i agree. it is pretty simple and it is good for a beginner. as for the class i am in, i went through a semester of regular vb and a year of java at my home school. now i have to take a semester of vb .net which is a college class and i already know almost all of what we have went over and most of what is to come. as for java, it is higher level, but i personally hate it and i think it sucks. maybe it is just cause we were using bluej to write it. :/ to clue you guys in that don't know what bluej is... it is a java editor/compiler written in java. it has the most vague error messages ever and the worst memory leaks in computer history. and to give you an idea of how bad, i mean worse than symantec software.