There is a significant difference in the time to download and install Just Basic and downloading Microsoft Visual Basic Express. The Just Basic product is small and downloads within a minute, and its installation takes about a minute. If your version of Windows is missing the Microsoft WinHlp32.exe file, then downloading and installing that will take about 10 minutes. So the total time to download and install Just Basic is less than 15 minutes. If you are using Windows XP, then you already have WinHlp32.exe and your computer will take less than 5 minutes to download and install Just Basic.
Microsoft Visual Basic Express is a large product. Plan on an hour to download and install it. You need to check on it every 15 minutes. At some point during the download you might need to restart your computer. Then the download resumes. After the download and installation, go ahead and launch it. The first time it comes up it does some final installation chores and that takes a couple of minutes.
Don't download Microsoft Visual Basic Express unless you have at least an hour to spare.
Robert
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Just Basic Tutorials and WinHlp32
I have investigated Just Basic, a free version of basic. It is at version 1.01 and was released in 2004. They have a commercial version, Liberty Basic, that is just $60. That is cheaper than a meal at the Cheesecake Factory. So if you really like Just Basic, there is an upgrade available if you want to continue working with it.
Just Basic comes with a tutorial. You can find it under Help > Just Basic Tutorial. It works just fine in Windows XP. However, Microsoft dropped a file WinHlp32.exe, from Windows releases subsequent to XP. The tutorial requires this executable file, but it is still available from Microsoft. You just have to get it and install it. Of course, Microsoft has made this more difficult by requiring that you use their proprietary browser, MS Internet Explorer.
WinHlp.exe comes in different versions for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Google to get the download page for WinHlp.exe for your version of Windows using Microsoft Internet Explorer. That is important. Microsoft has designed their download for WinHlp32 so it will not work with Mozilla or Chrome. Once the download and installation is complete (the download process has an installation step), you can open the tutorial.
The tutorial is designed for real beginners. It has a section in Week 1 (the tutorial is designed as a 6 week class) entitled, "Programming - What is it?" This is important for a person not previously introduced to programming. The book Head First C, for example, explicitly says it does not teach programming. The Head First organization has a book to teach programming, Head First Programming, but it uses Python as the teaching language. Python is a fine language, but scripting languages tend to be faddish and fall by the wayside, replaced by the latest fad in scripting languages. If you only learn one programming language in your entire life, it should be Basic. It is a language that is here to stay. It was created 48 years ago and is still used by businesses in creating professional, complex products and tools. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), for example, is embedded by Microsoft in some of its products. I have created complex, technical applications using VBA in Excel and in Visio. I will mention, however, that VBA will choke on large problems. It has limited memory available to it and chokes on large data sets and large quantities of data structures. Professional programmers must know more than one language.
Visual Basic 2010 Express is also a free tool. I will discuss this another time.
Robert
PS: Remember that the book Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Jerry Ford uses Just Basic.
Just Basic comes with a tutorial. You can find it under Help > Just Basic Tutorial. It works just fine in Windows XP. However, Microsoft dropped a file WinHlp32.exe, from Windows releases subsequent to XP. The tutorial requires this executable file, but it is still available from Microsoft. You just have to get it and install it. Of course, Microsoft has made this more difficult by requiring that you use their proprietary browser, MS Internet Explorer.
WinHlp.exe comes in different versions for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Google to get the download page for WinHlp.exe for your version of Windows using Microsoft Internet Explorer. That is important. Microsoft has designed their download for WinHlp32 so it will not work with Mozilla or Chrome. Once the download and installation is complete (the download process has an installation step), you can open the tutorial.
The tutorial is designed for real beginners. It has a section in Week 1 (the tutorial is designed as a 6 week class) entitled, "Programming - What is it?" This is important for a person not previously introduced to programming. The book Head First C, for example, explicitly says it does not teach programming. The Head First organization has a book to teach programming, Head First Programming, but it uses Python as the teaching language. Python is a fine language, but scripting languages tend to be faddish and fall by the wayside, replaced by the latest fad in scripting languages. If you only learn one programming language in your entire life, it should be Basic. It is a language that is here to stay. It was created 48 years ago and is still used by businesses in creating professional, complex products and tools. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), for example, is embedded by Microsoft in some of its products. I have created complex, technical applications using VBA in Excel and in Visio. I will mention, however, that VBA will choke on large problems. It has limited memory available to it and chokes on large data sets and large quantities of data structures. Professional programmers must know more than one language.
Visual Basic 2010 Express is also a free tool. I will discuss this another time.
Robert
PS: Remember that the book Programming for the Absolute Beginner by Jerry Ford uses Just Basic.
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