I''m fairly new to programming and really only know Batch and a good amount of java-script. I''ve been learning C++ for awhile now but ever since I can remember programming ANYTHING I think of QBasic, which was the first language I ever attempted to learn. At this point I know a respective amount and have made all sorts of little apps, but I was wondering, what are the big differences between QBasic (Quick Basic) and VBasic (Visual Basic). VBasic appears to be more powerful and I haven''t seen anybody in these forums talk about using QBasic. Also, can QBasic support any API''s (although it does have it''s own 2D drawing routines)? Or, perhaps if it can''t, is that one of the differences?

mkay, seeing as how I''ve had a fair amount of experience with each... two years high school with BASIC and two college semesters of Visual basic, I''ll try to spell out some of the differences between the two.

QBasic is exclusively DOS-based. If you''re running Qbasic on a post ''95 Windows machine then you''re running Qbasic through a dos emulator, not true DOS itself. This is the most limiting part of Qbasic. Because it is exclusively DOS based, it can not truely multitask nor can it it use any modern APIs. The max frame rate with Qbasic is like 16 frames per second or something like that... not really suitable for making cool game Qbasic does kick ass though because it is insanely easy to program with and teaches you the rudiments of programming.

Visual Basic as we know it today, 6.0 and .net, is a completely different story. I''ll stick with describing 6.0 ''cause its what I''ve actually got experience with. Visual Basic is fully 32 bit and is a rather powerful language. Visual Basic is a tad slower than C++, mostly because of the way the machine code is interpreted... its a bit different than a compiled C++ program, but a highly productive language. A novice to the language can have a window with interative text up and running within minutes with a decent tutorial. Does Visual basic have support for the cool gaming API''s? I haven''t the foggiest as to its support for OpenGl, but I do know that it does have support for the modern versions of DirectX, 7.0 and above.

Both languages are very easy to use and have their own built in drawing codes. However, Visual Basic is more productive, can support higher frame rates, and supports DirectX... that and it runs on a modern Windows machine

You can use OpenGL in VB. You can use DX7 and DX8 in VB6 natively, there are type-libs if you are feeling nostalgic and want to use DX6 and under in VB6. DX9 which will be coming out soon will not work under VB6, but will under VB.NET since it is managed code.

If you know someone who uses VB a lot and is a competent programmer, get them to introduce you to VB. Although you can easily teach yourself (I did), it is extremely easy to teach yourself how to write crappy code. Make sure you understand all of the different data types you use, and make sure you understand how VBs objects work and finally, make sure your code is pretty



Trying is the first step towards failure.