Thread: droppinc C, need help deciding between C++ or VB

I have a website with about 1000 webpages. So far, I've been using C to create little programs to search the pages for a word or string, and replacing that word or string with something else. So my C programs have been little utilities to edit multiple text files(changing the advertising javascript codes etc).

But now I would like to write programs for Windows XP, instead of basic console apps. I am book seller on Ebay, and here is what I would like to achieve with the Windows program(s):

1. Log into my Ebay account
2. See what items has sold
3. See what has not sold(listing ended)
4. Open Openoffice Calc(spreadsheet) and transfer information from Ebay into the spreadsheet. Maybe even create a database.
5. Print out the address of the buyers to mail to
6. Log into my book distributor account to reorder items that have been sold.
7. Log into my bank & paypal accounts to print statements at the end of the month.

There are lots more things that I would like to achieve, but you get the general idea. I would like to write a program that can manage my Ebay business. And I would also like to write other Windows programs, like a timer program to let me know how long I've been online, and to sound an alarm after a preset time.

Ok, finally to the point of the thread...

I've read about the complexities of C++, and I've also read about how easy VB is as a language. I don't want a steep learning curve(although if there is no choice with either language, I don't have a problem with that), and I also don't want to become uber elite in either languages.

So the million dollar question is:

Does my C knowledge make it easier to learn C++ faster than VB, or is VB so simple that I can learn and get things dones way before C++? I really don't want this to be a debate((language war)) about the power of C++ vs VB, just whether my prior C experience will make learning one language easier than the other.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: And I'll add that I've been programming in C for about 7-8 months, so I am not exactly a pro at it!

Being that this is primarily a web based application, I'd forget both languages and go for ASP.Net. Web oriented, fairly easy to learn, an already sizable knowledge base with lots of learning material on the web and a much more rapid development environment.

You get it for free at http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/

Note that you don't actually need to own a domain for it to work for you. You can make home applications with ASP.Net that run off your own computer IIS and connect to those services. However, you'll still have a lot of work ahead. Mostly parsing webpage content from those websites which almost certainly don't offer any type of service to make your life easier.

You'd be a fool to bother with stuff like that in C or C++ unless you are already so highly proficient with them that writing 10X the amount of code to perform very high level, modular tasks like that is easier than just learning a scripting language, which is how most sane people would do this.

I kind of disagree with Mario F. about ASP.net* but I'm not so familiar with that so you should check it out yourself, ebay itself may run on ASP, which means you will probably be able to find instructions around about how to do everything on your list that way. I think I know someone who uses VB for stuff like this, and that's probably common enough -- but C/C++, no way, that's almost crazy unless you want to be putting together some high performance suite version of this stuff for distribution, which may also be crazy.

I'd recommend perl, if you've contemplated that at all before; CPAN is probably the biggest collection of modules/libraries (16000+) for any programming language ever, bar none, and a fair percentage of those are web related. Plus there's a massive user base on all platforms and enough "net how-to material" & documentation to sink a lot of ships in.

*the reason I disagree is that you do not have to run local server to do this stuff, which you will to get much from ASP.net I think. On the other hand, that's not so hard and it is your line of work. And then you can then use your browser for the interface, ie, you make "web-dev" apps.

Perl was my first thought too, especially because of all the text parsing that is going to happen (do any of these services offer programmable web services? Dunno, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI,... anything?)

But then the OP sounded so desperate for a simple solution... could only think of ASP.Net. VB is actually more complex...

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Being that this is primarily a web based application, I'd forget both languages and go for ASP.Net. Web oriented, fairly easy to learn, an already sizable knowledge base with lots of learning material on the web and a much more rapid development environment.

I would much prefer PHP for web scripting, at least PHP doesn't need a Windows server. I also have a dislike of any language that heavily uses a MS framework.

why not C#
but VB is definitely productive

Originally Posted by P4R4N01D

I would much prefer PHP for web scripting, at least PHP doesn't need a Windows server. I also have a dislike of any language that heavily uses a MS framework.

I dislike any language that tries to do everything but does none of them well, oh wait that's PHP

+1 for Perl or Python

Python