Is Visual Basic good for much?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Recently I have acquired a book about Visual Basic that includes a compiler and full color illustrations. Is this language worth learning? I hear many people disregard it for it's simplicity and single platform target. It seems like it is primarily intended for GUI making. What are your thoughts please. I've always wanted to make a simple Paint like program with a few more pixel art purest tools. I'm thinking this might be the way to go.

Oh the book is entitled Build a Program NOW! Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition.

[Jim]

VB is used for RAD - Rapid Application Development.  With VB.NET you can do all the things C# and C++ people do.  Great for GUIs, though I'd say C# is even quicker.  Having said that, there's a world of VB software out there, it's capable of most of the things you can do in VC++, with a bit of effort, DirectX and the like.

Jim

[Shockwave]

I had a really good friend who used to use VB to write all his gui applications, he used to swear by it.
Not used it myself though.. There was a huge ezboard community dedicated to Visual Basic, perhaps it's still there.

Google "Ezboard + VB Explorer forums" it might still be around.

[Hotshot]

I  used to code in VB years ago when I was college and it is very good for doing GUI stuff and more.