Importance of VB?

So i read a few threads mentioning using VB with HMIs.

How useful of a skill is it? Is it essential to functionality or is it more or less just a "nice tool" to have?

I am currently learning VBA because I am setting up inventory sheets for projects and also data logging from one of our test machines hooked up via serial.

How different are the two? If they're totally different, is VBA still a useful skill to have?

Anytime you are learning something "Your ahead of the Game"!!! VBA is a nice tool to have under your belt, however why not go forward with it and continue to learn a complete programming language such as VB.NET, or even C++, C#.

Through-out my 40 years of being a service/support person, I have found that some of my mission critical projects could not have been completed without a higher level language being involved.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

I wish you the best on what ever you decide.

The usefulness of it really depends on what you intend to do. For example, with Excel you can create spreadsheets without ever touching VBA, but if you want to do more complex things such as linking a cell to a value in a PLC, then VBA is necessary.

VB comes in many flavors. The 3 currently most prevalent are VBA, VB6, and VB.NET .

VBA is Visual Basic for Applications which is considered a scripting language built into software packages such as Excel or many HMI software packages. It is the most limited flavor of VB and possibly even the most difficult to use for complex tasks.

VB6 is now considered an old technology dating back to about 1998, but it is still used by many. This can be used for creating stand-alone applications that compile to native code.

VB.NET is Microsoft's latest version of VB that is used for creating stand-alone applications that are based on the .NET framework. This framework consists of multiple parts that make writing applications easier, faster, and safer.

These are just some rule of thumbs because there are some exceptions. For example, you can use VB.NET to create extensions for Excel, but it is done in an entirely different manner than using VBA. The AdvancedHMI software does things slightly reversed of most other HMI software. Instead of using VBA to extend the capabilities of the HMI software, AdvancedHMI extends the capabilities of VB.NET and Visual Studio by adding an HMI specific toolset.

So if you are just a general software user only making use of the tool set that exists within the software, then VB may never be useful. But if you want to create more advanced applications with packages such as Excel, then VBA is a useful tool. If you intend on creating stand-alone applications, then VB.NET would be your most versatile and productive tool in the line of VB programming versions.

damica1 said:

Anytime you are learning something "Your ahead of the Game"!!! VBA is a nice tool to have under your belt, however why not go forward with it and continue to learn a complete programming language such as VB.NET, or even C++, C#.

Through-out my 40 years of being a service/support person, I have found that some of my mission critical projects could not have been completed without a higher level language being involved.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

I wish you the best on what ever you decide.

Click to expand...

I play with Arduino a bit so I'm familiar with some C++. I've used a lot of Python for scripting and automating tasks. It's very handy and I've used it recently for computing ascii characters and checksums for code 128 barcodes. VB.net seems like a good next step especially adding onto what Archie said. Thanks!

TL140 said:

So i read a few threads mentioning using VB with HMIs.

How useful of a skill is it? Is it essential to functionality or is it more or less just a "nice tool" to have?

I am currently learning VBA because I am setting up inventory sheets for projects and also data logging from one of our test machines hooked up via serial.

How different are the two? If they're totally different, is VBA still a useful skill to have?

Click to expand...

At the worst, knowing VBA will make it way easier to learn the next programming language. Most text based languages have the same basics (if/then, for/next, etc). If a PC programmer were to look at some ladder logic, he wouldn't know what he was looking at. If he sees Structured Text, he'd feel comfortable that he could at least follow what was going on.

Most HMIs I've used that support scripting, have supported VB, which usually means VBA. How often you need to use it is another story, but as another poster said, any time you're learning, it's a good thing.