Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[!smentzer@ecom.net (Steve Mentzer)]

>
>Does one even /need/ to go to school to learn Visual Basic? With regular basic 
you
>could memorize all of the commands in 30 minutes and you knew how to "program" 
in it.
>I've seen Visual Basic - it looks even easier; with forms and windows you need 
even
>less programming knowledge. At least they got rid of the line numbers. I 
always
>understood BASIC to be a sloppy programming language but good for school 
children;
>hence the name - Beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code. It must have 
grown up
>however if companies are paying people to program with it.(or is it like html
>"programming" positions that pay a little more than minimum wage? heh)
>


Like any tool, learning to properly use it will reap major benefits.

Sure, any moron can program a simple windoze app in VB. But competent 
developers can create robust, scaleable applications and services for use in 
large companies.

Did you know that ANSI C has fewer "native" commands than VB? I have used C and 
C++ for years. Just because you can learn the basic expression syntax in 30 
minutes or less doesn't mean it is a bad language.

In southern california, VB/SQL developers with ActiveX/COM experience are 
making between 55k-100k a year (depending on experience) in full-time 
non-contract positions.

Doesn't sound too childish to me...

smentzer@pacbell.net