The beginning VB.NET tutorial on the site has been completely rewritten. When I read through the old one, I could only shake my head and mutter, "What was I thinking?".
Actually, my heart was in the right place even if my head wasn't. I wrote the old tutorial back before the free VB.NET Express was available and I was trying to save money for people who might not want to spend big bucks for a copy of Visual Studio .NET when they didn't even know what they were getting into yet. So the old tutorial used the free Command Prompt based VBC compiler and Notepad to write a program.
But, looking back now, I'm sure I only succeeded in confusing people even more. Compiling a Visual Basic program using VBC is a job for someone who already understands the goal. And it does nothing to help someone understand Visual Studio. Even if a beginner survived my tutorial and decided to take the next step, they would still have to learn about Visual Studio somehow.
In this new version, I try to explain everything. If you're looking for something that really does start at the beginning ... but still teaches you how to write a real program ... try my new Visual Basic .NET for Beginners.