y As New String("C") Dim Z As New String("C"c, 10) MsgBox("X = " & X & vbCrLf & _ "Y = " & Y & vbCrLf & _ "Z = " & Z) the X variable is equivilent to the substring function/method Y is the equivilent to just making a new string Z is feeding it a character (the little c tells it that its a character and not a string - which is an array of characters) and telling it how many times to repeat itself. Each uses an overloaded New method. When you create your variable, some classes require that you use the new command, because they require input. In this case a string doesn't. You can make a string just empty and fill it later. If you don't want to, you can declare it with one of these three built in constructors. A constructor is the method that builds - or sets up the class. A common constructor is passing in variables you don't want to expose as properties... maybe a filepath for a class that saves data to your hard drive... maybe its just parameters to tell the class how to act. But regardless, whenever you declare an object (a variable is an object) and use the "New" keyword, you're initializing the object with the parameters you feed in. You can use this to pass different kinds of objects between each other, like dataAdapters, datasets, datarows, strings, collections... Collections are really big in OOP. Well I hope that helped some. If I may suggest, theres a book called Object Oriented Programming using Visual Basic by O'Reilly books. Its pretty damn awesome. I'm on like page 70 (of 300 pages) and its already covered all of this stuff and moved onto overloading, shadowing, inheritence, etc.

Easy Answer: Open up Calculator and make sure its on Scientific mode. Make sure Hex is clicked (just under the display). Punch in 99, click on binary and you get 10011001. Complex Answer: Google it. Its an annoying MOD math... basically Hex is a base16 number system. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F. Decimal (the common number system) is base10 (deci, get it?). Binary is base2 (bi). Binary only has 0 and 1. 8 digits in a byte. theres a conversion forumla. Its been a year since I've used it, so I wouldn't trust my memory. Google for Base16 to Base2 conversions and you should find it. Maybe someone here is into Assembler and knows it well.

Ok, I learned from a teacher who's been programming since he was punching holes in cards at 16 years of age. What was I taught? Begian is it? three letter abbrebiation followed by a description in uppercase: txtName, cboList, etc Now I'm reading this awesomely written book on OOP in vb.net by O'Reilly. Anyways, it says the microsoft standard is Pascal and Camel Pascel: CustomerName Camel: customerName Pacal is upper cases all across for the first letter. Camel is lowercase for the first letter, then uppercases. The author gives good reasons why you'd want to use real names, one being passing arguments. You want to be told to enter strName as string, or Name as string. He also says that the old way isn't needed anymore and is ugly and redundant. This is a real general question (as opposed to a Random Thought) that would apply to programmers today. Even before reading the book I was feeling it. There were places it just looked stupid or out of place to have a 3 char prefix, especially were classes were concerned. To tell the truth, I still feel more comfortable using a prefix on component names. When you have a form with 30+ controls mixed between labels, textboxes, buttons and comboboxes/listboxes (a common for data entry), it just does help to have the textboxes all lumped together on the intellisense, and to know that its the textbox and not the label (if you name them that is) or button. Anyone else have opinions, thoughts, theories, etc?

Damn that was fast. I only got a chance to try it once and I used the & sign as the concatinator and got an error. Thanks for the help :)

I have a standard customers table, with all the customers fixings and I want to tag on another field to my select statement. It'll take Lastname and Firstname in this format: "Lastname, Firstname" and the name of the calculated field will be Fullname. This is merely a calculated field to help with databinding to a combobox and listbox. I'd appreciate some help, but I'll keep working on it and post the answer if I do find it.

I understand why some posts in this topic were deleted. Why was this moved to Random Thoughts? Its a strictly vb code related question. Just curious (and glad offending post was removed)

Oh, I'll try that, thanks :)

I'm trying to change the default disabled color. How is overriding the gotFocus event and putting a return in it going to to change the disabled color?

You're right about #1 and #2, but just because you're right doesn't mean I can't complain :p Heck, what kind of list only goes to #2? A pretty sad one that burned out. I'm gonna get Design Patterns, I've got this sweet Refactoring book, but I'm not at a stage in software development that I can use it.

I have purchased a few .net books and I'm sure not as many as some of you all have, but I do have some annoying beefs with some of them. #1. Supporting a company first, you second Microsoft does this the most. I go to buy a book on OOP and Components and a requirement on it is SQL Server 2000! It doesn't say SQL Server 2000 or MSDE, just SQL Server 2000. Its not a book on databases, but its an assumption that if you want to program componants or OOP in VB.Net you have a $2000 piece of software laying around. Now at some point in this book (which uses a running example) they introduce SQL Server 2000. As its a running example, you cna't go on unless you have it. You can't skip the chapter because the next chapter built on the SQL Server 2000 stuff you just did. It just seems like they purposefully set up the example to make it like this, so you'll need the extra software. #2. Page Fluffing with ASP.Net One example was the same book as above with OOP and Componants. I have a few other books like this. I buy a book about VB.Net, a specific topic, databases, etc. Then randomly there are entire chapters on the basics of the subject and asp.net. Why? Two reasons I can think of. First is page fluffing. Wow, its soo thick! Too bad 1/4th of it is on a subject you don't want. Second would be to get you to read the basics, then tell you "welp, there isn't enough room to cover more than the basics of ASP.Net, buy our ASP.Net book on this subject" Every time I get one of these books, I look over at ASP.Net chapters, then over at my ASP.Net books and shake my head. I swear I have "the basics of ASP.net" enough times over that I think I could fit another 5 (hefty sized) books on the shelf if I cut out those dead weight pages. [/Rant]

Well, I signed up and I'm very dissapointed. You're limited to 10 books within a 30 day period. You're given tokens to download entire chapters from books in .pdf format (not all books have all chapters available. Its got the whole book... not quite page by page, but section by section. Some chapters have 3 sections, others have 50. If you can read a book on the screen (or had unlimited books on your shelf to browse through) this would work fairly well. Unfortunately, I can't sit still reading a book on a screen that long. I need to print them out. Copy 'n Pasting a whole book takes a while. You're allowed to keep electronic or hardcopy backups so long as you maintain your suscription. So you could legally print out every book they own, so long as you kept paying 20 (or more) US dollars a month. Actually having said all of that, I might have picked up a suscription. The deal breaker is that they have a HUGE selection in comparison to most of the larger book stores you might wander into and fully blow the smaller book stores out of the water - yet they're so limited. To tell the truth, I came off of O'Reilly's site looking for one book. The Components in .Net book. Safari doesn't carry that book. Their vb.Net books are limited to about 35. More than my personal modest collection, but nowere near the number that are out there. This is 35 including duplicates. Sometimes you'll see a first and second edition next to each other on a search list. Really, they have books covering so many areas, but what I was looking for in .Net was hardly covered and in Flash, was zero. Not a single Flash 2004 book. Maybe they have a future, but right now its no deal with me. I'd reccomend it if you're continiously trying new technologies. They have books on flash, perl, java, php, javascript, xml, C#, C++, C, Delphi, etc. It sure beats laying out $50 bucks on a book that may just sit on your shelf.

I was at O'Reilly checking out a book and it had an option "Read this book online". So I clicked on it. I'm taken to Safari, some site with tech books from various publishers, online. You pay a monthly subscription. I havn't looked into the specifics (any limitations) yet, but I'm going to sign up for a 14 day free trial. Anyone have any experiences with them?

Really? wow... that strikes me as strange. I mean I know that not everyone would use it, but I don't see a reason to keep it from the language. What is it, some sort of perk to get you to cross over to C# or something?

Is this possible in vb.net? I saw this used in J# and C# as well as Java and I think it makes commenting much easier.

I can't see a way to set it directly. But I found that changing the backcolor changes the disabled color. Still, its not nice, but its a workaround

I'm using a custom textbox to spice up my data entry forms (and reduce the code on said forms by like 80%). One thing I'm doing is disabling the textbox for when a user is reading a record and enabling the textbox when they edit a record or create a new record. But the disabled color of the textbox is nearly the same gray color as the form and is hard to read. I know I can do this by using labels to read (giving them borders and whatnot to make them look like textboxes), but I prefer not to use two componants for one job on the form and I'm just not quite there yet with developing components to create one that switches between text and label, which I think would also be a waste. Is there a property for this? A procedure I can overload to change the backcolor? Thank you for your help :cool:

I found out a cool way to modify a procedure so that you can create your own and add handles a while back after viewing some code on PlanetSourceCode. I used this on one form of my program and honestly I can't say that I care for it. Its a database screen were you're viewing data. When the form is loaded, you disable all of the textboxes so no changes can be made. I had a procedure to do this, with the handle "MyBase.Load" It worked and I did a few more, for the cancel, save and OK buttons. Now I'm starting to realize (after I havn't worked on this particular form for a month) that its really a bear to get everything lined up again, figuring out what went were. I just took out all of the handles and just included calls to the sub procedures instead. Is there one way thats better for some particular reason? Maybe one way has less overhead? I assume its faster/easier for the program to jump directly to the handle than it is to jump to a handle and then to a sub procedure.

Almost any fast food meal (I much prefer Wendy's to McDonalds also... mmm real salad) runs from 4.50 to 7.00 on average. If they're making 5-15 american an hour, but paying 1/5th the price for everything (the HME), thats about 25-75 dollars an hour... equivilent to what you'd be getting paid in the US. 25 is ok for a beginner I suppose, but I'd be dissapointed to make so little after some good years of experience.

Not to get back on topic, but... I'm reading this pretty damn cool book by O'Reilly called Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic.Net. Friggin genius book. Talk about bare bones. 3 chapters in and you're still using notepad, the framework compiler and a console screen to compile modules, dll's and console based programs (with notes on changes you'd make with a windows program) I get to the section on delegates and a few pages are spent on them. True to what Joe Mama said, they were complex and promised to be very important. I didn't have any trouble with the concept (despite being a VB programmer), but I was in a bus reading it. I really need to go back over it with the computer. The next section was on Events. They looked similar to Deleagates in the examples he was using them. Then he had like a little notebox saying that An event is pretty much just like a Delegate for most purposes. In fact, an Event decompiles down to a delegate in MSIL, and you'd use them to do pretty much the same exact thing. He advised learning delegates, because they did have their uses, but said tha Events were much more common. One of the exercises in the book was to rewrite a twin pair of programs (a debugger console and debugger program) using events rather than the delegates he used. I've been reading that book for one day... just straight reading... and I've learned so much.

my VB.Net came with nothing. It's like they laughed at me and said "Its discounted, what do you expext?" Then I got VS.Net and got 7 cds, books and posters... damn, after I opened the box, I couldn't get it all back in :)

I think when you have VB.Net/VS.Net installed, you already have the SDK1.1 (if you have 2003). Maybe it already detected it on your computer and just threw down documentation. I havn't downloaded it, I just installed VB.Net (then later VS.Net) from the CDs and then downloaded the Component One Resource Pack.

The five cds arn't all VB.Net, that's just one CD. One is the Pre-requisites, which I believe has the .Net SDK. One is VB.Net and three are MSDN disks with mad loot information.