VB and C++. What exactly are they?

C++ and VisualBasic. Programming languages. That's all about I know.

I've tried googling both of them, without success in figuring out the basics and a tad bit more...

So if you guys can kindly just get me up to what these two languages are?

What are they used for? Compatibility with OS'es (VB)? 32-bit/64-bit programming?

Examples? Like, what is a program like Photoshop programmed from, or a game like Unreal?

-- Heck... I'm a hardware guy, and all this software jabber (besides HTML/CSS) is confusing the hell out of me!

[Holocron]

C++ si a great language for tackling down source codes. You know, if you want to dig deeper in a software and penetrate all those GUI you need C++ to interpret those codes for you. It's the basis for all higher-level languages today including Java.

VB is more of an advanced language developed by Microsoft itself. So a GUI interface was expected. It is more easier to develop software apps in this language since all the GUI interfaces(buttons, menu design, etc.) is implemented.

In some games, developers often design their own language(toolkit is a more appropriate term) for the game. But ofcourse designing that toolkit they have to do it with a source-code language such as C++. Then by designing the sourcode in developing the game, necessary graphics utilities are then implemented such as CAD(not really sure, CAD was used in the old days.)

In this type of toolkit development, VB is pretty useless since VB is mostly for developing applications for GUI based OSes such as Windows.

An example of these toolkits developed from scratch are NWN's Aurora toolset and Morrowind's toolkit.

Hope this sheds some light.

Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong...

[Holocron]

Here's a nice article that I found regarding how the Unreal engine was made...

http://unreal.epicgames.com/UnrealTechFaq.htm

...and know the 'REAL' importance of programming with syntax!